Leninism in 2003 (was: Re: Revolutionary Defeatism

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Wed Mar 26 16:07:28 PST 2003


Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:


>Lenin was born after Marx, if you haven't noticed. By that
>standard, Marx should be more obsolete than Lenin.

Not necessarily. Marx did a theoretical analysis of the fundamental structures of capitalism, and devised a mode of analysis applicable to many historical circumstances. Lenin was a pragmatist, who wrote mainly of and for the moment.

I'm still waiting for you, Lou, or Carrol, or anyone else to define Leninism with some precision. I see a lot of lowest common denominator stuff, but not much more. I think it's really just a symbol you want to claim as a sign of toughness and coldness. A brand, in other words.


>How do you intend to survive physically and politically if
>conditions in the USA begin to resemble what revolutionaries in the
>past had to, and in many poor nations still have to, work under?
>There is no need to be alarmist and paranoid, but we can't say
>that's never gonna happen, as the USA is at least clearly heading
>into that direction. Anti-war protests in the USA have been
>sometimes big enough to be encouraging, but protests against
>immigrant detention, racial/ethnic/national profiling, the USA
>Patriot Act, and other attacks on civil liberties have been tiny and
>ineffective. What if, for instance, more terrorist attacks are to
>happen on the mainland USA? What would Bush, Ashcroft, Ridge, & Co.
>do? What would you do?

I already said I've got no idea, and asked you how you'd answer.

Doug



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list