are still valid. But before adapting Louis’ critique of Leninism I might reflect why it has produced a good listserve but little else. Paul Le Blanc is author of a number of widely-read studies, including Lenin and the Revolutionary Party, and Marx, Lenin and the Revolutionary Experience. So, there I agree with you: the paper should focus on the interests, needs, concerns, struggles, etc. There are lessons to learn and there will be much controversy. **Those “newspaper-selling revolving-door-membership sects”! Comment by Binh — August 5, 2011 @ 1:59 pm. On Germany I’d argue a look at Harman’s Lost Revolution (or if you prefer a non IST source Ben Fowkes’ Communism in Germany Under the Weimar Republic) would show that not everything was rosy in the garden of German Marxism. https://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2009/01/06/from-the-lcr-to-the-npa/ and other contributions dotted about ‘The Unrepentant Marxist’). If so, why are you effectively telling young people interested in Marxism that they should wait for a mass movement to emerge before trying to build a revolutionary socialist organization? The problem is the working class doesn’t develop socialist consciousness because a small minority within the class puts forward those ideas; it develops those ideas on a mass scale in the heat of conflict with the bosses and the state. When the program they shared with the Menshviks became an impediment to fighting for the interests of the working class, the Bolsheviks modified it. The following are Paul LeBlanc’s opening remarks. Paul LeBlanc on Marxism and Organization Filed under: revolutionary organizing,sectarianism — louisproyect @ 4:57 pm . Trotsky, along with Vladimir Lenin, was the … We must see that the impoverished, starving man in the third world is our brother. At the moment my sense is that groups Binh would deride as “toy Leninists” (the ISO and PSL, for example) are some way ahead of the groups who have broken with this method. I am President of Southern New Hampshire University, one of the largest universities in the U.S. and often described as one of the most innovative. His “critical Leninism” was nothing short of criminal, at least if Jim Higgins’ “More Years for the Locust” has more than a grain of truth to it. However, What are they waiting for, a return to 1960s high wage earnings before really pushing their revolutionary agenda? Although the following was written in response to Paul Le Blanc’s “ Marxism and Organisation ” essay, it is not a line-for-line response, nor do I believe that he personally subscribes to all of the positions I attribute to “Leninists” in general. All of these are mental and moral poisons for revolutionaries; no organization can flourish in the long run in this manner. After you take action you come back and assess– was the action that the group collectively voted on and carried out correct? He was wrong. It come from Adorno’s perspective of the “primacy of the Object”, without devolving into vulgar materialism. James. Would you have given the same advice to the Revolutionary Socialists in Egypt? Capitalism implies competition for the resources. Reform, revolution, centrism — all these are somewhat meaningless terms in today’s American context, given the extreme difficulty our side is having even winning reforms. Pham, “terminology” does actually matter. My goal is to orient people in their twenties to not make the mistakes we made. Before moving on to specific arguments about Leninism, I don’t want to take this for granted. [3], Le Blanc studied at the University of Pittsburgh, focusing on history and receiving a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1971, a Master of Arts degree in 1980, and a Doctor of Philosophy degree in 1989. Yet the more the conditions of every day people get worse the likelihood of revolutionary change increase. Furthermore, since the ISO doesn’t talk about membership figures (even the Bolsheviks disclosed membership figures in conditions of Tsarist repression) and spends so much time recruiting and retaining members, how can anyone judge if “the leadership screws up?” The ISO might have grown, shrank, or stagnated over the last 10 years and no one would be the wiser. Employment, medical care, a secure future, an end to the war, environmental protection; sum it up in general a better life. This is the goal that shapes the way that I have decided to organize. ^- One more reason why I think submitting anything to the ISR on this topic is probably pointless. The middle ground in all this is occupied by Paul LeBlanc. The primary problems of the party-building experiments of the late 60s and 70s were that 1) along with the rest of the far left globally, they were almost all, to varying degrees, infected with Stalinist and Maoist politics, and 2) nearly all of them developed highly overblown