^^^ That's not my point. The peasants WANT to dump FEUDALISM and institute capitalism in agriculture (hence ownership of land). <_<

I just said the STRUCTURAL difference: in a proper bourgeois revolution, the bourgeoisie have the balls to keep their gains. In a revolutionary-democratic revolution, the alliance of workers AND peasants have to carry out the bourgeois tasks themselves, before the alliance breaks down (socialist revolution and the DOTP, wherein the peasantry will have already been eliminated as a class thanks to industrial farming).

I was referring to the Russian bourgeoisie during the short tenure of the Provisional Government. <_<

Time to pull out the copy of The Communist Manifesto:

Quote:

Marx

--emphasis added
In a feudal mode of production, you are right; I am however talking about the capitalist mode of production.
Because we all know that the "vanguard" can't possibly be bourgeois <_<

Oh that's right, they're (admittedly!) petit-bourgeois which, as the first Marx quote points out, is openly reactionary when the proletariat becomes revolutionary.

Which essentially translates today into Leninists are revolutionary in feudal nations, and reactionary in industrial nations. This appears to be accurate based on my interactions with Leninists.

But the problem is with your example, the October "revolution", it was principally a group of Bolshevik soldiers who went to the Winter palace to arrest the Kerensky government. It was not some revolution as it is popularly depicted, it was a coup!

See A People's Tragedy : the Russian Revolution, 1891-1924 by Orlando Figes for more details on the coup.

How does this really change the 1917-1924 period from being a Jacobin dictatorship?

It's simply sophistry to say "Ah, it wasn't a Jacobin dictatorship, it was a revolutionary-democratic revolution...which just so happened to have the characteristics, material conditions, and appearance of a Jacobin dictatorship and is indistinguishable from one...but it was a revolutionary-democratic revolution!"

Frankly, while the revolution was really still going on and the "Reds" were consolidating power (the 1917-1924 period) it is more accurate to explain the Soviet Union as such. From 1926 (if I'm not mistaken, when Stalin takes over), it's more accurate to call it a state capitalism (given the conditions of a capitalist state being secured, the vanguard being composed of bourgeoisie, etc.).

(Actually, I suspect that you would adopt this view too since Engels explained the Jacobin dictatorship of France in the late 19th century as a "revolutionary-democratic dictatorship" in the Anti-Duhring.)

As I've complained before, those who disagree and attempt a refutation don't give any facts, figures, or even references to books saying otherwise! And that's phenomenally frustrating for someone to say "I refute it thus!" and walk away.

One grave note of error on Marx's part: peasants are NOT middle-class or "fractions of the middle class." They're quite poor.

Now you've really gone low, buying into capitalist propaganda on the subject of Red October! :angry: Even anarchists, as counter-revolutionary as they are, at least say "less than a revolution but more than a coup." <_<

Note the "historical revisionist" account that has come about in recent years, rejecting both your LIBERAL assertion and the Soviet caricatures. Consider the Bolshevik MAJORITY IN THE SOVIETS!

Oh, and Orlando Figes is a pro-establishment historian, like SO MANY HISTORIANS, WHO ARE PRO-ESTABLISHMENT!



EDIT: BTW, your "coup" remarks will doubtlessly illicit the "interest" of other posters, as evidenced by RedDali's entrance.

Being poor has nothing to do with whether you are reactionary or not. Look at the "Deep South" in the U$, a great deal of poor farmers there and it's one of the most reactionary places in the world.

You are making the same mistake that the cappies in the OI are making: supposing that wealth has some relation to class. It doesn't. Relation to the means of production and labor on the other hand does.

This is present in every history text on the Russian revolution, e.g. The Russian Revolution by Sheila Fitzpatrick.

Though agreed the first text I cited was more bourgeois propaganda than historical fact.

Could you elaborate this, as you have seemed to stop rather arbitrarily.

Read the edited post above, and this:

Draft Decree On The Dissolution Of The Constituent Assembly

This is unhistorical babble that is covered in the sugar-coding of anti-communism. A People's Tragedy : the Russian Revolution, 1891-1924 was actually advertised by David Horowitz, and Clinton acknowledged that it was reading material that he personally refered to on the subject of the Russian Revolution. With these figures putting this work on the pedestal of bourgeois falsification, can you really consider this a source of the utmost accountability?

The October Revolution was permeated by the events of the attempted coup of Kornilov, who actually had sided with Kerensky and the cadets; the so-called 'democratic' ministers of the Provisional Government, in order to silence the growing strength of the worker and soldier deputies within Petrograd. On the first of September, the day after the Petrograd Soviet had officially announced that Kornilov's army was demoralized and scattered to a point of defeat due to desertions and overall mutiny, a wave of support flooded the Soviet Central Executive Committe from the Urals, the Donbas, the Central Industrial region, the Ukraine, the Baltic, Central Asia, and other municipal locations that all called for the Petrograd Soviet to seize power. They received several resolutions from over 126 local Soviets demanding that this proposition be answered to. Later that day, the Petrograd Soviet officially voted to support the Bolshevik Party, and drastically outvoted the Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries. It was therefore, a democratic decision based on the worker's sentiments towards Kerensky and his government.

