> But it was precisely Lenin who wrote that there was no worse,
> more party-bureaucratic, body than the Stalin-controlled Workers
> and Peasants Inspection.
I know that, Shane. That is precisely why Bahro mocked Lenin's initiative, because it was a classical case of backfiring. Do you see the point I'm trying to make? It is not that a particular government or political apparatus will be the ultimate solution to each and every real or possible problem. It is only that, as Hegel would put it, the instrument has to be fit to the particular task. Tasks change and instruments are forged through trial and error. If the WPI got co-opted by Stalin, the solution wasn't to abandon any effort to oversee what the apparatus was doing. The WPI had to be overseen and held accountable in turn. Whatever the solution, which depended on the specifics, what was called for was some other, creative initiative to get around the problems the prior solution had created. Or, you tell me, how can actual people, as produced historically, dismantle an existing bureaucracy if not via some political action with some political instrument? And isn't *every* conceivable political instrument (until people manage to completely dismantle the separation between state and civil society) likely to exhibit fault as a result of either success or failure (or some combination thereof)? We only have Satans to fight the devils.