Ravi wrote:
> By the same token, not channelling Wittgenstein or anything, does an
“it” exist for “Bolshevik” organisations? Sort of like [almost all of]
the various denominations of Christianity have their Holy Book and their > One True God, perhaps?
Well you sort of answered your first question with the second one. Whatever differences exist between the various denominations of Christianity, they actually all claim fealty to the **same** holy book. They just interpret it definitely.
The same for all the various self-described Bolshevik groups. For most Trotskyists, the lineage goes something like Marx-Engels-Lenin-Trotsky. For Maoists, Marx-Engels-Lenin-Mao (sometimes with Stalin, sometimes without). The creative ones on either side will allow for Luxemburg, Gramsci, or Lukacs. I've even know some hip ones who dug Adorno and Benjamin. ;-)
And at the risk of engaging in the "no true Scotsman" fallacy, I'd agree with Doug that there haven't been any "real" Bolsheviks since the actual Bolsheviks. That's because Bolshevism was actually a wing of Russian Social Democracy. I'm fully in agreement with Carrol and people like Lars T. Lih on this.