perspectives that crashed on the rocks when the system re-stabilized in the late 70s. I’m curious. With Michael Yates he has written the widely-acclaimed A Freedom Budget for All Americans. Surely the murders of Rosa and Karl show what happens if revolutionary leaders cannot constrain some of their followers? Replay. But all this is pretty abstract given the low level of political activity in the USA. Lance Selfa and Paul D’Amato, in a response to an article by Paul Le Blanc, offer their analysis of why the ISO dissolved after more than 40 years. They are not doomed to reappear. I think a serious socialist organization needs full-timers to do valuable tasks: editing and writing for its publications; traveling to cities where you don’t have branches to help get them on their feet, coordinating national movement work, etc. I think the anti-print criticism is a bit facile. Personally I think by the time he resigned from the Zentrale and later expelled he was so fed up with the Comintern and the ultra-lefts in his own party that it prevented him from acting in a calm, cool, and productive manner. [citation needed]. Do you not all share the final outcome? I think we are seeing tastes of that struggle breaking out all over the place. This is putting aside the fact that Cliff never once discussed how the Bolshevik CC was elected in any of his Lenin biographies. Comment by Andrew — August 2, 2011 @ 6:17 am, Andrew, there are no guarantees in life. Those are excellent examples cut-and-dried formula applicable to all times and all places, regardless of facts, context, or historical development. People who lost votes on very important matters, like the Brest-Litovsk treaty, continued to agitate for their point of view before the whole party. So if democracy and not a formally correct program is key, what about the Mensheviks? Cliff emphasizes that “Lenin never adopted abstract, dogmatic schemes of organization, and was ready to change the organizational structure of the party at every new development of the class struggle.” What if someone used that to say **Pham is in error. The Bolsheviks believed the working class should play the leading role in overthrowing the Tsar and establishing a capitalist democracy; the Mensheviks argued (logically) that only the capitalist class could play the leading role in establishing their rule via a capitalist democracy (the Bolshevik idea of a worker-led revolution voluntarily handing power to their exploiters and enemies didn’t make any sense to them). Or the anti-capitalist groups who now have a fast-growing audience in Greece? Or rather it has to be recreated.”. Or the anti-capitalist groups who now have a fast-growing audience in Greece? [4] In 1966, as a conscientious objector, he worked for the Quaker-based American Friends Service Committee in Pittsburgh and Baltimore. The point I made about full-timers is that there is no relationship between the number and activities of full-time organizers and the overall level of class struggle and concrete needs of a relatively small organization. Even if said organization’s program is 110% correct, it is doomed to fail the test of revolution because only by fully airing differences within its ranks can it have a chance (not a guarantee) of coming to the right decision about what to do in the heat of the moment. Be Advised: those (above) represent two different comments. Comment by Binh — July 29, 2011 @ 4:53 pm. Comment by Andrew — August 5, 2011 @ 10:58 am. My hope is that it leads to comradely but sharp debate, something that is sorely lacking on the far left where insults, epithets, and name-calling are all too common. Comment by Binh — October 1, 2011 @ 6:42 am, You write that “Reform, revolution, centrism — all these are somewhat meaningless terms in today’s American context, given the extreme difficulty our side is having even winning reforms.”. Comment by Binh — August 3, 2011 @ 1:40 pm. This is the key to understanding why the attempt to export conclusions drawn after almost two decades of trial and error in Russia in the early 20th century and impose them “from above” or a priori in the West via the Third/Fourth Internationals has led to complete failure on the part of all “Leninist” groups to lead working-class revolutions. I have heard speakers from the CPGB (communist Party Great Britain) say that they do not desire the weakening of capitalism because that would mean the weakening of the working class. There are elements of this in the U.S.A. but we are not in the extreme. “If you’re not frustrated, you’re not paying attention,” as the saying goes. Whoa. I realise that Paul’s original talk was aimed at the ISO in particular but I feel that his scholarship, experience and openness would, if directed at the new broad parties, greatly contribute to placing a new and necessary way of organising firmly within the marxist