Can we ever escape Leninism?

Noa, do you believe that the Bolsheviks would have closed down the Constituent Assembly on the grounds you cite if they had achieved a majority?

Lenin offers reasons here
https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1919/dec/16.htm
He preferred the "dictatorship of the proletariat" to exercise political power...and we know that phrase for him meant "the dictatorship of the party".

There is no doubt that bourgeoise democracy has limits but it is suffice according to the the SPGB when used in a revolutionary manner by the electorate.

I'm not sure we can describe the MRC as a lily-white reflection of a coalition of parties.
"The MRC was set up on the basis of defending Petrograd because it was rumoured of another potential Kornilov plot or an imminent invading German army. It was not set up on the basis that it would overthrow the provisional government."

"We [the Bolsheviks] took it on ourselves to revise the order sending the troops to the front, and so we disguised the actual fact of the insurrection of the Petrograd garrison under the tradition and precedents and technique of the constitutional duplication of authority” - Trotsky - Lessons of October

(Since Noa insists upon proper crediting I stole this from comments on another Libcom thread
https://libcom.org/forums/theory/marxist-lenin-11122009?page=1#comment-366631)

Martov put forward a resolution demanding that the Bolsheviks form a coalition government with other left-wing parties. The resolution was about to receive near complete endorsement from the soviet representatives thus showing that the representatives in the soviet did NOT believe in all power to the Bolsheviks but then the majority of SR and Menshevik delegates inadvisedly left the congress in protest over the Bolshevik coup giving the Bolsheviks a majority of those who remained.

Tom, interesting questions. Too many to answer adequately

The former i think has unquestioningly been achieved...there is the technological potential to provide abundance...just consider the amount of waste and conspicuous consumption.
In the context of the Russian Revolution, [i]globally[/i] it was most likely had already been achieved back then but not in Russia so indeed as argued at the time a European revolution required to be accomplished for the Russian Revolution to survive and thrive.
So we do have the material conditions for socialism. As for the second part of your question, it is obvious no-body on Libcom or in the socialist/anarchist movement can answer. The SPGB will reply that it will be reflected in the votes at the ballot box- Engels thermometer of consciousness. And we all are aware at the dismal polling figures not only of the SPGB but even the reformist Left.

The SPGB does not claim that is solely through its educational style propaganda that workers will achieve socialist consciousness but that being thinking animals, people will come to the realisation that there is an alternative and a solution to the hardships of capitalism and this will be because of the influence of class struggle resulting in such conclusions.

But to totally dismiss the importance of ideas is mistaken. Class struggle without any clear understanding of where you are going is simply committing oneself to a never-ending treadmill. We come to a socialist view of the world by interacting directly or indirectly with others, our fellow-workers, exchanging ideas with them. I see the SPGB and yes Libcom also as a catalyst in the process of changing consciousness. Mass suffering and misery does not dictate that we must become socialist. We could just as easily become followers of some populist demagogue. Paul Mattick said "“There is no evidence that the last hundred years of labour strife have led to the revolutionizing of the working class in the sense of a growing willingness to do away with the capitalist system"

The search for why socialist consciousness arises is The Holy Grail. The strength of the SPGB is that even if our views are mistaken our principles defy them being imposed upon others unwillingly. The validity of the SPGB's ideas will either be accepted or rejected by discussion and debate. The SPGB are not going to become entryists or a vanguard that all must follow and then take the workers to where they do not want to go. We will plod onwards until members find a new and better road to a new society...Hopefully, we can also take what is positive from other revolutionaries and incorporate their ideas...political plagiarism

I think you express the danger we face well, we face "a "leninist loop" (or another aspect the SPGB describes "the reformist roundabout")

Claimed shortcuts keep returning, sometimes with different language but with the same flawed reasoning. Once more to address the topic title, it is going to be a complicated business to escape the consequences of leninism.

