Is Leninism authoritarian? - John Molyneux

so John is the member of the social worker network in Ireland and a member of people before profit he's also the editor of the Irish Marxist review and the author of Lenin for today amongst other books which is available either after the meeting or from bookmarks so thank you very much and I'm David that's John thank you thank you very much with the fact that outside of the revolutionary socialists left and that's quite a big outside unfortunately there is close to an overwhelming consensus a large majority anyway that would answer the question of the head of this meeting is Leninism authoritarians with a resounding yes and so I think it's a good idea to begin with what we're up against and what we are up against is a narrative of the whole history of Lenin's of Lenin and Leninism which was carefully constructed in detail by in the first place the American establishment Academy on behalf of the American state but with huge cultural and intellectual influence spread around around the world through innumerable experts scholars professors and so on including many former opponents of Lenin from from Russia from the Soviet Union many X Menshevik some sort I'm going to try and summarize that narrative of consisting of five main propositions right first that Lenin from the beginning was driven by a personal will to power it was his personality he was an authoritarian person and he was after power for himself second that he constructed the Bolshevik Party as an authoritarian party and as an instrument of his will to step out as a top-down organizer or organization often seen as being side of the working class and standing above it third that the Russian Revolution which began as a spontaneous and democratic revolution was subverted by Lenin and the Bolsheviks in an opportunistic coup in October 1917 that was not a genuine People's Revolution that was a coup from about which established Lenin and the Bolsheviks in power force that wants in power Lenin and the Bolsheviks established an authoritarian regime a dictatorship over the proletariat which then led directly onto the nightmare of Stalinism so there was direct continuity between Lenin and Stalin Leninism and Stalinism and the totalitarian dictatorship that prevailed in in the 1930s and lastly Italy that Leninist today our people who are trying to repeat this trajectory and lanius parties are inherently authoritarian for two reasons one because they have the anti-democratic method of organization known as democratic centralism and secondly because they consider themselves Vanguard parties which stand above and have a some kind of right to dictate to and lead the rest of the movement and the working class that's a summary of the debt of their case it's worth stressing how pervasive this is because it's clearly an argument that is put to by the right and the right as I said particularly originally in America and the rest but it also is accepted by almost all mainstream Social Democrats some left Social Democrats and it stretches as far as anarchists and various versions of libertarians and or autonomous and so on and just to illustrate that point I want to show a clip of a great slightly very well known person consider an authority on this putting this out now this works do it right this is your recognized Noam Chomsky as lightly as you did tonight I say that and I think it's also important to point out that that is an unquestioning and also an easy applause getter we saw that you share with the mainstream media and I think if it were actually that simple the Koch the horrific kinds of measures that even bourgeois historians describe as a counter-revolution under Stalin would not have been necessary if they were all the same to begin with now in short to sum up the situation that you have outlined tonight I think is extremely serious and I think it's important that we all take it seriously what we're talking about is literally the fate of millions of lives around the world particularly in the international politics that you describe that being the case then I think we need a full and a serious and a fair discussion of various different alternatives not just talking about the horrors of capitalism but actually how to change it to end this stuff once and for all well I think you made it okay I think well there's several questions there one is about the discussion of the United States and I think what I said is approximately what you said except I didn't use some of that rhetoric the I you know which I don't particularly helpful to pay the truth either analytically or to understand or whatever but it's the same picture John Jay had it straight the people who own the country or a government and the people who own the country have basically now are a network of corporations and conglomerates and banks and so on they ought to govern it and the way they do it is by the methods we've described now as far as the Soviet Union is concerned I didn't happen to talk about it tonight but I've written about this topic I haven't just made the charge I've written about it and explained why I think it's true and it doesn't bother me if I happen to agree with the mainstream media on this Trotsky to pick somebody who you remember once he was charged in the 1930s with agreeing with the fascists and his condemnation of the Soviet Union and he pointed out that his pratik was to be true it wasn't gonna Bandhan it if somebody else had to happen to say it for different reasons so the question is about the Soviet Union and particularly about Lenin so what was Leninism well in my here we have to look at facts now you know you look at the facts I think here's what you fine lenin was a right wing deviation of the socialist movement and he was so regard he was regarded as that by the marxist by the mainstream Marxists we've forgotten who the mainstream Marxist were because they lost and you only remember the guys who won but if you go back to the to that period the mainstream Marxist were people like for example Anton Pannekoek who was head of education for the for the Marxist movement and a serious he's the one one of the people who Lenin later denounced as an infantile leftist but he was one of the leading intellectuals of the actual Marxist movement rosa luxemburg was another mainstream Marxist and there were others and they were very critical in fact Trotsky was one up until 1917 they were all very critical of Leninism because of this what they regarded as this opportunistic Vanguard ISM the idea that the radical intelligentsia were going to exploit popular movements to seize state power and then to use that state power to whip the population into the society that they chose now that was quite inconsistent with Marxism as understood by the mainstream sort of I'd say left Marxists from this point of view Bolshevism was a right-wing deviation Trotsky made the same points up till 1970 now when Lenin came back to Russia in April 1917 he took a different line quite a different line than the one he'd had in the past there you take a look at Lenin's work it shifted character in April 17 in April 1917 it became kind of libertarian that's when he came out with the April theses and that's when he wrote state and democracy came out it came out of here later but that's when it was written and these were a state and revolution these these were basically libertarian works they were very much more in the main in the mainstream of sort of left a libertarian socialism from sort of you know this range that goes from anarchism over the left Marxism of the panic of close look Sandburg variety anything to that Soviets in the need for you know workers organization and so on in fact came really closer to what the essence of socialism was always understood to be after all the core of socialism was understood to be workers control over production that was the core that's where you begin with then you go on to other things but the beginning is controlled by the workers overproduction that's where it begins then Lenin took power in October 1917 and what's called a revolution but in my view ought to be called a coup and the then and things followed that coup or a revolution if you want