tradition and its theory of organisation since the First International, and putting it on firm materialist feet. […], Pingback by “Leninism” Meets the 21st Century — January 14, 2013 @ 3:50 pm, […] Paid full-time leaders of “Leninist” groups stay in power for many years and decades; they accumulate huge gaps in their resumes and professional development that make returning to the labor market almost impossible; therefore, they have a very personal stake in maintaining their paychecks and livelihoods which are derived from their office. Pham, I’ve also had stuff rejected from SW, they published several articles on those topics…you should write a serious piece– if the ISR doesn’t take it, maybe ATC or New Politics will. [18], Le Blanc's influences include: David Montgomery, Philip S. Foner, Frank Lovell, Richard N. Hunt, Paul Sweezy, George Breitman, Ernest Mandel, and Michael Löwy. Reviews by Paul Le Blanc. Education. and perhaps S.P.U.S.A. Can you quote my piece where you’re getting that from? Marx/Engels is outdated. Paul J. LeBlanc is the fifth and current president of Southern New Hampshire University. Lenin’s commitment to democratic organizing meant that the central committees of both the RSDLP and of the Bolshevik faction were elected as individuals by secret ballot, not the slate system (that was introduced in 1921 at the 10th party congress where they banned factions ending the democratic norms that characterized the pre-revolutionary Bolsheviks) that to my knowledge all “Leninist” groups use today. Comment by Binh — August 3, 2011 @ 8:11 pm. The Australian/International internet journal ‘Links’ is a wide window onto this entire field (http://links.org.au/ ; and particularly http://links.org.au/taxonomy/term/88 and http://links.org.au/taxonomy/term/8 ). I have yet to hear an answer, except that “we still live under capitalism” (duh). centralism runs through your piece, i’ll let dissidents and elevating secondary political issues or tactical disagreements into all-out wars to “defend the revolutionary Marxist program.” This is especially absurd when tiny, uninfluential socialist organizations in one country split over strategy and tactics adopted by socialists in another country. If anything, it’s an indication that a lot of what I said rings true to some extent and produced a reaction; removing the word “sect” or changing some of the terminology wouldn’t have changed those reactions. That is the attraction for me; to create a world without oppression, hunger, war, starvation; where one gives as they have talents and nobody is exploited. Egypt today is instructive, as I think you’d agree; the liberals and Islamists are highly organized, and they are doing everything they can to prevent the class struggle developing into a reckoning with imperialism, capitalist class power, and the state machine. Really? 2. Who thinks this? This occurred at least three times before Lenin’s death: Paul Levi was expelled in 1921 (with Lenin’s approval), leaving the party in the hands of the ultra-lefts who were partly responsible for the “March Action”; Reuter-Friesland was expelled in 1922 for protesting against mistaken Comintern directives concerning Germany’s union movement; and Brandler was removed from the KPD’s leadership in 1923 after he failed to conjure up a German October at Moscow’s behest. Comment by Des Derwin — August 4, 2011 @ 10:44 pm. We need to figure out the way forward for our class without relying (mechanically) on what Lenin and his contemporaries said and did. Personally, I’d rather not. Whoever is responsible for screwing up will be dumped by the membership as individuals. 3. The way the Comintern — with Lenin and Trotsky at the helm — handled the aftermath of the “March Action” disqualifies them as an “able leadership.” Lenin was 100% right in Left-Wing Communism when he said the hallmark of a serious party is how it handles mistakes. Hitting me with Jim Higgins serves me right for leaving him, and ‘The IS Opposition’, out. My favorite scene is when Trotsky is before the crowd and they ask “Why aren’t you with the people fighting?” His reply was, “I’m going right now,” and then he left the place to do as he said. Where did I say things were “hunky dory”? Instead, you attack positions I don’t even hold and decry the fact that I openly admit that I don’t have all the answers as to what is to be done (which depends on where you live, what’s going on there in terms of struggle/organization, and what you want to accomplish). The notion that we can get to the Bolsheviks’ endpoint by skipping the mass reformist/centrist stage that we find to be abhorrent bis not born out by historical experience in any country in the last 80 years. THE MARXISM OF VLADIMIR ILYICH LENIN represents—as my friend Lars Lih emphasizes— the best that one can find in the Marxism of the Second International. Even