Yes, for Lenin's argument there is that the peasants always vacillate, so achieving a majority of peasants at one moment can be quickly lost again, they are not won "once and for all". Perhaps it would just have existed for some months longer, eg until the Brest-Litovsk treaty:

Lenin shows that the Bolsheviks did have the majority of the proletariat (as even Kautsky acknowledged), though not yet of the whole working people. And they won the majority of the working people with the decree on land (which evidently the rightwing SR in the CA refused to ratify):

His point is that working people (– not to be confused with the proletariat as such, but rather refers to the petty-bourgeoisie) could not be won over under the yoke of bourgeois rule, with their influence on the consciousness of the peasants.

This applies also to advanced capitalist countries:

That's Lenin's sense of "dictatorship of the proletariat".

http://www.persee.fr/doc/cmr_0008-0160_1985_num_26_3_2051
This explains the Martov position and to paraphrase, that even though the CA could not reflect the proletariat because they simply weren't the in the majority in Russia, delegates from the peasants nevertheless stood for a democratic republic, political liberties and land reform. Martov describes the soviet's power as imaginary and trusted that the CA could offer a real expression of the people's will. The basic principles it accepted would form the foundations of democracy in Russia.

As for the vacillation of the peasantry, i think the industrial working class and its skilled elements share the same fault. Events such as waves of factory strikes show that the Bolsheviks themselves were often rejected. That the Bolsheviks retained the support of the majority of the working class is debatable and Trotskyists to avoid that conclusion often argue that the factory workers were re-constituted by an influx of peasantry.

But once again to return to this topic title, it seems we cannot escape the consequences of Leninism and the Bolshevik Party since it appears that experience in conditions and circumstances very different - vastly different - from today are used to advocate political approaches that endorses the concept of minority revolution, dismissing the majorities capacity to understand and desire and strive for a social revolution.

There's still a large part of the population that is petty-bourgeois today in the advanced capitalist countries (or are Tory-voters all just still unenlightened proletarians?). Lenin is not dismissing the proletariat's "capacity to understand and desire and strive for a social revolution", but he is pointing to the difficulty due to their isolation, etc. of convincing the petty-bourgeois prior to the dictatorship of the proletariat of abolishing capitalism (and the task of the DotP is to practically win the petty-bourgeois, ie they see with their own eyes that it benefits them).

The absorption of the petty-bourgeois businesses into non-market activity (or their "elimination" as a class) is part and parcel of communisation.

Tom Henry, it's hard to tell whether or not you're being willfully obtuse in order to score points.

It's clear to me that when Noa Rodman made that post, he was saying that it is because the petty-bourgeois are petty bourgeois (with their particular class interests) that they are Tory voters; not the other way around, as you erroneously attributed to Noa. The response should have made that clear--the "elimination" of the petty-bourgeois is their "absorption...into non-market activity". The Kautsky quote Noa posted also talks about how the proletariat, in the position of a new ruling class, relates to the other classes and their interests--namely, in that the proletariat has to take possession of their property for the whole. Does that sound like Noa Rodman is taking the position that the petty-bourgeois are defined by the way they vote?

it looks like Noa was saying all troy voters are petty-bourgeois which is not true, obviously petty-bourgeois are more likely to vote tory, but they probly still get the majoritly of there votes from the working class

I was implying that since not all Tory-voters are proletarians, ie a significant part of them are p-b. Significant enough to constitute their main basis, I dare say, without looking into detailed elections analysis.

But to be precise on the point at hand, we'd have to look directly at economic figures about small business owners, professionals, etc. in the population vis-a-vis the proletarians. It would be interesting to find out.

Not changing what I said. Lenin's argument in the text ajj linked is about winning over the pb and the difficulty of winning them over prior to the seizure/smashing of state power. They always vacillate, and they opportunistically will be won over when they see the success of the revolution/benefit to them.

Is it simply the petty-bourgoisie that endorse the Tories?

Should we also subscribe to the labour aristocracy explanation of political "backwardness", touched upon briefly by Engels but expanded by Lenin?

(As an aside, those who care to investigate "Red Clydeside" will find that much of the industrial disputes was about demarcation by the bowler-hatted skilled engineers against the "lower-status" cap-wearing labourers.)

I find that uneven development of class/socialist consciousness arguments tend to lead to the advocacy of minority action.