to call it that one of the things that followed it was the immediate moves to destroy the Soviets and the factory councils those were some of the first moves of Lenin and Trotsky after they took the Trotsky joined at that point after they took state power in fact you look at what Lenin wrote after that period or did you'll find it's a reversion to the earlier position this sort of left deviation is that a deviation you could ask why in my view it was just opportunistic he knew that in order to gain power he was gonna have to go along with the popular currents that were developing which were in fact spontaneous and libertarian and socialist as most popular movements are have been in fact since the 17th century and being an astute politician which he was he sort of went along with that and talked the line that the people wanted to hear it's just like when an American politician goes somewhere in his pollsters tell him say so-and-so and he says it I mean he believes and I think Lenin was doing the same thing with that polls in any event whatever your interpretation is when he took power he reverted to the former Vanguard ISM and moved at once to eliminate the organs of workers control now that meant he was moving to destroy socialism if socialism has as its core workers control over production the Soviets and the factory councils were instruments of workers control and same you could say they defective terminated he worked out better and so on yeah yeah but they were the instruments that had been developed in the course of popular struggle for to implement basically workers control and those are the first things to go by early 1918 this is now it's still really before the Civil War sit in Lenin's view was pretty clearly expressed it was the view that both he and trusty took the position that what you need is with what Trotsky called the Labour Army which I'm gonna stop it there because actually I started to click slightly before I meant to on the second I realize not that and then when it goes too long a time do the meetings so but you get the message and and what's interesting there is there's parts of that look just silly and it's my experience that if you get up and spout the main line you can present yourself as an expert on things you know nothing about like the idea that Anton Pannekoek was the mainstream mark cystic people know the history this is just factually untrue the mainstream Marxist before 1914 and so on was Karl Kowski and the center of German social democracy Panna cottas entirely marginal figure it wasn't in charge of Marxist education for the marks he was a lecturer of ones got a slice a I can you spoke at Marxism so you're in charge of Education for the Masters it's it's silly stuff yeah you know and he gets the name of state revolution mixed up and so on but leaving aside the silly stuff as long as you're on that mainstream message you can present yourself as an expert and say you're dealing with the rest leave us our return later to Chomsky what I want to do first of all is to present an argument against all they in what I call the five elements of that narrative that's a lot I'll do it as quickly as possible particularly because I want to say a fair bit about Leninist organization and so on today which I think it's an issue we confront in the movement so first of all the idea that Lenin was from the outside possessed of a will to power and saw himself as he said you know striving to create an organization that would eventually seize power and establish this dictatorship is to my mind makes absolutely no psychological sense whatsoever I'm not in favor of individualistic psychological explanations of history but even in those terms it makes no sense the idea that in the 1890s Lenin would get himself sentenced Siberia after joining an organization of 30 people knowing that in 25 years time he was destined to take power it's just absurd to be honest and attributing this to you no other lineage I I just think it's extremely stupid and you could go through you know the idea that the smart move to make in 1914 when war breaks out was to oppose the war with every fiber of your being to take the position of termini imperialist war into a civil war a revolutionary degree obvious opportunistic move just like an American just like just like an American plot politician you know okay silly right but the idea that the Bolshevik Party was created as an instrument of Lenin's will was an anti-democratic and democratic party simply again does not fit the facts at all there was a split in 1903 between the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks as people know doesn't matter what the split was about at this this moment but it's interesting isn't it why I mean the Bolsheviks called the Bolsheviks because they were the majority Bolshevik that's the Russian word for means majority majority people that's what it means the Mensheviks were the minority it means that that's what it means they were the majority and the main oh the problem in 1903 was not that Lenin was being undemocratic he won the vote the problem was that the Mensheviks wouldn't accept it you know I mean it's interesting because the whole history I don't know this was an anti-democratic move by by Lenny no it wasn't that it was actually the reverse the parties throughout its existence right before and after it till now had vigorous debates all conquer controversies different tendencies of whose names now mean very little to people like optimists be up and outers of boycotters who didn't want to participate in the elections to the Czarist humor and all sorts of liquidation its and so but they were always different tendencies and they fought out and argued Lenny didn't always when he voted against boycotting the Juma were pretty silent for example after in 1906 and 1907 with the Mensheviks on this against the majority of his own party he lost a position on that and so the idea that this was some kind of lenses the dictatorship it's absolute nonsense when Lenin returned to Russia in in 1917 his position of the nita moved to all part of the Soviets and unsterile for workers power was a minority position within the leadership he was regarded as having gone mad and so on and and being completely out of water he won the vote at the April company not because the Bolshevik Party was undemocratic but precisely because it was democratic precisely because what he was saying corresponding to what the mass of workers who are flooding into the party from the vybor district from the factories and so what they wanted that was why he well it so it's not true that the Bolshevik Party was in any way there's a theoretical argument to back this up which is based on two sentences in what is to be done when Lenin said that socialism has to be introduced into the working class from the outside he took that line of argument from Karl Kautsky it was I think a clumsy formulation right but it was not proof of Lenin's elitism or his hostility to the workers we want these to dictate their argument in favor of making political propaganda in the working-class movement not being purely economic because he thought workers could and would develop political consciousness so the argument is turns around the opposite it doesn't true anybody who wants to go into that in great detail as an enormous book about it but I lastly on why Lanie actually was the most enthusiastic about workers political consciousness of course that many of the academics who seized on that time do so for a very simple reason this actually they don't think workers can develop political consciousness so they actually him they actually they actually seize on that argument the RUC this is the key to what Lindsay besides which Lenin revised his position on that through the experience of the 1905 revolution no repeated that formulation and said I you know I was bending the stick and so that's one of the origins of the famous bending the stick thing that people quote was precisely that statement so I don't accept the argument that the Russian Revolution was a coup which you've heard Chomsky and so on again it's completely false the I think the simplest way to understand this is to say if it was simply a cougar why