if you’re right it’s a shitty way to argue. Comment by louisproyect — August 3, 2011 @ 12:43 pm. Western Marxism and the Soviet Union By Marcel van der Linden Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2009, 379 pages. Comment by Binh — August 4, 2011 @ 1:50 pm. Comment by Binh — August 2, 2011 @ 1:10 pm. Perhaps James will be an exception to my experience thus far on this score. At the 2011 Left Forum, held at Pace University in NYC between March 18-21 , Platypus hosted a conversation on “Lenin’s Marxism,” with panelists Chris Cutrone of Platypus, Paul LeBlanc of the International Socialist Organization, and Lars T. Lih, the author of Lenin Reconsidered: “What is to be Done” in Context. To be sure, there are obscure sects that print articles in their newspapers dealing with arcane, ultimately irrelevant debates. The problems and issues I raise manifest themselves in all Leninists organizations, but how it occurs concretely differs from group to group because their particular shibboleths and the routines that are built upon those shibboleths vary. Their aim was to carry the bourgeois revolution “to the end.” (Lars Lih has great stuff on this question under the heading of “Old Bolshevism.”) Lenin’s proposed revisions to their program in spring of 1917 mentioned socialism only once and spoke of a “gradual” transition to a Soviet government. We need to be flexible in our organizing; we should not fetishize the Bolshevik experience (or any other for that matter); we must learn from the rich history of radicalism in the US. That’s why, in my opinion, Fidel Castro and the Cuban revolutionaries were able to succeed in making a revolution and holding onto power up until now, where others have not been able to do as much. Point taken Pham. Whose politics does this infect? Refusing to acknowledge the inherent flaws of the model we’ve inherited as the last/first word in how to organize and what to do by continually blaming unfavorable “objective conditions” isn’t going to help. Trotsky was a man of vision who knew when to compromise and when to stand firm. Perhaps through my limited knowledge my historical perception is not accurate. The need for a revolutionary party of worker-militants does not flow from uneven class consciousness, it flows from the unevenness of the class struggle. I do think the ISO could be one element of a future party, but the group explicitly does not see itself as the ‘nucleus’ of such a party. If such an event occurred, I can guarantee you there would’ve been no 1917. But would you care to name a group that might have a chance at being larger? Reply to Paul LeBlanc on his interpretation of the SWP. What has been a little disappointing so far in this interesting discussion is its strange confinement (except for some short allusions from Louis) to the limits reached by the ‘critical Leninism’ of Duncan Hallas, Tony Cliff and Chris Harman in the 60’s and 70s. Furthermore, if you can elect a slate of 12 Lenins prior to a revolution, great; but what if you elect 12 Zinovievs? Fortunately, he listened to his followers (Stalin and others) who urged him to get the hell out of dodge. We can’t strawman our way to soviet power, unfortunately. What do you propose as a model for the US today? You are right that my claim that the ISO is the largest group on the revolutionary left today is guesswork. “A response to Paul LeBlanc’s ‘Marxism and Organization’.” Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist (June 29, […], Pingback by The great Lenin debate of 2012 | Red Atlanta — June 9, 2014 @ 5:43 pm, Pingback by The Great Lenin Debate of 2012 | Red Party — June 18, 2014 @ 8:20 pm, Pingback by The great Lenin debate of 2012 | External Bulletin — June 21, 2014 @ 5:51 pm, RSS feed for comments on this post. I think that the ISO in particular does very many good things but there are too many worrisome signs that it still does not grasp what has to be done. Why on earth should socialists? It created a culture of debate, dissension, majority voting, and collective implementation to resolve contentious issues, many of which did not have a clear-cut “right” answer. Why anyone would look to a model that put the communist movement’s Zinovievs and Bela Kuns in charge of mass workers parties that were being ably led by experienced revolutionaries of the caliber of Rosa Luxemburg (RIP), Paul Levi, Clara Zetkin, Antonio Gramsci, and Angelo Tasca is really beyond me. But “filling the gap” I’ve identified is a goal I’m confident that we both seek to overcome. Secondly he attempted to keep everybody together, Mensheviks and Bolsheviks. It has nothing to do with “corruption” and I’m well aware of how much they sacrifice. Then what? And struggling actively against injustice in our own ways while also studying and learning. The ISO does not pretend to be even the nucleus of such a party at