I think one issue with Lenin was all the resources required to impose the will of the Bolshevik Party upon an unwilling populace. Whereas you can make people do what they do not wish to do, you cannot make them adopt a set of social relations which require their voluntary co-operation if they do not voluntarily co-operate.

The SPGB cannot envisage a minority-led revolution with an active minority leading simply discontented but not socialist-minded workers as being a successful policy. Leninism views the working class as playing a subordinate, following role to the Party. The master-and-servant mentality is imbued within the worker. Leftist propaganda offering leadership adds to the impression that we are an inferior being who are incapable of thinking, organising and acting.

Those of us on Libcom should not forget the obvious fact that the working class does not yet want socialism, but we also must remember, as members of the working class, we have reacted to capitalism by opposing it. There is nothing remarkable about any of us on Libcom as individuals, so it cannot be a hopeless task to set about changing the ideas of our fellow-workers - especially in addition to our persuasion, learn from their own experience of capitalism. As activists, we must develop the desire for socialism and prepare an organisation to give expression to that desire. Socialism can only be built by socialists. We cannot establish socialism and then create socialists.

Did the Bolsheviks desire the working class to control its own destiny or did they simply use the working class as stepping stones to political power to implement a totally different agenda from one of workers self-management? Using hindsight, many early supporters of the Bolsheviks such as Pannekoek re-evaluated the role of them and grew critical. For me, as i said previously, there were cross-roads and choices to be made and different roads to travelled along. Some will defend the turnings that Lenin took, but let's ask ourselves what was the destination ended up at and how much of that was down to Lenin's misreading of his road-map?

I wonder if I could write a post like Tom Henry does.

I beg your pardon, Tom, but are you saying that Tory conservatism has nothing to do with the p-b? There are distinct problems with not understand the underlying material and class basis of political groupings and ideology, the most extreme one being that class struggle is reduced to nothing more than identity politics. Your saying that the p-b are mutually exclusive from Tory voters suggests that you care more about the class identity of particular persons than their political acts and class relations. But perhaps I am misunderstanding you.

But, thinking of Tom Henry's continued "misunderstanding" about the p-b and their political interests...I will stop there.

May I suggest to ajj that the relationship of class, (and indeed the hierarchical divisions within classes), based on the changing capitalist division of labour, and the historical changes in class struggle and class awareness (including consideration of alternatives to capitalism) are a little more complex than they suggest, and at least deserving of some investigation before resolving that it is a simple question of socialists convincing the 'majority of people' to become conscious socialists - assuming that is we agree that there is a relationship between the two. There may be issues for socialists of analysis, understanding, organisation and strategy worth considering without that inevitably leading to what has been described here as 'Leninist' style vanguardism.

Some Marxist, based on the 1961 census in Britain, concluded as follows:

More recently Class in Contemporary Britain (Ken Roberts, 2011) claims (p. 122):

Don't know how he got those figures.

A 2013 analysis (based on 2011 survey), though the categories are not really Marxist: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_British_Class_Survey

and the remaining 63% are workers.

If we just accept those figures for a moment (and Britain is perhaps an exception – such figures could be realistic in other countries), that means that an extreme scenario is possible where the majority of the workers is socialist (eg the socialist workers could be 32% of total population), but they could face compact bourgeoisie+petit-bourgeosie classes totally opposed to socialism, i.e. 37%. So even if the majority of workers is socialist, they would still be a minority in the population. But the Marxist argument is that the working class due to its position in the economy can exert power even beyond its number.

I can't urge enough that people throwing out the German agent and coup narratives pick up Rex Wade's generally recognized thorough treatment of 1917 from February through Oct. If you want a more in depth look at bolsheviks, try Rabinowich.

You really have to confront the contemporary historiagraphy, unless you're happy in a shamelessly partisan bubble. And you owe it to your self to consider the question from all sides. I was like that in the past; just taking the 'anarchist' line. Not a good look.

I agree, Spikey, that things are not all black and white and class relationships and identity changes

For instance, who would have imagined in this era of falling real wages, cuts in conditions, it would be the junior doctors strike action last year that headed the strike statistics? 40% of the total days lost in 2016.