was it successful it's a few thousand socialists marched down to Buckingham Palace and that and the House of Commons and tried to occupy it what would happen I mean I tell you if any other than what would happen would be the case I think the swp might ride it by now and you know what would happen would be they would send the cops and they are me and say you out simple by clubs and mountains and functions or guns or whatever that's what would happen everybody knows that so I nobody tries to do it simple why didn't that have when the few thousand stormed the Winter Palace at elevation because the entire army the police force was long gone because they've been such close and virtually the entire army had come over to the side of the river revolution and as Martov said Lenin's opponent the entire working class the entire industrial proletariat it is supporting Lenin and looking for their emancipation as it takes the appearance of a coup because nine-tenths of the revolution have been achieved before before them and it is absolutely that Lenin doesn't even start arguing for insurrection until the Bolsheviks had won a majority in the Soviets if they win a majority and so to the end of August beginning of September by fighting against the corneil of counter-revolution and so on that's when they win the majority then that he starts to talk about moving to take state path so it's completely full certificate it was a now what about Leninism in power is there an element of authoritarianism here yes there is and for very good reason let me quote angles racking in advance on this angle says there were ante you know people have said that Marxist were authoritarian surrounded his day and he said this about them have these gentlemen ever seen a revolution a revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is it's the act whereby one part of the population imposes its will on the other parts by means of rifles bayonets in Cannon authoritarian means if such there be at all and if the victorious party does not want to a14 vain it must maintain this rule by means of the turret which its arms inspire in the reactionists would the Paris Commune of lasted a single day if it had not made use of this authority of the armed people against the bourgeois should we not on the contrary reproach it for not having used it freely enough that was what angles said I think angles counts as a mainstream Marxist though that goes debated by by hip I some people that's what angle said on this question of Lenin fully understood that it it has to be said and was clear about it and of course he was absolutely right because following at the revolution following the october revolution of the seizure of path by the soviets there so most in horrendous reaction unleashed against the revolution by the Czarist generals the white guards backed by as soon as they could get it together and stop killing each other by the forces of imperialism and so on the fourteen armies invading Russia etc and they had to fight for their lives and civil war sadly is not a pleasant thing it is not as a way of school for good manners it involves all sorts of bitter fighting and of course successes and atrocities get to me it's significant here that the people who attack the Bolsheviks and learning in particular for their authoritarianism in in in those circumstances just ignore the objective conditions in which there this of this was occurring and they don't measure how the Bolsheviks behave comparison how any other regime behaves in such a situation or when fighting for its life no no that is if it was just the fulfillment of Marxist ideology and so on the decline of the Soviet that he goes on pet was a sip oh well Lenin and Trotsky suppressed the Soviet Wow imagine you had Soviets all over Russia full of workers the Tsar couldn't repress them karinski couldn't represent millennion in Trotsky repressive unfortunately well that's not what happened at all what happened is the life drained out of the so it's because the working class was smashed in the conditions of the of the Civil War but this real history is left out back wish you can justice people obviously learning this authoritarianism okay I'm just checking the tax I won't I want to say something about that the last part of the airing which is that lineage Leninism today two parts of this democratic centralism and vanguard ism i want to argue that democratic centralism far from being an anti-democratic form of organization is the most democratic form of organization you would think when you hear people say and democrat all that's bad you would think for example that the alternatives to it yielded splendid democracy what are the alternatives of democratic centralism the idea of debate followed by unity and implementing policies what are the alternatives that one alternative is the social democratic model the Labour Party in Britain the Irish Labour Party for that matter or social democratic parties generally their policy is the way they operate is you have positive compensation you make speeches you pass resolutions and everybody goes off and does what they want to do especially the leadership that's their policy and the Labour Party has survived on the idea about its parliamentary party putting your party conferences for best part of 100 years it's been doing that for years and years they used to pass motions in favour of nuclear disarmament yes into power not only did they not only did they not disarm they built more and joined NATO and supported the American war effort and if anybody said about the party conference other party conference well as that matter where it actually by the people you know so they weren't responsible to the platforms and that applied to leader after leader all the way through to Tony Blair and that is not just a deviation of the British Labour Party that is what generally is the rule in how Social Democratic parties operate I won't bore you with the stories from the Irish Labour Party but exactly the same sort of thing because their version of democracy actually doesn't control the the the leaders the point about democratic central so we've talked about the way of the leadership controlling the members that's like if you think about what if the leadership of course can lead and persuade the members and the notion of loyalty to party party discipline and so on producing you your Nike action has a part to play but if the membership really doesn't like it they can defy the leadership in the simplest possible way they leave and what can you do about it nothing so you cannot use democratic centralism in any way if you want to build a serious organization that ignores the three other members ship but what it does do is give you a mechanism for controlling your leaders it means actually that party decisions have to be implemented by alx clinicals in Ireland it means that party decisions have to be implemented by Richard Lloyd Barrett Reed Smith and Gino Kenny who are our TDs and the we call it a political committee not the Central Committee of the swn has two out of those three on it they are all subject to party discipline in what they do and say in the parliament and what they do and say around the country it's a means of calm down a democratic not undemocratic control what about the notion of horizontal ISM the ought the notion of the the anarchist autonomous version of this you have no leaders you make all decisions by consensus and so actually this is extremely undemocratic the notion that you make all decisions by consensus if you have a serious question to decide a one which you don't all agree and it matters consensus is a disaster imagine you just took every strike vote on the basis that we're going to achieve consensus first when the employers love that if you wonder if I was a boss I would love the idea that the workers could never go on strike until they had a hundred percent agreement I need one one bosses agent among the workforce and there be never a strike ever again because he would just say I don't agree and then you know whatever they do and so on and it would never happen and it would never happen no serious fast Ron would ever occur on the basis if you took consensus literally and look