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Markin comment from the
American Left History blog (2007) :
BOOK REVIEW
‘LEFT-WING’ COMMUNISM-AN
INFANTILE DISORDER, V.I. LENIN, UNIVERSITY PRESS OF THE PACIFIC, CALIFORNIA,
2001
An underlying premise of the
Lenin-led Bolshevik Revolution in Russia in 1917 was that success there would
be the first episode in a world-wide socialist revolution. While a specific
timetable was not placed on the order of the day the early Bolshevik leaders,
principally Lenin and Trotsky, both assumed that those events would occur in
the immediate post-World War I period, or shortly thereafter. Alas, such was
not the case, although not from lack of trying on the part of an
internationalist-minded section of the Bolshevik leadership.
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.
mmunist
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.
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