I don't think that we can denounce the Bolsheviks as the Jacobins. I think that their actions reflected who their class allengiances were with, and it was clearly with that of the workers.

Draft Regulations On Workers’ Control

The Salaries of High-Ranking Office Employees and Officials

I don't think any person with a distinct orientation to the bourgeois class would willingly surrender their private property, as the Bolsheviks clearly did after they seized control during the October Revolution. So I hold that it is crude determinism to paint the Bolshevik Party as the enclave of the closet-bourgeoisie due to the social origins of many top-party members.

Hammer:
Oh yes, Lenin would tell the truth if it were a coup as it's such a fantastic propaganda tool

Hell, even Fitzpatrick writes: "It may seem remarkable, under these circumstances, that the Bolsheviks' October Coup actually came off." Italics are Fitzpatrick's bold is mine. Fitzpatrick further italicizes some half a dozen mentions of the coup in the span of two pages.

(This quote was on page 63 of The Russian Revolution mind you.)

The only mentions of it being a "popular uprising" are in the propaganda written by the Bolsheviks, and it's logical they would say that!

History appears to have said that it went otherwise. As I've stated, every book I've read on the subject specifically notes that it was a coup rather than a "popular uprising".

Judging based on the material conditions of the time, it is more feasible that it was indeed a coup rather than a "popular uprising".

RedDali:
Yes, through out this entire thread, my only source is A People's Tragedy : the Russian Revolution, 1891-1924 <_<

There is actually a remarkably pro-USSR book that I am using as well, Sheila Fitzpatrick's The Russian Revolution as well as a number of others.

No, the chain of events were that Lenin while in hiding in Finland was giving the orders to prepare for an armed uprising. This was in September of 1917 he issued the order (using the Western calender).

He was moving to pre-empt any action taken by the Second Congress of the Soviets.

This is, even admitted by the pro-USSR historian Sheila Fitzpatrick, very contradictory for Lenin to do!

The tide was turning in favor of the Bolsheviks, why have an armed insurrection?

This was the point of view of the Bolsheviks Grigorii Zinoviev and Lev Kamenev. "They thought it irresponsible for the Bolsheviks to seize power by a coup, and unrealistic to think that they could hold power alone. When Zinoviev and Kamenev published these arguments under their own names in a non-Bolshevik daily newspaper )Maxim Gorky's Novaya zhizn' [sic]), Lenin's anger and frustration rose to new heights. This was understandable, since it was not only an act of defiance but also a public announcement that the Bolsheviks were secretly planning an insurrection." (Italics are Fitzpatrick's, The Russian Revolution pg. 63)

It was Lenin's decision to cease power before the congress met.

Sure, not with that attitude :P

You mean they were allegedly with much less than 20% of the population?

Just to give some perspective, in 1917 there were 184.6 million people (source), so that means that 37 million people at most were workers whereas 147.68 Million were peasants...supposing that people were either peasants or workers. Presumably there were considerably fewer workers, as we know 80% of the population were peasantry.

Think about this logically: if you were leading a revolution, would you want the 37 Million, or the 147.68 million on your side?

Fitzpatrick notes on page 62 of The Russian Revolution that the majority of the peasantry were violently opposed to the Kerensky regime.

I think it is safe to conclude that the class base for the Bolsheviks were the peasantry.

Yeah, it's propaganda.

You mean Lenin, the decendent of aristocracy, Trotsky, descendent of a wealthy farmer, and Stalin, son of a petit bourgeois, were all not influenced by this? And that their being petit bourgeois pseudo-intellectuals had no influence on them at all?

Why they're the living disproof of Marx's "Social being determines social consciousness" proposition

^^^ Engels was a capitalist, a Marx a bourgeois-turned-lumpenproletarian. :P

She is just the left-wing of the mainstream historian HEGEMONY accounts. <_<

Here's a Grade 11 lesson for you, since you prefer bourgeois "history written by victors" over Marxist ones:

http://www.sahistory.org.za/pages/classroo...sson2/unit4.htm

I refer back to Rosa Luxemburg and HER APPLICATION OF THE BRILLIANT HEGELIAN DIALECTIC TO SPONTANEITY AND ORGANIZATION. The Bolshevik revolutionary-democratic revolution of October 1917 was the perfect example of the dynamics of spontaneity AND organization at work. The July Days PROBABLY WAS an example of the Bolsheviks trying the Blanquist ORGANIZATIONAL approach. THAT FAILED. Even earlier, the SPONTANEOUS February revolution FAILED to set Russia's house in order.

