v.i. lenin - c or d?

that is a gorgeous post, dlh

his personality cult (especially after his death) was very different from stalin's. stalin was the father-genius-godhead-phallus; soviet folktales (an inseparable syncresis of "authenticity"+propaganda) talk about lenin almost like anansi. the trickster, the uncatchable, the god of the story. even his death is a trick, a tactic: "he is sleeping in red square, but he will awaken soon. what a joy that will be!" underneath this stuff is an unsayable uncertainty: even when you respect and love the trickster for his stories you won't know if they're true until it's too late.

goddamn, man. i would totally read an entire book by you about this. can we start a kickstarter for that?

srsly some of the more pynchonian prose i've read of late

daphne carr bought me a drink once xp

Lenin's mistake was dragging Russia into communism before it was historically ready. And that mistake made communism in the west nearly impossible to achive, seeing as communism was now an autocratic boogeyman to the east. And of course, since communism in Russia wasn't historically inevitable yet, when Lenin made it happen, we will have to blame the development on Lenin's reading of Marx. And it therefore follows that the worldwide failure of marxism is first and foremost atributable to Karl Marx writing his books way too early.

this consideration of idealism, moment and pragmatism is all very relevant to my interests - whether the british left is to have a moment in any way comparable to lenin's is highly doubtful but fostering a commonality of purpose is surely central to the mission

is any country historically ready for Communism? srs question

socialism however

that mistake made communism in the west nearly impossible to achive

If Marx is to be believed, the dictatorship of the proletariat is an historical necessity, and therefore not just possible to achieve, but inevitable. I tend to think he was a bit too presumptuous. Analysis of the past is easier than prophecy.

"he is sleeping in red square, but he will awaken soon. what a joy that will be!"

realized on checking my source for this that i omitted the key fucking word: it's "he will probably awaken soon." chills!

Yes I thought there was a book on this.

poll with following options: (1) "is any country historically ready for Communism?", (2) "is (x) African country/'failed state' ready for democracy?", (3) "none of your fucking business".

some ruthless quotes from a secret letter to the Politburo 19th March 1922, when Lenin was sensing the famine was a good opportunity to break the power of the Orthodox Church.

It is precisely now and only now, when in the starving regions people are eating human flesh, and hundreds if not thousands of corpses are littering the roads, that we can (and therefore must) carry out the confiscation of church valuables with the most savage and merciless energy.

... a very large number of local clergyman and bourgeois must be arrested and put on trail. The trail must end in no other way than execution by firing squad of the most influential and dangerous Black Hundreds in Shuya, and to the extent possible, not only in that city but also in Moscow and several other clerical centers.... the greater the number of representatives of the reactionary clergy and reactionary bourgeoisie we succeed in executing for this reason, the better. We must teach these people a lesson right now, so that they will not dare even to think of any resistance for several decades.

I was thinking of that Giles Fraser piece in the Graun the other week and cheering every bit of Lenin's murderous intent here. I'm probably not right in the head, but that is what a Catholic upbringing does to one!

Jesus

I think it was in Richard Pipes' The Unknown Lenin, first published in 1996, that the quote above first appeared in English.

I quoted it (with my typo) from the excellent Sheila Fitzpatrick Russian Revolution book. I'm guessing it was probably added to it on the last couple of revisions.

None of this young revolutionary claptrap. This is less than two years before he died. Real lesson for us all.

This guy changed his mind about the proper strategy for the Bolsheviks like 4 times between April and October 1917, startling the Central Committee with calls for direct action and then frustrating them with orders to cool off "adventurism" on the part of workers and soldiers.... then swinging left again. Through it all he denounced in the strongest possible terms every idiot who dared read the situation differently from him, though they were actually in Petersburg and he spent much of that year hiding in Finland.

Classic infuriating pedant.

Lenin is out-polling the president of the United States among Millennials. I'm gonna try and log off for the day now. pic.twitter.com/puehAYQ4r6

— Malcolm Harris (@BigMeanInternet) August 16, 2017

It will go higher.

