>Who has ever claimed that ideological exposure from the sidelines of the
class
>struggle is enough? Of course the Bolsheviks did take an active and leading
>part in the day to day class struggle, but they were not economists, and
they
>knew that consciousness was the key to a proletarian revolution.
Not really. What you call consciousness I regard as socialist ideology. In
point of fact, revolutions generally take place in advance of acceptance of
socialist ideology by the great majority. The common misconception of
Marxists idealists is that a decisive majority of a population will become
committed socialists (more specifically, committed to a particular
interpretation of the "Russian questions") prior to a revolution. Average
working people only make revolutions when the old system is seen as
intolerable. Although the Cuban revolution is widely regarded as being
vastly inferior to the Russian revolution in terms of the level of
consciousness, it is doubtful that there is much difference between the
two. Keep in mind that overwhelming majority of the participants in 1917
were peasants who sought an end to the war and land reform, you can even
argue that more Cubans were ideologically committed to socialism in 1959.
>This is why
>while actively fighting and organizing wherever the masses and the working
class
>in particular were and fought the Bolsheviks led an ideological struggle
against
>the misleaders and/or all other political forces. You however seem to
think that
>taking part in ongoing class struggles will lead to a revolution (we are
>talking here about a socialist revolution!) by itself. This is the kind of
>spontaneism which Lenin always and ardently fought against. Already in
1905 he
>wrote in "The Reorganization of the Party" (LW Vol.10, p.32): "The working
class
>is instinctively, spontaneously Social Democratic, and more than ten years
of
>work put in by Social Democracy has done a great deal t o t r a n s f o
r m
>t h i s s p o n t a n e i t y i n t o c o n s c i o u s n e s s." I don't
>know how much Lenin took part in demonstrations or strikes when in
Switzerland,
>but I know that he wrote lots of polemics. What is if not outright
idealist so
>at least mechanical materialist ans metaphysical in reality is to neatly
>separate thinking from 'the living class struggle'. Ever heard about
dialectics?
>
>A.Holberg
Mr. Holberg, I have never read anything in your posts except this kind of
abstract theorizing. Lenin most certainly did not write and think this way.
When you do descend into the concrete, it is to write truly reactionary
garbage like this:
"On the other hand we might argue that since there is such a lot of money
in Germany (albeit not in the right hands) this country should offer
medical help without thinking about the costs. If however the costs are an
important argument the point that over 50% of those who don't know the
language sufficiently die soon after the transplantation seems to be
important. The article does not say what has happened to the ones who had
transplantation in the US and did not speak English. If it was proved that
the argument of the hospital is not true the discussion ought to begin
anew. Up to that point however I would reject the racism-'argument' (not
that racism isn't widespread in German society, but it is also used as a
cheap argument by by a certain number of foreigners who are treated like
they are because OF THEIR VERY PERSONAL FAULTS), let alone the
'Nazi'-accusation. We should not let devaluate the notion of 'racism' or
'enemity towards foreigners'."
Louis Proyect
The Marxism mailing-list: http://www.marxmail.org
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