A few questions.
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How do you justify Lenin’s initial repression of the general working class movement immediately after the revolution,
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How do you justify Trotsky’s subsequent opportunism – criticizing Stalin for his policies which were similar to Lenin’s, yet also being an apologist for working-class repression before Stalin’s ascension?
Also…
Understanding that every Leninist revolution has resulted in absolute tyranny and a restoration of capitalism, why do you still stick to the obsolete ideas of the past? Now, I understand there were so-called “external conditions” that intensified domestic tyranny and such, but don’t you think that an organization based on an elite group of “professional revolutionaries” (What is to be Done?) that erect themselves over the people – and thus distance themselves and open themselves up to authority, leadership and privilege – would eventually lead to a command/obey state, with no material conditions that would necessarrily encourage the “withering away of the state,” and, basically, a restoration “of the old crap”?
Also, on Lenin’s attacks on Eduard Berstein; how can Lenin actually criticize Bernstein for “distorting Marxism” (The State and Revolution) while Lenin does the same exact thing by encouraging such an elite group of forces? Marx was very much against vanguards and such…isn’t Lenin, thus, “distorting Marxism” in the same way that Bernstein “distorted Marxism” by encouraging reforms instead of revolution?
For the Maoists:
Isn’t the emphasis on “agrarian revolution” and the peasantry simply a means to secure power for the party, especially since these back-woods peasants have very little education and thus would be very easy to “tame” and coerce into a command/obey relationship, thus laying even a stronger foundation for the inevitable tyranny in the future?
On a final note, one that doesn’t necessarily have to do with Lenin:
What is the purpose of “dialectics” in Marxist theory, considering that the idea of “historical materialism” can stand alone with the reliance of “dialectical reasoning”?
Just some thoughts.