But, the original set of ideologies organized under the Bolshevik rubric (not by any means all internally coherent, otherwise why was there so much polemical struggle inside the Bolshevik party like that between Bogdanov and Lenin, for example?) before Stalinism obliterated the democratic and libertarian elements of Bolshevism, were not so easily seperable from the problems of constructing and running a new society. Look at say, Peter Kenez work on Soviet Agit-Prop on the 20's. They believed in what what they trying to mobilize the working class, whether just off the farm or not, to accomplish.To think they were just cynics is mistaken. Though, sympathetic as I am to the pov that marxist-leninist ideology was partly just a cover for the seizure of power by bourgeois intellectuals (Cf. "Intellectuals on the Road to Class Power, " Szelenyi and Konrad, " among many other works) perhaps I just overstated my point, heh.
On the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, I just found some suggestive comments in Samir Amin, "The Future of Maoism, " Monthly Review Press, early 80's, " 'cuz a RCP loon on another list, seconded by a red-diaper baby o0riginally from Puerto Rico now in NYC, on leftist_trainspotters, is trying to deny any possible connection between Pol Pot and Maoism.
-- Michael Pugliese