{"id":1393,"date":"2011-10-01T00:00:43","date_gmt":"2011-10-01T05:00:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chriscutrone.platypus1917.org\/?p=1393"},"modified":"2021-11-18T13:58:23","modified_gmt":"2021-11-18T18:58:23","slug":"lenins-politics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chriscutrone.platypus1917.org\/?p=1393","title":{"rendered":"Lenin’s politics"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chris Cutrone<\/h2>\n

A rejoinder to David Adam<\/a> on Lenin’s liberalism<\/a><\/h2>\n
\"\"<\/a>

Stalin, Lenin, and Mikhail Kalinin in 1919. Kalinin was the Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, or head of state of the Soviet Union, 1919\u201346.<\/p><\/div>\n

THE PRINCIPAL MISTAKE MADE by those who contemplate Lenin’s political thought and action is due to assumptions that are made about the relation of socialism to democracy. Lenin was not an \u201cundemocratic socialist\u201d or one who prioritized socialism as an \u201cend\u201d over the \u201cmeans\u201d of democracy. Lenin did not think that once a majority of workers was won to socialist revolution democracy was finished. Lenin was not an authoritarian socialist. ((See my \u201c1917,\u201d in The Decline of the Left in the 20th<\/sup> Century: Toward a Theory of Historical Regression, Platypus Review<\/em> #17 (November 2009), available online at <http:\/\/platypus1917.org\/2009\/11\/18\/the-decline-of-the-left-in-the-20th-century-1917\/<\/a>>))<\/p>\n

Socialism is meant to transcend liberalism by fulfilling it. ((See my \u201cLenin\u2019s Liberalism,\u201d Platypus Review<\/em> 36 (June 2011), available online at <http:\/\/platypus1917.org\/2011\/06\/01\/lenin%E2%80%99s-liberalism\/<\/a>>)) The problem with liberalism is not its direction, supposedly different from socialism, but rather that it does not go far enough. Socialism is not anti-liberal. The 20th<\/sup> century antinomy of socialism versus liberalism, as expressed in Isaiah Berlin\u2019s counterposing of \u201cpositive and negative freedoms\u201d or \u201cfreedom to [social benefits] versus freedom from [the state],\u201d ((See Isaiah Berlin, \u201cTwo Concepts of Liberty\u201d (1958), in Four essays on Liberty<\/em> (Oxford University Press, 1969).)) or the idea that social justice conflicts with liberty, travesties (and naturalizes) and thus degrades the actual problem, which is not a clash of timeless principles\u2014liberalism versus democracy\u2014but a historically specific contradiction of capitalism. To clarify this, it is necessary to return to a Marxist approach, such as Lenin\u2019s.<\/p>\n

The error consists of addressing a dialectical approach to politics such as Lenin\u2019s in an undialectical and eclectic manner, as if there were a number of criteria to be checked off (anticapitalism, democracy, etc.), rather than a set of intrinsically interrelated historical problems to be worked through together. The actual dialectic of the historically interrelated developments of capitalism, democracy, and the struggle for socialism demands a dialectical approach in both practice and theory. The reason that various moments of Lenin\u2019s thought and action can appear contradictory is due to an undialectical interpretation of Lenin, not to Lenin himself. Lenin is subject to the same interpretive problem as Marx: the question of Lenin cuts to the heart of Marxism. ((See Tamas Krausz, \u201cLenin\u2019s Legacy Today,\u201d Platypus Review #39<\/em> (September 2011), available online at <http:\/\/platypus1917.org\/2011\/08\/31\/lenin%E2%80%99s-legacy-today<\/a>\/>))<\/p>\n

This is recognizable by way of considering Lenin’s various discussions of the state, political parties, and society. ((See Spartacist League, Lenin and the Vanguard Party<\/em> (1978). Available online at: <http:\/\/www.bolshevik.org\/Pamphlets\/LeninVanguard\/LVP%200.htm<\/a>>)) Lenin assumed that these were not the same thing and did not assume that “socialism” meant making them into the same thing. Most of Lenin’s readers (both followers and detractors) either praise or denounce Lenin, mistakenly, for his supposed attempts to make society into an undifferentiated totality. Not only what Lenin said, but what he did shows otherwise. Furthermore, one must take into account how Lenin avowedly sought to be true to Marx, whether one judges Lenin to have been successful in this or not. Therefore, at least in part, one must reckon with the problem of evaluating Lenin as a Marxist.<\/p>\n