Or that the next possible pending wave of strike action will be the teachers.

I think Marx talked about the "petty bourgeoisie" are increasingly reduced to the ranks of the proletariat and hasn't that been the trend.

I'm not so sure that we can now distinguish a distinct middle-class from the working class. Even shop-keepers are disappearing. But perhaps there is a return to the independent artisan who owned his or her tools and did not rely on an employer. If there is, i think rather than being totally independent, he or she are involved in co-operatives for the sheer survival.

Nor do i think those in Uber-type jobs are somehow transported to the middle class by the terms of their contract. I can't see a class difference between a Royal Mail-employed Parcel Force driver and someone deemed to be self-employed and sub-contracted to deliver Parcel Force parcels.

I do understand, however, the need to re-vitalise the union movement to somehow organise those type of workers and it isn't easy just as it isn't to organise those in the retail industry or in the hospitality business. Isolated as these workers may be they are still workers.

I have never been surprised by those in the worse jobs vote for their masters. The rural workers - not peasants but perhaps Noa would say they retain a peasant-mentality - still vote the way of the local laird wishes them to. Cast our mind back to that reactionary Countryside Alliance movement.

When i first got politically active, here in Scotland there was the theatre group, 7:84. I still use it as the figure. Sociologists can spend all their time with their surveys, but i still agree with Shelley ...they are the few and we are the many...a truism that even Corbyn now regularly repeats.

A couple of points:

Hegel's dialectic begins from the standpoint of absolute knowledge, in which the separation between a subject and it's object have been sublated. This absolute knowledge then takes up the first categories that appear immediately before it a 'Being' which is pure and empty, and it's purity and emptiness is identical to, and passes over into 'Nothing'. This passing of Being into Nothing and Nothing into Being, passing away and coming to be, is Becoming. From there we move through a smorgasbord of categories, Existence, Something, Quality, Being-for-itself, Quantity, Measure, Essence etc. The initial result of the movement of the 'objective logic' is 'Substance', the mode of which is necessity, but this substance passes over into the Concept or Notion, the mode of which is freedom, and so the truth of necessity is revealed to be freedom.

Hegel had already related his dialectic to history himself. He tells us that history is the history of 'Spirit', realising it's truth, that truth being freedom. History then divides itself up into the 'Oriental' period in which 'One is free', the Greco-Roman in which 'Some are free', and the Christian-Germanic in which all men are considered free by nature. Freedom of course for Hegel is not something abstract, but has to be realised concretely in the form of the political state. Specifically, Hegel saw history reaching it's end in the Prussian reform movement.

Marx does not begin from a standpoint of 'absolute knowledge', but from the commodity as the contradictory unity of use-value and value, which is a historically specific form of the product of social labour, implying a definite and historically specific form of production relations. The analysis of the value-form develops the concept of money, which is further analysed in it's three moments of measure of value, medium of exchange and universal form of wealth. In the latter form money becomes the goal of exchange, and we get the circuit M-C-M, which forms the turning point from which we pass from the sphere of exchange to that of production, where we discover the origins of surplus-value in the fact that human labour-power has become a commodity.

He does not pretend to give us the kind of knowledge that Hegel gives us, of God as he is before the creation of the world, or of the workings of divine providence in history. He analyses the social relationships of capitalist society. And of course he does it 'dialectically'. But this can't be understood in the simple sense of applying Hegel's logic to history in the same way we might apply the rules of formal logic to a propositional statement or series of statements regardless of it's content.

The distinction between content and form ultimately boils down to a form of subject/object separation, which is already presumed null at the start of the Logic. This is a point which Hegel emphasises, the logic he advances is not a form which can be indiscriminately applied to any content, it arises from the nature of the content itself. It is the content, thought, in it's own movement and activity.

Marx specifically criticises Hegel in his critique of the Philosophy of Right, for not developing the nature of the state as such, but rather trying to find the features of the existing social system in Prussia which fit neatly into the structure of his Logic. But this calls into question Hegel's entire project as such. Marx is just as much a critic of Hegel as his student.