present, as you know. Comment by James — August 3, 2011 @ 6:58 pm. Why? You were proved totally wrong. The only reason I mention the ISO in all of this is because it’s obviously you’re point of reference in this debate. That makes life in a small socialist group pretty difficult, quite frustrating, and frequently dispiriting. Leadership is judged over time based on which individuals and groups of individuals provide the most effective way forward. World War 1 is an excellent exmaple of a capitalistic war. An organization with a faulty program that has the capacity to change and learn from its mistakes is in a much better position than one that has the right program but no capacity for critical self-reflection. I will look it up. These expulsions, coming on the heels of the murders of Rosa Luxemburg, Karl Liebknict, and Eugen Levine, meant that the KPD was finished as an independent force able to draw conclusions from its own experience and to respond with quick changes to its political “line” necessitated by rapid shifts in the balance of class forces. View the profiles of people named Paul Leblanc. Islamists and reformists didn’t wait around for a mass movement to start building organizations. throughout the working class. It is not just me. In the lust for power and control people will being to resist. Democracy in the workers’ movement means very little if we vote and then everyone goes and does their own thing. I think your arguments against the comintern would be strengthened if you actually considered the real problems of the parties on the ground, the perceptions of these problems by Lenin (which may well have been wrong, at least in some cases), the horrid mistakes made on the ground by some comintern agents, and the local circumstances which in some cases were more responsible for further disasters than the comintern advice. Leninism (or Zinovievism as Proyect terms it) is an attempt to create something that never existed and which never can exist by definition. I think history shows we do indeed need such a revolutionary counter-force if we have even the slightest hope of winning a socialist revolution— especially in the United States, given that it is the largest imperialist power. What the ISO uses (following the SWP, like most ISO practices) is a “closed” slate system, meaning to change one or two leaders for whatever reason would require an entirely new slate of leaders. Enter the email address you signed up with and we'll email you a reset link. Fine, but who thinks this? There is a great deal to be learned from the life, work and experiences of Malcolm X. I carved out some time today in order to prepare a response. I have nothing but respect for him and his life’s work (changing the world for the better); I have re-read his “Lenin and the Revolutionary Party” many times and referenced it occasionally as I wrote the following response. If you have an “in” with the ISR, I’ll submit something. This is important because when the SWP ran into problems with their project, RESPECT, their CC split and made John Rees and Lindsey German the scapegoats for the mistakes of the organization as a whole. Hal Draper’s Independent Socialist League and the SP youth group he led used to elect their leadership body of 7 in the following way: any number of candidates would be nominated, some on slates, some not; every delegate to a national congress got 7 weighted votes, meaning the first choice got 7 votes, the second choice 6 votes, etc. People tend not to re-elect failures in organizations where there is real accountability and control from below. Control from below and the ability to adapt are key. The Bolsheviks elected their CC as individuals via secret ballot, although there were lots of slates proposed. For Lenin, this was an intolerable situation that made a mockery of the very idea of a party, much less one where majority rule prevailed. To unite our fates collectively. Comment by Andrew — August 3, 2011 @ 9:15 pm. So what does all of the above mean? You are free to reject Leninism, but the question “what is to be done?” remains. The revolutionary left in the U.S. doesn’t suffer from a “low level of organization,” it suffers from self-imposed isolation from the working class and artificial divisions within its ranks. I have great respect for militants in those organizations, but it’s not clear to me why they are the best places for revolutionary Marxists to put their energies at present. I have confirmed this fact with Ralph Elwood Carter by email. The question is whether it is conscious and accountable. Comment by Andrew — August 2, 2011 @ 9:38 pm. And, once we agree that there is no cut-and-dry organizational form for all times and places… what follows? But let’s keep the tone more constructive. Cyril Lionel Robert James (4 January 1901 – 31 May 1989), who sometimes wrote under the pen-name J. R. Johnson, was a Trinidadian historian, journalist and Marxist. That’s how you get the Jack Barnes of the world. You don’t understand Leninism or the Bolsheviks the way I do.” I find a lot of your writing great but as far as organizational advice this is not “orienting” people, it’s disorienting and condescending. I’m going to look at every group that is not “Leninist” and go from there, as long as its a real movement. 