It is a fundamental error to regard Lenin as a largely unconscious political actor who was reduced to theoretically “justifying” his actions. Readers often commit the fallacy of projecting their own inclinations or fears onto Lenin and misinterpret him accordingly. On the contrary, one must address what Lenin said and did in terms of the coherence of his own self-understanding. For this, it is necessary to regard the historical, that is, social and political, circumstances within which Lenin not only acted but spoke. From the various available records, Lenin did not write treatises but political pamphlets, moreover with propagandistic purpose, including his most “theoretical” works such as The State and Revolution<\/em> (1917).<\/p>\n

What is clear is that Lenin did not advocate the partyification of the state (or statification of the party) or the statification of society\u2014in this crucial respect, Lenin remained a \u201cliberal.\u201d Both of these phenomena of Stalinization post-date Lenin and need to be addressed in terms of a process beginning after Lenin’s medical retirement, the dangers of which Lenin was well aware and against which he struggled, in vain, in his final years. ((See Moshe Lewin, Lenin\u2019s Last Struggle<\/em> (New York: Pantheon, 1968).))<\/p>\n

The ban on factions that seems to impugn Lenin\u2019s motives and show a supposed continuity between him and Stalin can be addressed rather straightforwardly. Lenin came in 1921 to advocate banning organized factions\u2014not dissent!\u2014within the Russian Communist Party, precisely because of the differentiated realities of the party, the state, and society in the Soviet workers’ state of the former Russian Empire. Many careerist state functionaries had joined the party (though, according to Lenin, they deserved only to be \u201cshot\u201d), and the party-controlled state faced a deeply divided society, in which he thought that the party could become a plaything in the hands of other state and greater societal forces. The ban on factions was meant not only to be merely a temporary measure, but it should be noted that Lenin did not call for such ban on factions in the Communist International, which was considered a single world party divided into national sections. The ban on factions was meant to address a danger specific to the Bolsheviks being a ruling governmental party under certain conditions, and it was inextricably tied to the contemporaneous implementation of the New Economic Policy. One might interpret the ban as directed against the Left, whereas in fact it was directed against the Right, that is, directed against the power of the status quo in the former Russian Empire swamping the politics of social revolution. So, the ban on factions was a self-consciously limited and specifically local compromise to Lenin\u2019s mind, and not at all the expression of any kind of principle. It is a serious mistake to regard it otherwise. The fact that the ban on factions helped lead to Stalinism does not make it into an \u201coriginal sin\u201d by Lenin. Revolution beyond the Soviet Union was the only way to ameliorate the problems of Bolshevik rule, as Rosa Luxemburg, for one, recognized. ((See Rosa Luxemburg, \u201cThe Russian Tragedy\u201d (1918). Available online at: <http:\/\/www.marx.org\/archive\/luxemburg\/1918\/09\/11.htm<\/a>>.))<\/p>\n

The other mistake, indicative of a fundamental misunderstanding of the relation of the struggle for proletarian socialism to democracy and the politics of the state, is to regard problems of economics and politics as similar in kind. There is no contradiction between democracy in politics and hierarchy of authority in various concrete activities, whether economic or military. The question is one of social and political leadership and responsibility. Is a factory responsible only to its own employees, or to society as a whole? Lenin was certainly not a syndicalist or \u201ccouncil communist,\u201d that is, Lenin did not think that socialist politics can be adequately pursued by labor unions or workers\u2019 councils (or more indeterminate \u201cdemocratic assemblies\u201d) alone, but this does not mean Lenin was undemocratic. The issue of democracy in economic life cannot be considered in an unmediated way without doing violence to the societal issues involved. The point of \u201cdemocratizing the economy\u201d is not to be understood properly as simply workplace democracy. This is because socialism is not merely a problem of the organization of production, let alone merely an economic issue. Socialism is not merely democratic. Rather, democracy poses the question of society and, from a Marxist perspective, the \u201csocial question\u201d is capitalism. Marxism recognizes the need for democracy in capitalism. Lenin addressed the possibility of overcoming the necessity of the state or, more precisely, the need for democracy. Marxism agrees with anarchism on the goal of superseding democracy, but disagrees on how to get there from here. Marxism recognizes the need for a democratic state posed by capitalism that cannot be wished away.<\/p>\n