at what actually happens in look at the history of having kissed organizations every amicus tokenization that's ever existed had leaders they just weren't always open and elected begin with back Kooning is the way I did meeting some amicus manaos did anybody audience know what back unions or organization was called they're usually there was one person who did we all heard of bakunin the great anarchist almost nobody's Henry's dog no it was secret but he was a believer of it you hear about the mass no movement in Russia yeah the Anarchy Russia anybody know what he's moved what's called no you know it's the name of the of the leaders and so it goes on to Danny Cohen bend it in France and I'm sorry and look more recently the great and it was a great movement the indignados movement there in Spain it was a brilliant popular movement involving millions of people and so on with anti political party anti riche first of all be anti political parties you have to enforce that by authoritarian means whether children - I've come is why can't you take your balance why can't you go and give out your leaflets are we be thrown out in other words think no parties turns into actually a ban on people it's actually fairly or flora Kane and then that what happens the month they have a political struggle to wage in terms of elections that movement is a Gemini's by don't exactly but broadly by what Amos but Dana's radical left movement which is explicitly a movement from the top-down created by not my loneliness but by left academics and they said so they said we don't want to negotiate with the rank-and-file and go through that we're gonna we're going to say what do it I'm will attract support and the way when they attracted support one of the first things they did was actually disempower their grassroots and established the effective leadership of the self-appointed leadership a so on and turn therefore into so another part of the political system okay so it is not true that rejecting democratic centralism in some way or other gets you a more democratic form of organization it gets you a less democratic what about the Vanguard is them this is nice because it's why I say nice but nice but auntie lameness ah there Bhangarh this makes you sound terribly elite but it's a complete misunderstanding of what Leninist vanguard is and means it does not mean that we've or whoever you're talking about all the politics our self-appointed leaders are of the movement not at all it means that within the working class there is always uneven development there are in every in every factory in every workplace in every school wherever you're talking about there are those who actually take leave those who actually take the initiative in calling a strike in organizing the picket line in resisting the employer or in every community in organizing to defend council housing whatever you're talking about there are the people who tell you initiative in the working class whether we like being a vanguard party means that you try to bring those people together on the basis of a political organization you only become the vanguard by being able to be in the front of the struggle being able to say what you do tomorrow what you do next Friday and Saturday in your in your case but also beyond and so by giving a concrete lead not a lead as in you give people orders but a lead as in you propose a way forward that you try and win other people democratically towards it's again an extremely democratic concept and democratic a way of operating I just want to say a word about Lenin in this context all the great revolutionary Marxist leaders from marx and engels themselves through Trotsky Rosa Luxemburg Gramp she particularly actually and I would include totally cliff in this all of them when they had the opportunity the opportunity is not always there depends on circumstances but when they had the opportunity established close organic links with precisely those Vanguard workers of that of their of their times I'm old enough wanted to have people in this room would have been old enough to see cliff doing it right but of all of them no one was this more true than it was all a need right he was quite different for example from Platonov it was aloof and didn't know how to relate learning from the beginning was involved in factory agitation of course a lot of time you said like said when he was in exile had any worker he could to talk to but he always had this deep connection with actual living workers and actual living workers of movement and when you leave when you read they mean he's always speaking with that kind of worker militant in mind he sees the world through an in conjunction with the eyes of that of that worker and when it comes to October 1917 Lennie's fight is with the leadership of the Bolshevik Party who are conservative on the question and he threatens to resign at one point he says if you won't organize the insurrection because the revolution the fate of the revolution is at stake if we don't act now the counter-revolution will crush us he expects to resigned and says I'll resign from the Central Committee and I'll go to the sailors meaning you know that obviously just a brand insanity sailors of the revolution I will go to noting I'll go to the workers alright the consort this is this is an extreme democracy now the last point I'll make it this wheel and in this everywhere in the world more or less are a tiny minority unfortunately obviously we we aspire not to be but we are at trying a minority clearly we cannot dictate to or alter the working class about that's an absurd idea absolutely we we can only hope to win wider layers of workers and students if we operate a democratically ourselves extremely important people won't accept an undemocratic organization the working class is a democratic class they work they'll rejected and if we operate democratically in the movement democratically in the movement does not mean passively it doesn't mean not giving a lead but it means acting with people in struggle in United fronts in workplace organization in unions in the fight against racism in all the struggles that we face we have to respect the democracy of the movement and only if we do that will we be able to win people on the way to scale so all of this argument that a percentage it's important for the history very important for the history because the history was designed to close off to rule out with the singing are there all authoritarians and so to close off the one example we have a socialist revolution its aim is to shut that down right so it's important to reclaim the history but it's also important for our practice today I just went to follow up first of all on the point join me at the very beginning which has the you know it's very much Western political orthodoxy that and Leninism authoritarian but there's another very important component to that argument which really bedeviled to working-class movement for many many decades and that's the fact that it was dominated by Stalin as own Stalin as I'm also very much put across the notion that October was occur that Lenin was a great mean and unparalleled unique genius in fact if you see any of those kind of Stalinist posters the revolution you see that Lenin has s massive elongated forehead representing this huge share brain and nobody else could possibly have and so on so it's very important to take that into account because really when it's 20 cliff often pointed out when when Stalin died named if I present at least of anybody who considered themselves as socialists around the world mourned that happening so therefore the effect of that is very very important that stress in terms of the hegemony of that notion and say the working-class movement I forget tamer what I mentioned one brief thing about democratic centralism to my mind in my experience democratic centralism as the expression of the working-class its highest and struggle I was they're very lucky to be involved in a massive strike twenty years ago I'm not going to talk about AUC you straight which is magnificent in many respects but that's a better example twenty years ago Glasgow Social Work strike two and a half thousand people out and straight for it