It appears that every historian is a "bourgeois reactionary" then <_<

And then there is Lenin's propaganda, which obviously professes only truth

Oh so that's your basis for calling me "liberal", an 11th grade lesson plan. Solid evidence

ZOMG YOU'RE RIGHT, OBVIOUSLY IT'S THE DIALECTIC AT WORK!

Congratulations, in a paragraph you have solidly rejected materialism for dialectics (and yes, the two are intrinsically incompatible).

^^^ You've shown a complete LACK of knowledge regarding Lenin's use of the term "propaganda" <_<

http://www.britannica.com/ebc/article-23823

Bottom line: "propaganda" IS truth :P

As Luxemburg and EVERY OTHER MAJOR REVOLUTIONARY MARXIST allegedly did (by your standards)?

You remind me so much of the dwindling Karaite Jewish community and the Samaritans, who explicitly accept only a limited amount of literature as "canon," in spite of the fact that history and MATERIAL CONDITIONS relegated their anti-rabbinic stubbornness to the minority (compare with today's three or four global Jewish denominations, all rabbinic).



P.S. - Lenin was wrong on one major thing: the alleged omnipotence of Marx's ideas.

I'm not using Lenin's "sophisticated" definition of propaganda. I'm using the conventional sense of the word <_<

Every "major revolutionary" Marxist (other than Marx and Engels) I summarily reject.

Marx and Engels I don't entirely accept either. Some parts of their analysis is independent of dialectics and can be recast using "metaphysical" mathematics. (For this reason I call myself a Mathematical Marxist or a real Scientific Socialist)

Sorry that I'm radical enough to stop and think "Hey, dialectics is idealistic bullocks" <_<

I would like to establish that it is obvious the Bolsheviks would not of been able to retain control over the state power for more than a week if it was truly 'a coup'. You have to realize that all their enemies; the Mensheviks, the Socialist Revolutionaries, the Cadets, the White Guards, the Czech Legion, were all united, no matter what their aspirations were, in defeating the Soviet Republic.

Well, I basically copied and pasted from a source that wouldn't suggest that.
Timeline of 1917

If I am reading this correctly, it appears that there was than outcry for the Petrograd Soviet, which was dominated by the Bolsheviks, to seize control and overthrow the Provisional Government. This is, of course, if historical evidence still has any meaning.

Well, Zinoviev and Kamenev were incorrect in refering to it as a coup in the first place, since it was largely a reflection of revolutionary spirit that engulfed the cities after the attempted coup of Kornilov. If I may add my own source, I would refer to Ten Days That Shook The World by John Reed, as an excellent source on the events that surrounded the October Revolution. I would agree, it would of been more tasteful for the Bolsheviks to have built up a larger support base before they seized power, but it is obvious that after the attempt of Kornilov and Kerensky to set up a joint-dictatorship and slaughter the revolutionary workers of Petrograd with the might of their armies, they should not of hesitated in grabbing the helms of the state power.

Is a decree, or a legally binding command or decision, necessarily an act of spreading information in order to solidify one's position?

Darg sorry for the lateness of my reply but I've been trying to formulate quantum mechanics as a query language and it's not easy!

Well, the response by the Monarchists and other elements in the Russian society triggered a civil war lasting for years.

The Bolsheviks probably did hold power for considerably less than a week unopposed.

Quote:

Quote: No, the chain of events were that Lenin while in hiding in Finland was giving the orders to prepare for an armed uprising. This was in September of 1917 he issued the order (using the Western calender). Well, I basically copied and pasted from a source that wouldn't suggest that. Timeline of 1917 Quote: "September 1 A wave of support floods the Soviet Central Executive Committee from the Urals, the Donbas, the Central Industrial region, the Ukraine, Belorussia, Central Asia, etc. 126 local Soviets demand the Petrograd Soviet take power. The Petrograd Soviet adopts a resolution to support the Bolshevik party. The Mensheviks and SRs try to filibuster, but the resulting vote is still devastating: 279 to 115. This brings Bolshevik support to four major cities: Petrograd, Ivanovo-Voznesensk, Kronstadt, and Krasnoyarsk. The number of land seizures by the peasants increases to 958 incidents. Meanwhile, Kerensky openly declares Russia a "Republic", and arrests General Kornilov." If I am reading this correctly, it appears that there was than outcry for the Petrograd Soviet, which was dominated by the Bolsheviks, to seize control and overthrow the Provisional Government. This is, of course, if historical evidence still has any meaning.

Yeah Fitzpatrick covers the popularity of Kornilov since he was apparently tied to the unions at the local level. Kerensky's arrest of him was rather bad as it unintentionally made the Bolsheviks more popular.