The society and state in question were addressed by Lenin with respect to the \u201cdictatorship of the proletariat,\u201d which is, importantly, not a national state. His vision was for a workers\u2019 state at a global scale. Because the bourgeois state is a global and not a national phenomenon, neither is the Marxist vision of the \u201cworkers\u2019 state.\u201d Lenin did not pursue a national road to socialism. As a Marxist, he recognized that, under capitalism, \u201cthe state\u201d\u2014of which various national states were merely local components\u2014was essentially the \u201cdictatorship of the bourgeoisie.\u201d This did not mean that there were no political struggles among the capitalists to which various nation states could and did become subject. Rather, the need for socialism was tied to a need for a global state as well as a truly free global civil society already expressed under capitalism. ((See Immanuel Kant, \u201cIdea for a Universal History from a Cosmopolitan Point of View,\u201d trans. Lewis White Beck, in Kant on History<\/em> (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1963).)) Only by understanding what Marx meant by the \u201cdictatorship of the bourgeoisie\u201d in liberal democracy can we understand what Lenin meant by the “dictatorship of the proletariat” in a revolutionary \u201cworkers\u2019 state.\u201d ((The reason why the global state under capital tends toward liberal democracy at the core but tolerates tyranny in its subordinate domains or peripheral extremities is the expediency or convenience of opportunism; despotism in the center, by contrast, is highly politically contentious and untenable. Indeed, it has led to world wars.))<\/p>\n

Lenin was a liberal because he understood the necessity of politics within the working class, which does not and cannot take place outside the domains of bourgeois rights and politics, but which is rather inevitably and necessarily part and parcel of them. Lenin did not advocate the unmediated politicization of society, which he knew would be regressive, whether understood in authoritarian or \u201clibertarian\u201d terms. The Soviet workers\u2019 state in Lenin\u2019s time was indeed like the Paris Commune of 1871, if it had been led by Marx and Engels, had fought off Versailles, and had held on to power.<\/p>\n

The Russian Revolution presented new problems, not with regard to socialism<\/em>, which was never achieved, but rather with regard to the revolution<\/em>, which failed. Like the Commune, the revolution that opened in 1917 was abortive. Isolation in Russia was defeating: the failure of the German Revolution 1918\u201319 was the defeat of the revolution in Russia. Stalinism was the result of this defeat, and adapted itself to it. Lenin already contended with this defeat, and distinguished his Marxism from both Right opportunism and ultra-Leftism. ((See Lenin, \u201cLeft-wing\u201d Communism: An Infantile Disorder <\/em>(1920). Available online at: <http:\/\/www.marxists.org\/archive\/lenin\/works\/1920\/lwc\/<\/a>>.)) The question is, what can we learn about this failure, from Lenin\u2019s perspective?<\/p>\n

Because democratic discontents, the workers\u2019 movement, and anti-capitalist and socialist political parties, operate in a differentiated totality of bourgeois society that must be transformed, they are subject to politicization and the problems of democratic self-determination that liberal bourgeois society has historically placed on the agenda. Proletarian socialism, in Lenin\u2019s view no less than Marx\u2019s, does not nullify these problems but seeks to allow them a fuller scope of activity. Lenin advocated not only a workers\u2019 \u201cstate,\u201d but also workers\u2019 political parties and other workers\u2019 civil society institutions such as labor unions and workers\u2019 publications, which the struggle for socialism necessitated. This is true after the revolution even more than before because the workers\u2019 social revolution is meant to build upon the existing society. Lenin was an avowed Marxist \u201ccommunist.\u201d As Marx put it, communism seeks a society in which the \u201cfree development of each is the condition for the free development of all.\u201d ((Marx and Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party<\/em> (1848). Available online at: <http:\/\/www.marxists.org\/archive\/marx\/works\/1848\/communist-manifesto\/ch02.htm<\/a>>.))<\/p>\n