is completely unofficial declared their legal after a few days that required that we had massive urgent incredibly important and incredibly energizing mass meetings of hundreds of not thousands of people that had to decide each day what are we going to do and how are we going to fail now after these big huge massive arguments within had a void and whatever you had decided before that for you were going to evade by that vote that is democratic centralism you have a row once you've had the row you have a vote and whatever you thought before the vote absolutely that is determined your course of action and the mark chair from that point on and that was a reason part of the reason that we won that straight because controlled determined and decided by the rank-and-file throughout and mass meeting to all where's along the point and actually to me therefore democratic centralism is very much an expression of a rotten class that's actually moving and forward in starting to feel calm it's all confidence in power John referred to the the mainstream Marxist well I think you need to really consider their role in the question over the question of the first world war because up until 1914 it was the position of all the main socialist parties that led our general strike if the war broke out no there would be a mass upsurge and and they would overthrow the capitalists etc etc and what exactly happened kotsky in germany the whole of the Labour Party bar McDonald and Keir Hardie virtually the whole of the French Socialist Party the Russian mensheviks etc they all threw their loss in with the capitalists and joined in with the war mongering and the only opponents were in Germany Luxembourg and liebknecht elements of the art anarchist CGT of France and Bolsheviks and for some reason the Serbian Socialist Party so many who were imprisoned and ostracized Lenin attempted with others to try and end the war in Zima fall as in world and and Kindle and and when the boss was actually finally managed to seize power they did what they were promised and they ended the war something that Chomsky and his Co thinkers tend to forget about and I also forget that the next passage of the historical period which is the attempt by the capitalists to overthrow the Russian Revolution which Britain France the u.s. and Japan through hundreds of thousands of troops in alongside the the the Russian why forces to draw and drown the revolution in blood the toll taken on the Russian working-class and the Bolsheviks was absolutely immense Bolshevik the Bolsheviks and let in try to rebuild Russia a socialist Russia very aggressively the the odds were too great and that he failed is more to do with the the overwhelming odds the fledgling Soviet state face rather than some intrinsic anti-democratic tendency within the Bolshevik Party the woman of the pack on the floor will be followed by the man in the white t-shirt there were the Gus's okay hi I'm Nadia from the Socialist Worker party I mean I've been I'm now graduating from my course actually doing history and my dissertation modules been on Russia so I've been doing it for about two years and one of the things that constantly I think John's absolutely right when he says you know the sort of underlying assumptions that actually lie within the you know the historical analysis of the Russian Revolution you were talking about class consciousness and the reality is they don't believe in that I remember in a seminar you know my tutor was insisting that October was a coup and so on even though I kept talking about a but the workers did this and they did that like it's not just armies and guns and so on and essentially what his beliefs came down to is he doesn't think he said even though the workers were organized when they're organized to that degree it's a coup so workers can't be organized as workers it has to be a coup you know and there's so many I suppose it's it's what Graham she talks about about cultural hegemony and so on as well there's you know when people look at the Russian Revolution like this it's often with those status quo idea ideas they already have about the world around them but the other thing I wanted to talk about I mean what's been brilliant about studying Russia for so long is yeah she can answer this question of whether it was authoritarianism eeen my dissertation is on sexual liberation in the Russian Revolution and you know the Janet Dell and all the achieved and so on you know how much Inessa Armand and Alexandra Collins I had to argue with their comrades not that their comrades were actually sexist but rather perhaps because of you know the society they lived in they said let's have the revolution first and then have then we can deal with the family issues and so on and they had to argue tooth and nail with the backing of Lenin and the Central Committee and so on but the most important thing I want to talk about in that really deals with whether Leninism and really Bolshevism is authoritarian is is on the question of oppression really because that was something that really had to be resolved before I joined the Socialist Worker party or even identified as a Marxist because you know I I would like to think that the person the first socialist I met was what Lenin would call an infant school materialist so somebody who has a very basic understanding of religion and can be quite antagonistic about it but actually when I started learning about what actually went on and I was incredibly hostile to Bolshevism and socialism actually it was this is trotsky's words Tribune of the oppressed but nonetheless they're too great Cory's actually it was incredibly democratic and inclusive in terms of you know the way the the Muslims in the Empire were treated 10% of the Russian Empire were Muslims and what did they do once the Revolution was once the revolution had happened people were allowed to get married in either the Soviet courts or the Sharia Courts it didn't matter women were there was a debate about the headscarf actually and there were people and Stalin was of the other side where it's like no oppresses women and of course he would bring this back but actually the argument was around this oppressive or not and what was the argument no actually we should grant people economic independence so that they're not tied down but what a woman decides to wear is ultimately her choice we need to make sure she has the options available and so on you know yeah I'm gonna leave it [Music] [Applause] [Music] I think comrades I think the starting point of discussion around Leninism has to be understanding the material reasons why the ruling class absolutely terrified and actually some most elements like John talked about of social democracy are terrified of the Leninist organization is because actually in Russia 1917 is the first time in the only time in history oh he had a successful socialist revolution they are terrified of that argument around and the success that that that of the revolution but you see the key argument I wanted to talk about is this argument about how it was some sort of monolithic undemocratic party actually the history of the repulsion wheat pie is one of absolute high debate and her and be a big discussion you know they were divided over the question of wrecking a tusk you know what was the happen over that question you know how to relate to the provisional government that was the government that was thrown up after the February Revolution and you see that all John is absolutely right the facts are there for everyone to see that this was a debate that constantly had throughout the movement we see the nail in the coffin in this argument for me is why did the Bolsheviks if they were opportunists an undemocratic wait to get a majority in the Soviets before they acted actually if they were opportunist they would have absolutely led you know with the July days and actually run through in and tried to opportunity take power then but they didn't you know and actually the fact is they were a party they were absolutely ingrained in the class and discussing and that's why they were able to get a majority in the Soviets in that way but you see also I think the question yesterday I came up I think we were