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"My side" is "his side" both of us, and almost everybody on the list, anti-Stalinist left received wisdom, an accumulation of mostly negative lessons in how to structure in the post-capitalist future a polity and economic structure that can effectively mediate the range of conflicting interests and desires that a democratic socialism would attempt to instantiate. Trotsky had it right in 1904 in, "Results and Prospects, " in which he warns about Leninist "substitutionism" as did Rosa Luzemburg in her later critique. The only theorists within the Communist tradition who had any adequate understanding of the authoritarianism of the Comintern orthodoxy (and is it really fair to do as some Trotskyists do, and blame it all on Zinoviev, when polemicizing on "real" vs/ "fake" "democratic centralism"?) were Nicos Poulantzas in, "State, Power, Socialism, " and...??? John and/or Shane Mage, have you read, "The End of Politics, " by A.J. Polan? It is one of the better critiques of Lenin's State and Revolution.
^^^^^^^ CB: Good to see a succinct and clear statement of Michael Pugliese's main point behind so much of what he posts, also evincing his good faith socialist aims, allowing comradely debate with him.
What are the main points of Poulantzas and Polan's theses ?