[lbo-talk] RE: Democratic Communism

Lew Higgins lew at higgins.org.uk
Fri Nov 7 14:45:20 PST 2003


Whatever wrote:


> "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."

But Lenin prior to S&R in 1917 did not make this distinction. He did not say socialism was a transitional society before then and this is not how it was generally understood then (or now by non-Leninist Marxists). And Lenin said: "What is *usually* called socialism was termed *by Marx* the 'first', or lower, phase of communist society" (emphasis added) and this is a deliberate falsehood.

-- Lew



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