According to the Marxists.org account there was the event when Lenin advocated the coup:

Quote:

Originally posted by Marxists.org+--> (Marxists.org)Lenin finishes his work The Impending Catastrophe and How To Combat It, where he presents a detailed outline of what the Bolsheviks will do to save the country from ruin. Lenin also sends a letter to the Central Committee in both Moscow and Petrograd, explaining The Bolsheviks Must Assume Power.[/b]

The latter work is rather openly advocating a violent action:

Quote:

Lenin

Quote:

@ The Bolsheviks, having obtained a majority in the Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies of both capitals, can and must take state power into their own hands.

--emphasis added

Quote:

Lenin again

This was a letter sent to the Central Committee and the Petrograd and Moscow Committees Of The R.S.D.L.P.(B.)...not "to the masses" or even the common party member of the Petrograd or the Moscow soviet mind you.

Of course, if one were to lead a coup, one would want one's own people on the job rather than some group of peasants and proletarians.
According to Mr. Reed, how many people were killed in this "revolution"?

Who were at the Winter palace: the masses or the Red Army?

If it was the former, why did they go at 2 AM rather than when sane people are awake? Unless they were coaxed into it by the Bolsheviks.

Looking back at these "decrees", they weren't even issued!

That's why they are drafts. The first one was not issued, the second one limiting the Salaries of High-Ranking Office Employees and Officials was supposedly.

Over in the Politics forum:

May Day means nothing to these mortals

For the more idealistic bunch here (yourself included), the material conditions are here already, but the guy above doesn't have the time to educate himself; hence the need for an INTERNATIONAL vanguard.



I openly profess the above "reactionary" DIALECTICAL addition, given the empirical evidence against raw spontaneity (as well as against raw Blanquist organization): The emancipation of the workers is the work of the working class themselves THROUGH their international revolutionary party avant-garde.

How ironic a dialectician is throwing around "You idealist!" as an insult

What are the material conditions then?

And if they are present, then why is it that wage slavery is still ubiquitous? Your "mighty" vanguard should have been able to lead the "sheep" to their emancipation by now if it were so.

An assertion, and a dubious one at that. An "international vanguard" would not change this fellow's "education".

There is no logical reason to suppose that a petit bourgeois vanguard would change anything.

Social Being determines Social Consciousness. Remember that? One vanguard, a million, an infinite quantity, no amount would change the social being of a fellow.

And your assertion that it would is pure idealism.

Well I'm glad you've come out finally and admitted that you treat the proletariat as little more than sheep to you...an appropriate petit bourgeois response.

The emancipation of the working class is the work of the workers...but mostly the vanguard

And what did Engels think of this? He actually made some rather interesting statements, a new one to this thread: The Program of the Blanquist Fugitives from the Paris Commune by Fred Engels

"Naturally" what you propose is simply Blanquism with moderation.

In practice what difference there is between your version of Blanquism and "primitive" Blanquism is negligible or nonexistent.

Either the workers emancipate themselves lead by workers or they don't, there is no middle ground where they "kind of" emancipate themselves but "not really".

What you are suggesting is that some small vanguard emancipates the working class as that is how it always turns out in practice. You can deny such an assessment as "primitive" or "raw" or whatever, but that's what empirically happens with the vanguard.

The emancipation of the working class is too important to leave in the hands of self-described shepherds. It is the work of the workers alone.

I must be getting to sleep, as I have a couple finals tomorrow, but I'd like to quickly point out that this form of argument is entirely illogical. You cannot realistically assert that source x is false because dumbass y and z approve of it.

That is akin to saying Nietszche is worthless because Hitler "approved" of his philosophy (in reality, of course, there is no evidence that Hitler ever read a word of Nietszche).

I certainly understand one's concerns at the prospect of a deeply critical account of the Russian revolution. It is not unlike the fiery debate which emerges at the slightest hint of a critique of Marx. Such people and such events are truly believed in by the Left at large.

ComradeRed, in response to your coup remarks, maybe you should REALLY stop focusing on that anti-soviet Constituent Assembly and focus on the soviets themselves (my original comment said "you and the bourgeois historians," but they're hopelessly pro-Assembly). syndicat, an anarchist said this in the "Workers' State in America" thread:



First the FAILED COUP attempt in July ("July Days"), then the October REVOLUTION (soviets' support), then the disbanding of the anti-soviet Constituent Assembly, and then a tragic coup (against the soviets). My opinion on this? Yes, it's a tragedy, and there are LOTS of lessons to learn from this.

Then why did the Bolsheviks lose the Constituent Assembly elections to the agrarian SRs? <_< Read more detailed information on the breakdown of Bolshevik support in the Constituent Assembly elections: their support came from the vast majority of urban centers and of soldiers in the "Western Front."