Both \u201clibertarian\u201d and authoritarian tendencies in socialism tend to avoid the importance of Lenin\u2019s Marxism on this score, because both tendencies tend to conflate society and politics. This is not only anti-liberal but illiberal\u2014and un-Marxist\u2014whether understood hierarchically or \u201cdemocratically.\u201d Capitalism is already a \u201cgrassroots\u201d and thus a democratic phenomenon, and not merely a baleful hierarchy of authority: its problem goes beyond democracy.<\/p>\n

The proletarian socialist revolution, in Lenin\u2019s view as well as Marx\u2019s, was not meant to bring about the Millennium, but rather to clear certain obstacles to the struggle for the working class’s social and political self-determination (not exclusively as a matter of the state), which Marx and Lenin thought could lead society beyond capitalism. Moreover, this was conceived largely \u201cnegatively,\u201d in terms of problems to be overcome. The revolution, in Marxist terms, does not produce an emancipated society ready-made, but only, perhaps, political forms through which emancipatory social transformation, otherwise blocked by capitalism, might be pursued and developed further. Lenin, like Marx, thought that overthrowing both the rule of capitalist private property in the means of production and the subjection of society to the vicissitudes of the market, the classic demands of proletarian socialism as it had developed after the Industrial Revolution, might allow this.<\/p>\n

Neither Marx nor Lenin came with blueprints for an emancipated society in hand. Rather, Lenin, following Marx, advocated pursuing the forms of the struggle for socialism that had emerged historically in and through the development of the workers\u2019 movement itself. Historical Marxism did not formulate independent schemes for emancipation, but sought the potential social-emancipatory content of emergent political phenomena in light of history. Lenin as well as Marx advocated the workers\u2019 right to rule, but followed other socialists in doing so. It is necessary to address Lenin as a consistent advocate of workers\u2019 power, and consider how he understood the meaning of this in the struggle for socialism.<\/p>\n

Socialism in the original Marxist sense that Lenin followed does not seek to undo but rather tries to press further the gains of historically \u201cbourgeois\u201d liberal democracy. Liberalism is not meant to be negated but fulfilled by democracy, just as bourgeois society is not meant to be torn down but transcended in overcoming capitalism. Liberal and democratic concerns need to answer to the historical tasks of emancipatory social transformation, not timeless political \u201cprinciples.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lenin himself was very clear on this, even if neither most of his supposed followers nor his detractors have been. The problem is anti-Marxist interpretive bias that is blinding. | \u00a7<\/strong><\/p>\n

Originally published in<\/em> The Platypus Review<\/strong> 40 (October 2011).<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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Chris Cutrone A rejoinder to David Adam on Lenin’s liberalism THE PRINCIPAL MISTAKE MADE by those who contemplate Lenin’s political thought and action is due to assumptions that are made about the relation of socialism to democracy. Lenin was not an \u201cundemocratic socialist\u201d or one who prioritized socialism as an \u201cend\u201d over the \u201cmeans\u201d of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[29,35,16,6],"class_list":["post-1393","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-essays","tag-29","tag-lenin","tag-marxism","tag-the-platypus-review"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chriscutrone.platypus1917.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1393","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chriscutrone.platypus1917.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chriscutrone.platypus1917.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chriscutrone.platypus1917.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chriscutrone.platypus1917.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1393"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/chriscutrone.platypus1917.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1393\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3209,"href":"https:\/\/chriscutrone.platypus1917.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1393\/revisions\/3209"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chriscutrone.platypus1917.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chriscutrone.platypus1917.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chriscutrone.platypus1917.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}