>----------From: Alex LoCascio <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Re: FW: [CHOMSKY] With or Without You
>Date: Wed, Jul 21, 1999, 2:00 PM
>
>Dictatorship of the proletariat is still dictatorship.  And I'm not
>talking about the Leninist strawman you anarchists are always beating up
>on (and despite what anarchists say, Lenin was an exemplary leader of
>Russian Social Democracy, as well as a master theoretician and tactician.
>  Ditto Trotsky.  Let's see if you can handle this without bringing up
>Kronstadt, which was largely the fault of Zinoviev).  I'm talking about
>Marx's original conception of the proletarian dictatorship, taking the
>Paris Commune as his model.

It's quite easy to criticise Lenin.  The Russian workers were doing it
pretty quickly.  Did you know that a slogan of "Communism without the
Bolsheviks" was used in about 1921-24 by mass rallies of workers?  It's a
bit too convenient to call his worst and most evil mistakes "blunders" or
to blame someone else.  Lenin set himself up as the leader of the
revolution - you can't only give him credit and pass the blame elsewhere.

>Anyone truly committed to class struggle knows that the exercise of
>dictatorship by the proletariat is the only way to consolidate a
>revolution.  The reluctance of anarchists to come to grips with this fact
>is probably why they never end up being a part of truly revolutionary
>mass movements.

Anarchists were, of course, a large part of Russian left political struggle
before the 1905 uprising, up to 1917, and beyond.

>Anarchism by its very nature is a petit-bourgeois, reactionary
>phenomenon, and its adherents either tend to be middle-class radical

Just out of curiosity, do you ever wonder why there's no broadly united
left coalition... anywhere?  Do you think that pointless (and inaccurate)
diatribes against fellow anti-capitalists might have something to do with it?

>power."  Of course there's a concentration of power!  Just because power
>is distributedly widely doesn't mean it ceases to be power.

So, this means that it's fine to have a central organising committee ruling
over the masses...?

>You say that your ideal society is one of "direct democracy."  Was is not
>Proudhon who said that "democracy is nothing but a constitutional
>tyrant?"  Was it not Stirner who said "We do not aspire to communal life
>but a life apart" and "the people's good fortune is my misfortune?"
>Contemporary anarchists are quick to forget the more unsavory
>individualism of past anarchist thinkers.

Was it not Marx who bashed his wife?  Was it not Engels who was a member of
the class he supposedly sought to destroy?  Did Lenin not oversee mass
torture?  Do not contemporary "Marxist-Leninists" forget the evils of their
predecessors?

>context of Russia in the early 20th century. Sure, mistakes were made,
>such as the dismantling of the soviets, but these were tactical blunders,
>and not the pernicious conspiracy that ignorant anarchists make it out to
>be.

They were malicious acts deliberately designed to destroy when socialism
remained in Russia.  Sure, thre was a war on at the time, and the
Bolsheviks panicked because they thought they'd lose.  That's beside the
point.  Lenin's army of torturers were little different to the Tsar's (and
often were the same people).  The Bolsheviks wanted *power* first, and then
socialism second.  And Stalin's rise (supported by our mate Lenin) ensured
that only power would remain.

Alister