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from the American Left History blog (2007) :</strong>
BOOK REVIEW
‘LEFT-WING’ COMMUNISM-AN
INFANTILE DISORDER, V.I. LENIN, UNIVERSITY PRESS OF THE PACIFIC, CALIFORNIA,
2001
Another underlying premise,
developed by the Leninists as part of their opposition to the imperialist First
World War, was the need for a new revolutionary labor international to replace
the compromised and moribund Socialist International (also known as the Second
International) which had turned out to be useless as an instrument for
revolution or even of opposition to the European war. The Bolsheviks took that
step after seizing power and established the Communist International (also
known as the Comintern or Third International) in 1919. As part of the process
of arming that international with a revolutionary strategy (and practice) Lenin
produced this polemic to address certain confusions, some willful, that had
arisen in the European left and also attempted to instill some of the
hard-learned lessons of the Russian revolutionary experience in them.
The Russian Revolution and
after it the Comintern in the early heroic days, for the most part, drew the
best and most militant layers of the working class and radical intellectuals to
their defense. However, that is not the same as drawing experienced Bolsheviks
to that defense. Many militants were anti-parliamentarian or anti-electoral in
principle after the sorry experiences with the European social democracy.
Others wanted to emulate the old heroic days of the Bolshevik underground party
or create a minority, exclusive conspiratorial party. Still others wanted to
abandon the reformist bureaucratically-led trade unions to their then current
leaderships, and so on. Lenin’s
polemic, and it nothing but a flat-out polemic against all kinds of
misconceptions of the Bolshevik experience, cut across these erroneous ideas
like a knife. His literary style may not appeal to today’s audience but the
political message still has considerable application today. At the time that it
was written no less a figure than James P. Cannon, a central leader of the
American Communist Party, credited the pamphlet
with straightening out that badly confused movement (Indeed, it seems
every possible political problem Lenin argued against in that pamphlet had some
following in the American Party-in triplicate!). That alone makes it worth a
look at.
I would like to highlight one point made by Lenin that has currency for leftists today, particularly American leftists. At the time it was written many (most) of the communist organizations adhering to the Comintern were little more than propaganda groups (including the American Party). Lenin suggested one of the ways to break out of that isolation was a tactic of critical support to the still large and influential social democratic organizations at election time. In his apt expression- to support those organizations "like a rope supports a hanging man".
However, as part of my
political experiences in America around
election time I have run into any number of ‘socialists’ and ‘communists’ who
have turned Lenin’s concept on its head.
How? By arguing that militants needed to ‘critically support’ the Democratic
Party (who else, right?) as an application of the Leninist criterion for
critical support. No, a thousand times no. Lenin’s specific example was the
reformist British Labor Party, a party at that time (and to a lesser extent
today) solidly based on the trade unions- organizations of the working class
and no other. The Democratic Party in America was then, is now, and will always
be a capitalist party. Yes, the labor bureaucrats and ordinary workers support
it, finance it, drool over it but in no way is it a labor party. That is the
class difference which even sincere militants have broken their teeth on for at
least the last seventy years. And that, dear reader, is another reason why it
worthwhile to take a peek at this book.
****************V. I. Lenin
Appeal To The International Proletariat[1]
Written: 2 August, 1921
First Published: Pravda No. 172, August 6, 1921; Published according to the Pravda text collated with the manuscript
Source: Lenin’s Collected Works, 1st English Edition, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1965, Volume 32, page 502
Translated: Yuri Sdobnikov
Transcription\HTML Markup:David Walters & R. Cymbala
Copyleft: V. I. Lenin Internet Archive (www.marx.org) 2002. Permission is granted to copy and/or distribute this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License
First Published: Pravda No. 172, August 6, 1921; Published according to the Pravda text collated with the manuscript
Source: Lenin’s Collected Works, 1st English Edition, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1965, Volume 32, page 502
Translated: Yuri Sdobnikov
Transcription\HTML Markup:David Walters & R. Cymbala
Copyleft: V. I. Lenin Internet Archive (www.marx.org) 2002. Permission is granted to copy and/or distribute this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License
Several gubernias in Russia have been hit by a famine whose proportions are apparently only slightly less than those of the 1891 calamity.
It is the painful aftermath of Russia’s backwardness and of seven years of war, first, the imperialist, and then, the Civil War, which was forced upon the workers and peasants by the landowners and capitalists of all countries.We need help. The Soviet Republic of workers and peasants expects this help from the working people, the industrial workers and the small farmers.
The mass of both the former and the latter are themselves oppressed by capitalism and imperialism everywhere, but we are convinced that they will respond to our appeal, despite their own hard condition caused by unemployment and the rising cost of living.
Those who have suffered from capitalist oppression all their lives will understand the position of the workers and peasants of Russia, they will grasp or, guided by the instinct of working and exploited people, will sense the need of helping the Soviet Republic, whose lot it was to be the first to undertake the hard but gratifying task of overthrowing capitalism. That is why the capitalists of all countries are revenging themselves upon the Soviet Republic; that is why they are planning a fresh campaign, intervention, and counter-revolutionary conspiracies against it.
All the greater, we trust, will be the vigour and the self-sacrifice with which the workers and the small labouring farmers of all countries will help us.
N. Lenin
August 2, 1921
Endnotes
[1] Lenin’s Appeal to the International Proletariat in connection with the famine which hit almost 33 million people in the Volga area and South Ukraine met with a broad response among the working people of all countries. An “Ad hoc Foreign Committee for Assistance to Russia” was set up on the initiative of the Comintern in August 1921. French revolutionary trade unions called on the workers to contribute a day’s earnings for the famine stricken population of Russia. Henri Barbusse and Anatole France played an active part in organising assistance, and the latter contributed to the fund the Nobel Prize he was awarded in 1921. About one million francs were collected in France. Czechoslovakia contributed 7,5 million korunas in cash and 2 million korunas’ worth of food; the German Communist Part collected 1.3 million marks in cash and I million marks’ worth of food; Dutch Communists collected 100,000 guilders; the Italians, about 1 million liras; the Norwegians, 100,000 krones; the Austrians, 3 million krones; the Spaniards, 50,000 marks; the Poles, 9 million marks; the Danes, 500,000 marks, etc. By December 20, 1921, Communist organisations had bought 312,000 poods of food and collected 1 million gold rubles. The organisations of the Amsterdam International bought 85,625 poods of food and collected 485,000 gold rubles.
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