[lbo-talk] RE: Democratic Communism

[Carrol Cox]

I couldn't keep track of who was saying what in this post. As many as
three >'s is always more than I can construe. But regardless of who said
what is quoted below, it is a crude misreading of the literal sense of
Lenin's text. (Professional Anti-Leninists have a long-standing habit of
reading in Lenin not what he says but what they expect him to be
saying.)

Michael Dawson -PSU wrote:
> 
> Awesome, Lew!  Lenin blows chunks.
[clip]

 
*****
In State and Revolution Lenin wrote of a "scientific distinction"
between
socialism and communism:

"What is usually called socialism was termed by Marx the 'first', or
lower, phase of communist society. Insofar as the means of production
become common property, the word 'communism' is also applicable here,
providing we do not forget that this is not complete communism"

The first sentence of this quote is simply untrue and Lenin must have
known it was. Marx and Engels used the terms socialism and communism
interchangeably to refer to the post-revolutionary society of common
ownership of the means of production.
****

"What is usually called socialism": i.e., what most people in Lenin's
_audience_ call "socialism." This part of the sentence has nothing to do
with what Marx calls socialism. Lenin is simply restating Marx in a
DIFFERENT terminology that had developed since Marx's death. What MARX
called "first phrase of socialism/communism" WE (almost everyone in the
socialist movement as of 1917) NOW call "socialism."

What MARX called the higher stage of socialism (or communism) WE (in the
terminology Kautsky, everyone, over the last 20 years) NOW call
Communism.

Whoever wrote the original post needs to take course in reading.

Carrol