Also, Hegel was in some senses a product of the enlightenment. But his thought also contains a lot of the concerns of romanticism and the reaction against the enlightenment. Whatever worldview you hold in contemporary society is bound to hold some relation to enlightenment thinking, that in itself invalidates nothing about Marxism.

But Marx did give an explanation of why it was possible for revolutionaries to foresee the end of capitalism - the development of the working-class movement. As much as capital tries to make itself into something universal, it can never quite do this, it always has wage-labour as it's presupposition, and hence it carries within itself it's own negation.

The idea that, because we are in a capitalist society, we can't properly think outside it, and so all our thoughts about it will somehow be 'tainted', is something that could just as easily be turned against any revolutionary movement, even anarchism. Don't forget that anarchist thought itself has strong roots in the enlightenment tradition.

Final thought - you admit that the categories of the formal and real subsumption of labour under capital are useful. But these categories are developed by Marx in the course of discussing relative surplus-value, which is built on the concept of surplus-value, which is built on the concept of value itself. None of these can be properly separated out from the others.

The real subsumption of labour under capital is the development of a specific mode of technology - the factory system - which is only conceivable within the context of capitalist productions, and which shuts the door forever on any imagined return to small scale artisan production. It has nothing to do with 'consciousness' as such, although one result of it may be that capitalist social relations begin to appear more as 'inevitable' to those caught within it's trap.

But to repeat myself, this appearance of inevitably is always a charade. Capitalism is a universalising force, but it can never be a true universal, because it always carries within itself it's own negation - the proletariat. The labour process is always at once a concrete labour process and a valorisation process. The contradiction between these two aspects brings about crisis, social upheaval, and the development of the revolutionary workers movement. Granted that the workers' movement has not yet overthrown capitalism, there is still no need to fall back into an absolute pessimism.

The survey clearly defined 63% as workers, so a majority.

And all it takes to get elected is 51%, though with a low turn out it could be much less. Would it not be undemocratic if the SPGB were voted into office on a low turn out? In the case of the Greek system, bonus seats go to the winner (eg Syriza), which actually the Weekly Worker made a point of to advice against Syriza taking power.

As you say, it's a truism that the proletariat is the majority. But it's not actually the 99% (though that does sound better than; "we're the 63%").

I said let's take the figures of the survey for granted for a moment, in order to make my point that we still can face the "Leninist problem" of a large part of the population being pb, if not in Britain than in some other countries.

But to turn to your point about Uber drivers or sub-contractors: that criticism does not apply to the survey. The SPGB gave it a short review here (also comment here).

The category of 'established middle class' comprises 25%:

We can all agree that this includes a lot of proletarians. But nevertheless "a majority of their members work in the professions or management".

And just to add that at certain times and industries it has been a useful capitalist strategy to deepen the hierarchy of management control giving those lower in the hierarchy some management and supervision duties and perks as a means of weakening collective class solidarity when disputes arise though not always effective when the collective stakes were high enough.

The general election in 2015 had a voter turnout of 66%, which is a pretty typical turnout in the political climate of the last 20 years or so. The Tories share of that vote was 37%. By my reckoning, that means they won the election with less than a quarter of the electorate casting a vote for them.

btw, the old stupid misunderstanding about "professional" vanguardism: what Lenin meant is an organisation of full-time devoted revolutionaries, not an organisation of middle class intellectuals, professors, lawyers, etc. who are engaged with socialism as amateur hobbyists.

For all the SPGB's "middle-class baiting" of Leninists (and academics, sociologists), I bet far more of their members are middle class than in any of the Leninist groups.

Echoing Noa, the only way to not have a movement dominated by the middle class (who have the bread to 'do activism' however malfeasant in their off time) is to pay and democratically subordinate bureaucrats and organizers recruited from the ranks of the working class systematically.

The contemporary left (at least in the U.S.) answers the bureaucracy in a backwards way; e.g. we can't risk a bureaucratic take over our organization, IF WE HAVE NO MERITABLE ORGANIZATION IN THE FIRST PLACE!