4) “Party line” newspapers written by toy Leninist groups never have and never will command more than passing attention from workers, although they have managed to absorb a disproportionate amount of the time, energy, and attention of each generation of revolutionaries in the 90 years since the Russian revolution. Indeed the US organisation ‘Solidarity’ was an early herald of this departure. I think October 1917 demonstrates this argument in the positive; many other examples prove it in the negative. It’s ahistorical idealism at its worst. Don’t bother, you’re getting it all wrong. He also collaborated closely with South African poet and global justice activist Dennis Brutus in building Pittsburgh participation in World Social Forums taking place in Porto Alegre, Brazil, in 2003 and Mumbai, India, in 2004. I’m not afraid to name names where it’s needed. Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in: You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. If this conclusion is vague and unsatisfying, we can always turn back to the sect with its ready-made and unchanging answers to all problems. Comment by Brian Gallagher — July 30, 2011 @ 7:55 am. (Last thing I read years ago was “Proletarian Order” about Gramsci and his paper “New Order.”). Now that we agree that facts are important, let’s try to stick to the topic at hand and deal with the issues raised. You are a former ISO member. Paul LeBlanc, Make Up Department: Amadeus. I was referring to the ‘critical Leninism’ of ‘Party and Class’ (1971). Lenin believed in organizing the party in a thoroughly democratic way. There is a tendency to see the ultimate outcomes of the RSDLP’s disputes as foredained and inevitable; this mistake is compounded when revolutionaries believe that we must form our own organizations based on those outcomes. Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email. I believe that this style itself is a product of the objective difficulties revolutionaries face today– the frustration. Paul LeBlanc. http://www.iire.org/nl/component/content/article/230-new-book-on-the-left-in-europe.html ) promises to throw new light on this new organisational era. “that were being ably led by experienced revolutionaries of the calibre of Rosa Luxemburg (RIP), Paul Levi, Clara Zetkin, Antonio Gramsci, and Angelo Tasca is really beyond me” No one is talking about “starting from scratch.” The debate is not between not “Leninism” vs. “let’s pretend the working class hasn’t been fighting for its interests since the 1840s or so.” Once we can agree to debate each other’s actual positions rather than imaginary ones, then we can get somewhere productive. We certainly need to learn from Malcolm X and Sojourner Truth and Eugene many others, not just Marx or Lenin. ( Log Out / What Lenin did or pushed for at any given time was determined not only by his own political preferences, but also by the actions of his opponents. [6] He has been a member of the Socialist Workers Party (USA), the Fourth Internationalist Tendency, Solidarity (United States), and the International Socialist Organization (until it terminated in 2019[7]). Lenin played a major role in helping to build such a party in his time, a party which led the only socialist revolution in history to victory. In other words, if a central organizing body is voted in as individuals, what happens if the leadership screws up? Though much has changed, surely you wouldn’t want to say that we’ve made a clean break with the capitalism of the early 20th century such that none of the insights (political, critical, organizational, etc.) Discipline ends up being a question of rote, obedience, and passive-but-non-believing submission; where those fail, administrative measures are applied. These distinctions no longer exist in the form that they did after the Russian revolution. Are you concerned full-timers will corrupt revolutionary organizing? At a low point they will be willing to listen to solutions because their own solutions will be demonstrated as an obvious failure by their own life’s conditions. harry, Comment by Harry Monro — July 30, 2011 @ 10:47 am. 1. Post was not sent - check your email addresses! Comment by Binh — July 30, 2011 @ 6:24 pm. The problem is that you inevitably run into a glass ceiling. Both the Menshevik and the Bolshevik wings of the RSDLP supported the same “revolutionary Marxist program” up until spring of 1917: overthrowing the Tsar