[lbo-talk] Re: Lenin was Lomabrdi

Joel Wendland joelrw at hotmail.com
Tue Oct 5 21:29:58 PDT 2004



>Isn't that the whole point? I'm not a scholar of Lenin, but isn't the
>primary path to revolution via war -- in Lenin's book? One of those
>dialectical movement, contradiction/resolution things?

No, No, No, No. This is a very incorrect view of Lenin's view of struggle. I encourage a reading of the short book 1920 "Left-Wing Communism – an Infantile Disorder." Here: <http://marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/lwc/index.htm>

In this book Lenin encouraged Communists in developed industrial countries to struggle within the parliamentary system, to work in the electoral arena, to unite with the political center to defeat the worst capitalist elements -- what we call today the far-right. He called communists who viewed the center as the main enemy of the working class petty bourgeois children, churlish, backward, bad communists and a whole host of other names. He attacked Communists who wanted to make their hatred of social democrats official Comintern policy. I think he regarded the civil war in Russia over which he presided to be unique and something that need not be repeated elsehwere. Unfortunately many people who still like Lenin ignore this very crucial aspect of his thinking and his advice to the international movement.

Joel Wendland

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