discussion I was having with a Labour Party member around democratic centralism and actually I think there is a misconception around what democratic centralism is we need democracy because we don't know what to do we need to discuss Marxism is a clear example of the need for constant discussion debate and the need for political clarity in the world that is actually very difficult to understand if you by yourself but you see the democracy by itself is not enough the reason why we need centralism is because this ie the disgusting society that froze homophobia transphobia racism sexism etc is highly centralized we need to be organized to overthrow this society so I would urge people if you're thinking about joining the swp don't let the democratic centralism put you off it is the most democratic sort of organization I would because actually part of the part of the question around this is actually what what is democratic centralism for me you're putting your argument forward to a mass of people and you have to win them to it and actually if you don't win them to it maybe you haven't heard it well enough or maybe you're wrong you know and actually this is part of the process that we're playing out in the party so I would urge people if you're thinking about joining the swp do it because the system is too dangerous and too we can't wait anymore calm raise this the you know it's the scary times that we're facing and we need to build face up to those challenges thirteen people who hoping to speak so if it's okay I'm gonna ask people to limit their contributions to two minutes okay just try and fit as many people as possible in okay so I'll give you a tough after one John paintin from Oxford yeah it's interesting that John Stark talking about trumps because obviously Chomsky is well known for his political views but also for his ideas about language and I think it's interesting and it also John mentioned this whether we can actually look at individual consciousness in the concepts of evolution I think it's interesting really that you can see it's a rigidity although important ideas in Tom's great language in the way it looks at language this language instinct lis habits very biological thing in contrast the Marxist view of consciousness I'll be talking about in the next session is it which was developed by people like Ben got skin and voloshin off it is a far more kind of fluid dialectical complex look at this other thing and it's interesting that that very complex very sophisticated view I would put of consciousness came out there was from evolution and that to me doesn't really square with the idea this was an authoritative a massive thirst for new ideas it wasn't just in science and the arts as well incredible flow in that all came to an end with Stalin I think that shows the difference between the original revolution then the Stanley's system after but I think the other interesting point about what people like vilasa movie GOx he said about consciousness is the site very much the kind of boundary phenomen the individual brain but then you know that the societies that influence that but but above all a contradictory consciousness and I think it's interesting that the learning in particular was able to see just how contradictory consciousness could be join a revolution and that was incredible in part because he could stay when it was important to move forward because the masses were moving forward when he was sometimes in pawn to step back and that was crucially important Jaron said they in August in 1917 because if the Bolsheviks hadn't know and went to retreat as well they went to move forward we would have had probably a real coup which would have been a fascist coup it was Trotsky I think that said that the word fascism would have been in Russian and that's exactly why we needed a democratic centralist Bolshevik Party that could lead things forward otherwise it would have really been a reaction and a cool I [Applause] think this John mentioned that it's really about in United fronts today and as he was speaking it really goes to the heart of how all of us operate in all struggles all the time whether it's a small meeting in a workplace if you were involved in a Revolutionary Party you come with having had a discussion and you know what kind of arguments you're going to test and you have a certain commitment to keeping that because in struggles you're pulled in all sorts of different directions but then you can go back to the party and say did that work and that mechanism is really in our DNA I think from the tradition that we come from and I want to give just a brief example from Ireland now it's lucky in a way because we've had a big struggle but this can apply to small struggles too and it's a concrete lead and if it doesn't work it has to be revised so when we went into the repeal campaign we had two concepts really one was an argument to make and the other was about the kind of action that we could have on the kind of action it was really important because it was an electoral campaign remember so it's about quite a passive thing voting so our argument was people power on the streets more mobilizations mass canvasses etc that was really important to get the movement going in quite a difficult situation because it's a passive thing like a vote secondly the key argument and this is what we've all learned from Tony cliff and Lenin is the court it was the key argument and we said to things choice because nobody else was everybody else was ducking that and secondly access because it's about working-class women it's not just about abstract equality because everybody with money can get abortions and we push those arguments and push those arguments and then we look now at how how have we succeeded in that well number one we have recruited more people some to be formidable prophet and the role of the swn in that was vital because the swn pushed first of all in people before profit for these arguments and then in the campaign for that and various metaphors have been used like a sharp axe which i think is a bit kind of but there's also cogs and wheel it's how you work in a bigger bigger movement of people and without the revolutionary part of party you are in the wind you'll blow sometimes you might be okay but you blow whereas with a revolutionary party you have the argument to make and the testing of whether it's right by the woman Phil Walden I disagree with the speaker when he says that Lenin first started arguing for the revolution in August September 1917 when the Bolsheviks established a majority in the Soviets why did Lenin return to Russia he started arguing for the revolution in April why did you start arguing for the revolution in April and why did he take it as his mission to try to convert the Central Committee who by the way all thoughts the Lenin was mad when he came back in and started arguing for revolution why did let him do that because he'd read Hegel in the burn library and Hegel's concept of contradiction had explained to Lenin that the conditions of the or of the Russian population were incompatible with the conditions of the war and the inaction of the Kerensky government I also think that I also think that the the one-man management is a concept that socialists in the factories is a concept that socialists have to critique democratically also before the before the revolution it's difficult to criticize Lenin I think but in 1910 to 1912 he had an argument with Bogdanov within the Bolshevik Central Committee which I think Lenin mishandled he regarded his argument with Bogdanov as a political argument whereas in fact it was a philosophical argument Bogdanov ended up getting expelled from the party by the Lenin faction in fact the argument Bogdanov was not trying to disrupt any of the actions of the Bolshevik Party the argument was over participation or not in the Duma and also which was not not an argument that was disrupting the activities of the Bolshevik Party from the Bogdanov side and it was also about philosophical questions which are crucial for socialists to understand for the revolution can you see me yes there's a phrase that Lenin used which I've always loved and that is I think he was referring