Re: successes and failures of Leninism

Elson makes the point from the post below,

"We need a new strategy.  It must be global.  It must be fully democratic and
transparent.  It must not be a bureaucratic, centralized organization. It must not
proclaim to be the vanguard and to speak on behalf of anyone, but should be a
coalition of people and groups speaking for themselves.   I think we should consider the idea and organizational strategy of "poor peoples of all countries unite.""

Yes, HOW do we transform the system? OK, so I’m one of the poor, relative that is, but probably not as poor as about 80 per cent of the world’s population. So this answer is ‘bottom-up’ or the way I see it right now. I’d see it differently if I had a lot of cash, my main concern would be to find ways of keeping it, ensuring that it ‘grows’, and generally keeping quiet on ideas that might undermine ‘growth’.
 However, I and others would like to understand how a system is transformed, particularly since the way I think about the present system may well be in error. What I perceive about the present system, or any system,  is that wealth is accrued by adding value to resource, therefore I’d like to know how ‘resource’ is defined, and more to the point, how is it to be managed.
 For a start I might think of a ‘primary resource’ as that under the management of each person in the state, country or whatever boundary exists. Something along these lines was as I understand it made by the socialist government of the UK in 1948. This was the nationalisation of several industries, coal mining, transport, health services and so on. For the greater part the shares held by individuals were bought by the state whereby management of them was taken over by a bureau of the state.
 Then in the 80’s came privatisation, which I in ignorance thought that perhaps I’d get my one share in the railways, the phone system, the coal mines and so on. Yes, whatever was I thinking? Instead the bureau sold off the whole lot at a knock-down price so that the state might ‘save’ putting cash into them to balance the books. Then, in the fullness of time, it transpires that all of these industries and services were indeed very profitable.
 Of course there were all sorts of tricks going on behind the scenes to make the national organisation appear to be inefficient and ineffective, for instance, with the railways the service was manipulated to reduce passengers, to loose freight, cut lines and postpone essential works of maintenance to facilitate the overall picture of decline. Then a few years before privatisation cash was spent on improvements, opening disused lines, building new stations, providing new stock, all the things that were cosmetic to make the system look about right for a potential investor. All paid for by those of us that are part of the ‘poor’.
 I’m told that the sale, and the global nature of ownership, is irreversible. Or is it? If it is reversible then I was robbed. On my own I can do nothing, but if about half of the poor folks around the world put a dollar or pound aside could the various governments that sold off the primary resource be challenged in that the sale was not in the interests of the real owners? The fact that a greater number of people are poorer now than before the big sell-off the state did not ‘save’ cash, the sale has not improved my way of life as was suggested before the sale.
 A revolution is in progress, a select few have become millionaires offering what is no longer a service but a machine for making cash for themselves. So perhaps it is overdue that a few hits should be made to test the legitimacy of the sale of the twentieth century.

 

William Kirk.

----- Original Message -----

From: Elson <facbolese@usao.edu>

To: WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK <wsn@csf.colorado.edu>

