RE: dictatorship of proletariat

Some parts of Mine's argument are different than mine.  I thought to 
highlight these
for further discussion.

I agree Lenin did not stray from Marx -- in spirit.  And as I thought I 
stressed --
or at least I stated -- he brilliantly rescued political theory from the 
Second
International's (especially that of the German Social Democratic Party's) 
moribund
economic "stage" determinism.  I also agree that Lenin did do what he could 
do in the
circumstances, as has been truly pointed out in a previous post by Mine.

But does that mean that "socialism in one country" is a good strategy, 
especially in
light of the fact that it hasn't worked even once precisely because of 
system-wide
forces?  (And Lenin's death in 1924 didn't help much)

I say no to this question.  To reiterate, Lenin's group did what they 
could, so did
Luxembourg, Trotsky, and Mao.  But that does not mean we should follow the 
same path
of social transformation just because they did.  Indeed, this would be to 
do just the
opposite of what Lenin did: he look around and consider the best mode for 
change
given that capitalists dominate.

The lesson I get from Lenin is not to accept uncritically any view by fellow
Marxists, including his views.   If world-systemic forces have consistently
undermined the socialism in one country strategy, then isn't time to 
abandon it in
favor of trying new strategy?  Again, to be perfectly clear, I'm talking 
about the
goal, not the tactics.  It may be best in some places and times to seize 
state power.
But it should not be the goal.

As for matters less relevant, Lenin's notion of the dictatorship of 
proletariat did
differ from Marx's in two key respects.  As noted earlier: (1) Lenin 
thought to
include peasants because the revolution was occurring in a peripheral 
state.  Marx
had not included the peasants in his formulations on the dictatorship of the
proletariat (though he did later include peasants as possibly part of the
revolutionary movements).  (2) Marx discusses workers seizing state power, 
but it is
never a goal.  He did not espouse socialism in one country, but espoused 
socialism as
a world-scale process.

But even if Marx had, should we just accept this strategy uncritically?  
Again, I say
we shouldn't.  Marx was fallible, not perfect.  Not everything he wrote was
convincing.  No one's work is.

Lastly, I agree that Lenin did radically stray from Second International 
Marxists as
Mine pointed out.  More specifically, he differed from the Social Democrats 
(Kautsky
et al), and, at first, also from Luxembourg on the need for a tight-knit 
vanguard
party.

Yet, in terms of strategy, we ought to note here that Luxembourg, a 
brilliant thinker
too, proposed the mass trade-union strike as an ideal form of worker 
revolution in
divergence to Kautsky who insisted on sticking to elections.  She agreed 
with Lenin
on spontaneity as part of revolution, and eventually agreed with the Russian
Revolution, but perhaps because Lenin in the meantime, as I noted 
previously, also
backed away from his position on a tight-knit party in favor of a more 
democratic and
representative party.