to the revolutionary paper that it needed to smell of the workers vodka what does that mean because I don't know how much vodka Leyland drank so maybe he wasn't familiar with the smell of the worker but what it means is that the paper had to reflect the real experiences of the working class of the soldiers and the peasants as well of and relate to the consciousness that they had not just to mirror it but to identify the issues around which revolutionaries had to organize and I think it's a fantastic phrase and we could apply it to the use of the revolutionary paper today we are as Joan as mentioned we're a small minority we have to relate to masses of people who are not yet at the state that we would like them to be as we don't dismiss them we understand through this work how workers change consciousness the circumstances in which that consciousness can change and we also identify that we have to go out and actually argue with people about it there are crucial points at which that argument has to be made and I think one of those we are one of those points no with racism in Britain we understand through this revolutionary process of democratic centralism of analyzing the past and of relating to people where they are that there's a real threat that the Roth IRA and the racists can grow exponentially in this country that's the first time since I've been a revolutionary socialist but where we have to persuade hundreds of thousands of people more than us that that is the case and that is at the moment not happening how would you do that how did you reach over the media through the media and the internet to get to people to persuade them that that threat is real but we have the power to fight it and one of the ways we have to do that is those revolution news we get out and we go a socialist newspaper and we get a leaflet if we put those arguments to people where they are in the factories in the streets in the colleges in the universities or as big a scale as we can because that I think those states are getting high and therefore the methods that learning developed in the Bolshevik Party where he had to go over the head of the leadership of his own organizations and relate directly to class conscious workers that's the situation we're in and if you want to talk about authoritarianism go and read the accounts that some areas coming and they commemorate in the hundredth anniversary of the Russian Revolution I've read the first few chapters of Helen Rappaport book about what was happening in Petrograd before February 1917 you talk about authoritarianism how are you going to fight a Tsarist army that Gordon puts machine guns on the top of shops and then just fires into a crowd indiscriminately that's authoritarianism and we know how the mechanisms we know we can organize to actually oppose that happening again so learning is it's gonna be followed by the promo because white hair in the glasses yeah just just a quick thing on the importance I think of democratic centralism is that it makes the link between theory and practice and you know and and it's actually a process it's not it's not like a fixed thing you know in our organization we have you know lots of brilliant theoreticians and academics like John and others and if you know we have this theoretical idea that for instance racism is a very important issue how do we actually verify that we're not talking okay we debate amongst ourselves and everything and it's all you know a very free and open debate and at some point we take a vote and we go out there and we don't simply you know put out statements with lots of excellent exclamation marks saying you know racism is bad in solidarity with Muslims and blacks and so on and so forth we go and we actually build our organization we build anti-racist organizations and then you know the next year you know if it all goes smoothly and we don't have you know an emergency conference for some reason or something the next year we come back and we actually have a richer debate because it's not based on experience okay so and if you don't have this this kind of mechanism very very very quickly first of all you lose your link with actual people and what what actual working people care for and secondly your theory becomes because it's not based on experience in practice followed by your philosophy I'm really sorry to everybody loads and loads of people have indicated to speak and and we just haven't got time but there's lots of lots of times coming the discussions after the meeting at lunchtime in the bars over the over the course of the and over the course of the event supposedly comrade Jang gave a very forensic justification of why democratic centralism was absolutely necessary in the history of the Russian Revolution and that is vital to our armory when we discuss with other people on the Left because the question of democratic centralism is one of the main elements that separates us from the rest of the left but the the real point is we only look at the past in order to shape the future and therefore to be a a Leninist to be a democratic centrist requires a big mouth which perhaps some of us have too much of but also more importantly big ears and observant eyes where we watch and we learn from the class who teaches the teachers the class teaches the party but then the party has to generalize and it generalizes through discussion and this is not just an optional extra this is absolutely vital and central take the question of the rise of Tony Robinson and the far right our eyes and our ears told us that this was a threat that was growing exponentially there was a quick and hurried and urgent discussion inside our organization three four or five months ago then we took the decision to throw everything out against the fascists and the Nazis you need the centralism for that and what I would say to comrades who are not in the party come and join us to make us have bigger ears more observant eyes but crucially is to include into to enable us to have the strength and the organization to face what are massive challenges coming up over the next few months and the next few years it's many bits there's a few things that were not taken into account by the way I'm a comrade carryin from Belgium yeah is that the the era in which the Russian Revolution took place was an era in which authoritarian regimes were a lot more cruel than today and in Russia there was still slavery and death penalty was very common yeah and in those days though the Bolsheviks installed the most democratic regime ever and that is including 100 years of class trouble yeah so how can you talk about authoritarianism yeah that's ridiculous they had soviets yeah in which every delegate needed to be elected in the April thesis yeah Lenin states that every delegate was subject to be recalled that's the most there's no Parliament working in like that at the moment yeah there is no right for me to recall yeah [Music] actually the coup Lenin gave evidence that that was actually maybe slightly the case because he was pointing towards war communism he said this war communism so we have to be more authoritarian because in a war there's a hierarchy because you need to give orders yeah because you fight in your enemy yeah and when Trotsky first met him it was it was stupefied that he wanted an authoritarian regime he says that Victor Serge describes that in in trotsky's life yeah yeah today we have one major advantage that I have not heard yet yeah we are the collective memory of the working class yeah and the workers are not stupid we know what happens we know what went wrong under state capitalism yeah we know the history of the Russian Revolution we've read the books by Trotsky and Viktor search and yes miss we know just comrade we know the pitfalls we know those pitfalls and all comrades should be very aware yeah that one we have a revolution that we don't glorify personalities yeah now we put a role system on the top that no but nobody can can become authoritarian and and this is very very essential for cliff fights is that state capitalism is is the only system that has ever existed there was no communism because capitalism has capital we need to abolish that many things come as soon