Sent: 24 November 1999 19:54

Subject: successes and failures of Leninism

> I'd like to put forth some serious views of the successes 
and failures of
> revolutionary movements and "what is to be done" 
today.
> 
> The question of why Marxist-Leninist (seize the state) 
revolutionary movements have
> failed is an important issue as has 
recently been pointed out.
> 
> It is true, that these movements in 
the Americas, Africa, Asia, had international
> ties of support and vital 
aid from the USSR & Cuba, and China, and that without this
> support, 
they would have had a more difficult time emerging.  I think it is also 
true
> that the key reasons these movements failed is because of US 
counter forces.  Thus I
> agree that one should not underestimate the 
systemic effects they had world-wide.
> 
> However, I think the key 
question is not their international dimensions of their
> emergence and 
failure per se, but rather the emergence and failures of their goals.
> 
That is, although these movements had international links, their aims and 
actual
> practice was not world-wide revolution.  They were not Trots 
in practice.   The aim
> of the post W.W.II movements was to 
seize state power and effect national reforms
> along the lines of the 
USSR, China, Cuba.  The first half of the revolution was over
> once 
state power was obtained.  The second half of the revolution was a drawn 
out
> process of national reforms.  This is the Leninist model -- 
"Okay gentlemen, we shall
> now proceed to build socialism" in Russia (and 
later in neighbors occupied by the Red
> Army in 1945).
> 
> 
One key reason that there were not more revolutionary movements thereafter, 
including
> in other core areas, was that the USSR in 1921, at the 
Congress of the Peoples of the
> East in Baku, adopted, as a model for all 
communist struggles around the world, the
> idea of building socialism in 
one country and GAVE up the international struggle for
> supporting and 
creating a revolutionary movement in Western Europe, Germany above
> 
all.  At the same time, the new strategy was to aid national-liberation 
movements
> that would become pro-USSR.  The reasons for this 
dramatic change in practice were
> practical:  the USSR might well 
have been crushed by the West (and in fact had been
> invaded in 1917) if 
it did not "play the game."
> 
> The backsliding continued:  a 
year later, Soviet Russia agreed to resumed systemic
> diplomatic and 
economic relations with Western Europe.  In 1933 the USSR joined 
the
> League of Nations, became an ally of the West against fascism, and 
in 1943, dissolved
> the Comitern.  From then onward, the USSR helped 
some revolutionary movements, but
> not with near as much support as it 
could have.  As we know, for instance, Mao was
> urged by the USSR to 
compromise, and had to break away to pursue its strategy of
> seizing the 
state by force.  But once the CCP did, it more or less followed the 
same
> pattern as the USSR with regard to not getting too deeply involved 
with revolutionary
> movements.  Instead, most of their energies were 
spent on building socialism in one
> country -- their country.   
It is quite true that the cold-war strategy was a
> deliberate attempt to 
block the internalization of revolutions, but this strategy was
> 
conducted by both the USSR, China, as well as the leading core 
countries.
> 
> Thus, we should turn to the success, in fact 
failure, of the states that succeed in
> gaining state power.  First, 
let me state for the record that just because one
> criticizes the 
Leninist paradigm, others cannot assume that the critic is
> anti-Marxist, 
or whatever.  I'm not arguing, as some have wrongly assumed, that
> 
Leninism should never have been attempted.  Mao's record, as dismal as it 
is, shows
> nonetheless that conditions improved for most peasants in 
China.  I'm arguing that we
> must recognize the limits of this 
paradigm in a world-system precisely because, as a
> recent contributor 
has noted, capitalism is becoming "more and more overwhelming,
> more and 
more oppressive and more and more aggressive."  Those international
> 
constraints indeed have become even stronger.   But is this not all 
the more reason
> not to adopt a "seize the state" strategy AS A 
GOAL?
> 
> What happened is that the goal of industrializing and 
"development" was elevated
> above the goal of democracy and equality 
within those countries.  Was a dictatorship
> of the party, in the 
name of the workers, really necessary because of international
> 
constraints.  I don't think so.  Anyone who proposes today to build a 
non-democratic
> movement in the name of the "vanguard" will not be taken 
seriously (not that anyone
> on this list has made this 
suggestion).
> 
> Let me clarify more.  It is not only true 
that the movements that tried to size state
> power failed because of 
international constraints, but it is also true that the
> movements that 
DID succeed failed for the same reasons.  International constraints 
--
> the power of the core countries and their monopoly on the most 
profitable activities
> of the world-economy -- are constraints which make 
national developmentalism, whether
> socialist or bourgeois, 
impossible.  Yes, conditions can and were improved.  But look
> 
also at the costs in lives in the USSR and China's numerous famines.
> 
> An in the end, they did not catch up to the core (itself a highly 
questionable goal).
> Look at Russia today.  Look at China, which, 
because it has given up state socialism,
> has given up "socialism in one 
country" and the international struggle of its own
> workers, and welcomes 
international investment and capitalist growth opens.   In my
> 
travels through China, I was amazed to see rapid industrialization, ruin of 
workers,
> including growing child prostitution, massive unemployment, 
unstoppable corruption,
> environmental destruction on an unprecedented 
scale, and so on.  In short, China has
> become another 
industrializing periphery because building socialism in one country
> 
doesn't work.  In other words, a movement that takes as its goal 
national
> development, cannot succeed against the core countries, in part 
because they become
> dependent on the core countries via the 
international division of labor.
> 
> We need a new strategy.  
It must be global.  It must be fully democratic and
> 
transparent.  It must not be a bureaucratic, centralized organization. It 
must not
> proclaim to be the vanguard and to speak on behalf of anyone, 
but should be a
> coalition of people and groups speaking for 
themselves.   I think we should consider
> the idea and 
organizational strategy of "poor peoples of all countries unite."
> 
> Another key question is HOW do we transform the system?
> 
>