Lenin's Left Wing Communism, An Infantile Disorder

[RedFlag32]

dangeresque said:

Maybe this sounds like a stupid question, but sevearl times he says he uses the phrase internationalism 'in the narrowest sense'. Does anyone know what that means?

I thought he was refering to the inevitability of "internationalism" in relation to revolution/communism when he used that term. It was like he was tryng to make us not presume he believed backward Russia had anything in common with the "international" community economically and socially.

Am i even close?

[quirk]

I think maybe its time to move on to the next section if everyone agrees. When does it have to be read for. I think a week is maybe a bit to long.

[dangeresque]

quirk said:

I think maybe its time to move on to the next section if everyone agrees. When does it have to be read for. I think a week is maybe a bit to long.

yeah, sounds great to me. we need to decide how much to read, and I agree it should be less time to read.

you're probably right about that, redflag!

[quirk]

I'd say read the next two chapters by the weekend. They are a bit longer but still quite short. Or even one of them by the weekend and the other by next tuesday. I think we need to keep this thing flowing rather than having a one week gap between discussions.

[dangeresque]

alrite, so saturday we discuss the next two chapters. I'm down with that, what do the rest of you think?

[RedFlag32]

Ok seems like this is the way to go,i might have ti disconnect my pc this week so i may not be around,hopefully caoimhain or someone can post the articles if im missing,but i should be around in time. I hope! So we can read the next two chapters by Saturday and start discussing thm then?

[RedFlag32]

Section3www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/lwc/ch03.htm

Section4
www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/lwc/ch04.htm

[Stallit 2 de Halfo]

sorry guys for not having been here to participate in the discussion. Ill be open for he next time round when it occurs.

The discussion has been excellent btw

[RedFlag32]

Still wondering what people thought of the second section,there are no time restrictions on this by the way folks so ill just leave it up and when you get time to read it let us know what you think.

[dangeresque]

redflag32 said:

Still wondering what people thought of the second section,there are no time restrictions on this by the way folks so ill just leave it up and when you get time to read it let us know what you think.

I'll get into it today

[RedFlag32]

dangeresque said:

redflag32 said:

Still wondering what people thought of the second section,there are no time restrictions on this by the way folks so ill just leave it up and when you get time to read it let us know what you think.

I'll get into it today

Theres no panic mate,in your own time.

[dangeresque]

Len:

The years of revolution (1905-07). All classes came out into the open. All programmatical and tactical views were tested by the action of the masses. In its extent and acuteness, the strike struggle had no parallel anywhere in the world. The economic strike developed into a political strike, and the latter into insurrection. The relations between the proletariat, as the leader, and the vacillating and unstable peasantry, as the led, were tested in practice. The Soviet form of organisation came into being in the spontaneous development of the struggle. The controversies of that period over the significance of the Soviets anticipated the great struggle of 1917-20. The alternation of parliamentary and non-parliamentary forms of struggle, of the tactics of boycotting parliament and that of participating in parliament, of legal and illegal forms of struggle, and likewise their interrelations and connections—all this was marked by an extraordinary wealth of content. As for teaching the fundamentals of political science to masses and leaders, to classes and parties alike, each month of this period was equivalent to an entire year of "peaceful" and "constitutional" development. Without the "dress rehearsal" of 1905, the victory of the October Revolution in 1917 would have been impossible.

I think this information is important to digest. Basically the Bolsheviks analysed whether electoral tactics, etc were effective or not in each context, and avoiding creating principles of abstentionism or electoralism. Brillaint approach.

The years of reaction (1907-10). Tsarism was victorious. All the revolutionary and opposition parties were smashed. Depression’ demoralisation, splits, discord, defection, and pornography took the place of politics. There was an ever greater drift towards philosophical idealism; mysticism became the garb of counter-revolutionary sentiments. At the same time, however, it was this great defeat that taught the revolutionary parties and the revolutionary class a real and very useful lesson, a lesson in historical dialectics, a lesson in an understanding of the political struggle, and in the art and science of waging that struggle. It is at moments of need that one learns who one’s friends are. Defeated armies learn their lesson.

More invaluable lessons learned from bitter experience. I think that, "mysticism became the garb of counter-revolutionary sentiments" applies to today quite a bit as well.

They were learning how to attack. Now they had to realise that such knowledge must be supplemented with the knowledge of how to retreat in good order. They had to realise—and it is from bitter experience that the revolutionary class learns to realise this—that victory is impossible unless one has learned how to attack and retreat properly.

This is my second time reading this text, and imo this passage is one of the most important in the entire work. This is something republicans need to understand completely. Too often we've either fallen into the trap of demanding complete victory or completely giving up and going over to the enemy's side as SF have done.

Another important passage in part 4 dealt with correct compromises. I think that was explained well, that basicaly it has to be dealt with case by case and no neat answer or formula is available.

I"d love to hear from other comrades and what they took from these chapters. They're very short so give em a go.