as possible and then you can talk about socialism thank you okay jump thank you first of all I think that the first speaker rowdy Florrick who spoke about the role of Stalinism and the view that Stalinism projected of Lenin and the Russian Revolution is absolutely correct I'm just a record from my own experience I remember when I was first joined the movement meeting the local Communist Party organizer they had a bookshop in Southampton at the time and I just read Trotsky's history of the Russian Revolution and he he told me as an experience no of course it was really a coup you know they argued that literally but they saw it as a top-down coup and he argued that with me vehemently and they projected that view globally to the definition from as they were nearly would sometimes be said I would publicly talk about democracy but we know the workers need to be told what to do and so that was actually permeated Stalinism so rowdy is absolutely right about that and the legacy of that and young woman comrade it was something magic I don't know I don't I don't know but I thought was a brilliant contribution the the that she made and I was very struck by like she was talking about sexual liberation that occurred in Russia as a result of the of the Revolution and I was struck by that we are pleased are we not we're in Ireland are really pleased with ourselves for having gotten for having gotten one our great victory in the repeal referendum no no but we are we absolutely ourself and it was a great victory but excuse me the Russian Revolution legalized abortion in 1920s you know 100 years ago you know everybody in the bourgeoisie actually has moved on the question of gay rights haven't now you know we have a in and have a a gay t-shirt as a gay Prime Minister we call allow officials and Irish names but you know ver a ver I can sort and there is a jet quite widely not university but quite widely among the bourgeoisie there is now a kind of acceptance of the notion of gay rights homosexuality was legalized in Russia in December 1917 you know I mean I mean the extraordinary when you think about it that's in that's in the middle of you know that a very start of the revolution when you're just establishing Soviet power when you're fighting the counter-revolution when the peasants have taken over the land when you're trying to end the war and so on they legalized homosexual so it's I thought the point she made were absolutely right and on the question of the hijab very important here there is follow following on from what first from what she said there's a wonderful Africans anybody wants to read I would recommend on this by a comma Dave Crouch it's called the Bolsheviks and Islam and it sets that it was a pioneering work you can google it it's an ayah journal it was a pioneering work on what the truth was about how the Bolsheviks related to Islam because there was a widespread idea spread by Stalinism but oh well of course Bolsheviks communists we're against religion Islam is backward we're against the Muslims and so which hand you know this is not just and I've done a lot just argument about where we are but just had a terrible impact in the Middle East all right he had the effect in for example in Egypt and much of the Middle East the Communists the old Stalinist tried to persuade the left to ally with the military against the Muslim Muslim Brotherhood and so that meant you sided with the counter-revolution so that argument is it is very a very important argument the comrade who disagree I think was a misunderstanding maybe because I was trying to speak quickly trouble a great amount that I could express myself that it was in favor of a strategic orientation to workers power right from April from when he saw how the February revolution develop in the role of the Soviets and so on but he only argued for insurrection after they had a majority actual organization the insurrection after they had a majority in the Soviets as was related to the question I think rowdy referred to as the July days if Len have been opportunity would taken power and then well I I don't know actually the main reason they didn't a parent Youth days was because they thought he would lose her and they would have lost another argument for democratic centralism by the way and for a revolutionary party is sometimes you have to say not just go with the flow one of the differences between the Russian revolutions success and the German revolutions failure was that the fact that the Bolshevik Party had been built and had roots in the factories and respecting the working Slavs and respect them of the soldiers those is they were able to say it's not time yet in July because we will be isolated in Petrograd what will happen to us will be what happened to the Paris Commune we need to wait a little bit and and and the fact is when you look at Rosa Luxemburg other great revolutionary at the time a cold evening in Germany things lost that argument and they paid for it with their lives because and and the Revolution because there was a Spartacus uprising which was premature and it was crushed and Luxembourg and they think were were murdered so party with root not justice it's not a tiny separate party with roots and experience is also a necessary necessary as their I really agree that Lennie came to the truth because he read Hegel Lenny's reading Hegel was very important development for the mass which makes it but Hegel said remarkably little about the Russian Revolution on encounter slight matter of truck chronology the moment they hit what I did agree about was the point made about central to Leninism is learning from the working class Lennie himself was fantastic at this I mean you can go back to Marx and so on in the commune what Marx learned from becoming but the idea of Soviets come from Lincoln came from the Russian working class in 1905 and Lenin what was great about then was he recognized in had to argue at all them some regression of some Bolsheviks to the Soviets was Oh what's this assess how we believe in the party we don't want Soviets they're getting in the way they're a nuisance who are these things Lannie learn from the working class I know we need Soviets and the party then again you see Lenny in 1917 wonderful description of Lenin when he's in hiding and gets his the meals served to him in the workers of apartment and so on the worker says you know at least they have to service decent bread and how about a fake laning talks about how I learned from this how the workers saw the situation so Lenny was magnificent at the dialectical relationship but it was absolutely central to Lenny's and central to us today and there's always new things to learn we have to learn about the question of town fascism is developing how racism is developing and so on this is carp I mean it would be nice if you could just say ok we'll do what we did to the anti-nazi League dance announcer he was magnificently all right we don't forget that the memory of the classes somebody said it's important we need that but you also need to be learning about how it's developing now and responding to that in practical lots of other things we need to learn there's a huge international huge rising of women going on which on which we learn as well as having something to teach and that I think applies this absolutely but the hard way but learn from the class and have something to say to the class you have to have the organization that facilitates that and as was said democratic centralism it's part of that building of a party as that and I'm being told to stop so that seems to be a good point Leninism is so far the best example we have of how to build a revolutionary movement a revolutionary party that will assist in and be necessary is necessary for the establishment of workers power and beginning the process of overthrowing capitalism we need to fight we need to preserve it and we need to fight for it you

Channel: SWP TV

Views: 2,374

Rating: 4.5675673 out of 5

Keywords: Marxism Festival, Marxism 2018, Socialism, SWP, Socialist Workers Party, Marxism, Leninism, Lenin, Vladimir Lenin, Bolsheviks

Id: OTbn3P_tonc

Length: 73min 46sec (4426 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 02 2018