Revolutionary Defeatism

[Brad Mayer]

Sorry, couldn't resist this one.  Marx (and Marxism) before Lenin were
hardly limited to an understanding of capitalism.  Need it be mentiond
that a significant section of the Manifesto of the Communist PARTY was
devoted to a commentary on other competing political tendencies in
Germany at that time, now long dead?  There's the founding of the First
International, the Critique of the Gotha Progamme, all well known as
very practical political interventions?  And Engels' work in the early
German SDP?  Perhaps Marx and Engels were premature Leninists?

Lenin only appears "pragmatic" in the light of a century hence.  _In his
own time_, following immediately upon that of Marx and Engels, the
latter's work could be largely passed on with few modifications, and one
addition, that concerning imperialism (largely from Hobson).  Lenin's
own unique theoretical contribution concerned that of revolutionary
party, and that of the process of socialist revolution in peripheral
countries, some of which is also applicable to todays' "advanced"
countries, given the increasing uneveness of development even in these
countries, in an advanced stage of the secular decay of capitalism,
generally true even as it grows rapidly in peripheries such as China. 
But on the former, what other theory of working class oriented
_revolutionary_ politics is there that aims for state power (that's to
exclude anarcho-syndicalism, which certainly is such a theory, but does
not want state power)?

BTW, a theory of a revolutionary working class political organization is
not to be cofused with theories of intervention in a non-revolutionary
political climate in an effort to seek a way forward for the whole class
(and therefore a revolutionary party).  This involves linkage of
progressive non- and proto- revolutionary political forms of
organization with that of the revolutionary.

Some aspects of Lenin's theory of socialist revolution need fixing, IMO,
particularly as expressed in State and Revolution (we need to get rid of
the 'necessity' of administration - we don't need those damn bureaucrats
these days).

But you get the drift, whether you agree or disagree with Lenin: 
there's a lot that is theoretical in Lanin, and much that is practical
in Marx and Engels.

-Brad Mayer

Date: Wed, 26 Mar 2003 19:32:19 -0500
From: Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com>
Subject: Re: Revolutionary Defeatism

BrownBingb at aol.com wrote:


>CB: What's it mean to be a Marxist in the USA in 2003 ? Why is being 
>a Marxist in 2003 in the USA less a fringe tendency than being a 
>Leninist ?

Marxism is about an understanding of capitalism - the root of value 
production in exploitation, its transformation into a variety of 
phenomenal forms, the centrality of class, etc. etc. Leninism is 
mostly about political practice. You can be a Marxist and believe in 
vanguard parties or street parties as the central mechanism of 
political transformation.

Doug