That almost persuades me to returnto the Marxism list, but my eyes have gotten so bad that I can't come close to reading all the posts on lbo & I only peek into pen-l every few days. So I better not add a new list.
As to this idea of a party: I agree, but (as I guess angelus is doing in Germany, you almost automatically get the party Lou describes if you start with a reasonably non-dogmatic "revolutionary" party. Because as Luxemburg implicitly noted, the only difference between a revolutionary and a reformist party is invisible: it consists in mentally seeing the present in terms of that final goal, seizing power. That will sometimes show up in practice, sometimes not. After all, Andie N. was in Solidarity for a number of years while vigorously (on this list) arguing that revolution was impossible and that we should get to market socialism by small steps. And I wish he were still in it. It would at times improve the debate.
Carrol
P.S. I hadn't known most of the information Angelus gives on Kautsky.
That adds depth to Lih's portrayal of post-1914 Lenin. And as I mentioned before, Lenin did want the Collected Works of Luxembrug translated and published in the SU, but he didn't live long enough. And he praises the first Junius pamphlet higher, specifying that his cricitisms waere really self-cr8iticismsd as well. The actual author of course was not known at that time.