I'm literally reading State and Revolution rn

have you got to the bit where the state withers away yet? that's the best part

that's my shit right there

the idea that even 25% of millennials actually know enough about lenin to make any kind of judgment is pretty funny

maybe we should poll the kids on whether trump is more popular than hammurabi

John Lenin maybe?

Oh yes and if they only knew enough about him they'd go back to Hilary. That's funny too.

Obv its an iffy poll, but its totally in line with younger ppl's enthusiasm for socialism in general.

how do i shot getting young folks to read polanyi ?

can't wait to see the kids lining up to volunteer for the cheka so they can execute some kulaks of their own

Fabisnism? Dude get yourself a copy of Lenin's Philosophical Notebooks (no.38 in the Complete works set iirc), that's all the philosophy you will need. xp = the body count will go higher, too.

wonder what millennials think of pol pot, i bet he would agree w/ their stance that hipsters are annoying

J.D. and hipster pals at the riot

Condemning Lenin might be appropriate and necessary but I don't think comparing him to Pol Pot is very edifying xp.

There was a massive power vaccuum in 1917 and the Bolsheviks were one of the few groups that had enough support on the ground to plausibly seize power. The provisional government wasn't going to hold on, and the soviets would have been crushed if they waited until the military took power -- crushed by monstrous, genocidal right wing forces.

It was only in this context that Lenin's radical proposal to leap across history to redistribute land and give the working class and peasantry direct power made sense. The nation had lost its taste for moderation during the war.

Obviously, the end result of this audacity was a disaster. The country became like one massive gulag. And the repression and murder Lenin authorized during the civil war is certainly not something I'm interested in excusing. BUT it was quite clearly never his intent to establish a dictatorship. He's a tragic figure imo more than a monster. (He was also, personally, a huge jerk as I mentioned above.)

In any case difficult listening hour to the thread. He knows a million times more about this than me.

There were also earlier atrocities he was involved with like the Tiflis bank robbery. I don't think he was a good guy who had a positive impact on history, but the "meaning" of his life is more than just its outcome, Stalinist repression.

Anyone read China Mieville's _October_ yet?

No, but I'm very glad you mentioned it tho.

Oh yes and if they only knew enough about him they'd go back to Hilary. That's funny too.

― xyzzzz__, Wednesday, August 16, 2017 9:38 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Lenin never had any trouble with his e-mails iirc, so this is probably wishful thinking.

his letter caused stalin some issues tho

it was honestly just a joke treeship, i don't think that lenin was in the same league as pol pot. though tbh even a non-joke version of that line strikes me as far less offensive than xyzzzz's half-comprehensible pro-soviet apologist shit on this and other threads.

xp You mean the testament? I stand corrected :)

Anyone read China Mieville's _October_ yet?

Yes. I liked it quite a lot.

Oh good. I picked it up on sale from Verso earlier this year and its on the bookshelf.

Also, this:

when you want to destroy a statue of the hated communist but the destruction of property is the ultimate sin pic.twitter.com/1oNT1Ac4VS

— Goth Ms. Frizzle (@spookperson) August 16, 2017

John Lenin maybe?

― Wewlay Bewlay (Tom D.), Wednesday, August 16, 2017 5:23 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHyGCCZzG2o

Yes my half-apologetics (they are more than half though) are way more offensive than J.D. being patronising to people who are mostly of voting range (18-34 so actually possibly your age range even?), who could possibly already be engaged enough to know a bit more than what you think they know. A figure in a poll won't give us the nuance.

Please keep flying the Kerensky flag tho'.

i said half-comprehensible, you stalinist fuckwit, and that's giving you too much credit

LOL dude chill a bit, just because some Trot screamed at you in college there is no need to lay the trauma on us every week.

eh i'm plenty chill, yr genuinely strange shtick is more amusing than infuriating

ftr i would've been delighted to talk to a trotskyist in college now and then, would've been a break from all those libertarians

I live to amuse!

How have I not noticed this ilx feud before?

The internet gives so much every single day

"Let's Build a Zeppelin Fleet Named After Lenin! Not Individual Zeppelins, But a Whole Lenin Fleet of Zeppelins-This Is What The USSR Needs" pic.twitter.com/zdlyABTJwp

— Soviet Visuals (@sovietvisuals) October 20, 2016