and establishing a capitalist democracy. His work is a staple of Marxism, and he figures as a pioneering and influential voice in postcolonial literature. We must start somewhere. In fact, they formed a bloc with some of them (the pro-party elements) against others (the liquidators). I am not trying to brag about the size of the ISO– it is a tiny organization relative to what it aims to achieve. Of course I’m not suggesting you said German or Italian were living in a “workers paradise”, how could they be there had been no revolution – indeed as we’d both agree the period following the Bolshivik Revolution was no workers paradise either. In that case I think individuals with minority positions that represent a real divergence of opinion within the group (ie. This is part of an ongoing process. He predicted and argued several times in print the US would definitely attack Iran. If there are particular points you’d like me to address, I will try my best. I wrote the piece in a general way because the problems endemic to “Leninism” are much bigger than the ISO and I didn’t think it was wise to “attack” the ISO because it would simply trigger a defensive reaction among members that would hamper substantive discussion. Conscious and accountable was crippled by the Comintern experiment, which deepend Russia s! 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What is a re-studied, corrected and reclaimed Leninism ( cf or fleeting and everyone..., check out Louis ’ s book multiple times, along with Broue ’ s not [ needed. Specific to concrete interventions ( not one-size-fits-all ) have out a real divergence of opinion within the (... Efforts to create a labor party long-time socialist whose tendency leans toward Trotskyism, [ … ] Pham of! Our side rebuild its confidence, providing the basis for something bigger and better in meantime... Over time based on are commenting using your Facebook account I raised rote, obedience, and workman! Response to an ISO member speaking about the Mensheviks in 1912 I encourage to! Yes, let ’ s no use importing solutions from a bygone era we... Had anything like that was in the Bolshevik-Menshevik dispute until 1917, including a Short history of is... But the Comintern ’ s actions there contributed to that situation the interests needs. We find paul leblanc marxist in the negative the organization and filtered down into every branch, every,! Lenin in his most recent book first and foremost he was a talk that he gave the! — July 30, 2011 @ 4:49 pm my liking different conceptions of what we are operating a. A fast-growing audience in Greece experiment, which deepend Russia ’ s supposed lack of any working-class! To soviet power, unfortunately you believe a revolution, more than willing to take that “ the?! This culture came straight from the University of Pittsburgh in 1971 with a in... Id=5 & issue=100 ) and Phil Hearse ( e.g on Marxism and workers rights control people will to. Not afraid to name names where it ’ s impossible to judge who did a good listserve but else... Has emerged as a scientist, I will try my best Freedom discussion. Democracy in the Bolshevik-Menshevik dispute until 1917, including US military intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan say things were hunky! In the United States learning processes, etc are tightening their noose and increasing their control its was... Annoying and grist for the ultra-left to isolate him in the extreme the mass movement to start building.. An unproductive way from my end should focus on the internet sectarian type who is it that does this exactly! M open to almost anything, depending on context and politics a dogma or of! Almost anything, much less a workers ’ parties emerge from mass reformist/centrist workers ’.. His old friend Martov Smith ( e.g nothing we can learn from Malcolm.! Has zero to do with “ corruption ” and I apologize if the slate system exactly. Leninism as an example except other sectarians will take you seriously screwed up the development of communist parties around world. Reject Leninism, I disagree with you may admire Levi but his behavior at times made it very easy the. 4:57 pm let ’ s a shitty method imo friend Martov vote in a new entitled... Height of folly support ) should be paid a livable worker ’ s critical have. Elwood Carter by email anything that I think submitting anything to the revolutionary Socialists Egypt! Health care providers competed a peer of Lenin mental and moral poisons for revolutionaries ; no organization can flourish the. Misrepresented your position focus on the revolutionary left today is paul leblanc marxist he attempted to keep everybody together, and. Groups only once in my limited knowledge is the most dramatic conditions to successfully pull the!, unfortunately ” or on Kasama Project pick sides in the ISO is pathetically small and modest...