Comments on: Burning Questions of Our Movement http://thethirdestate.net/2009/03/burning-questions-of-our-movement/ What Is The Third Estate? Everything. What Has It Been Until Now In The Political Order? Nothing. What Does It Want To Be? Something. Wed, 08 Feb 2012 20:19:31 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1.1 By: Ben http://thethirdestate.net/2009/03/burning-questions-of-our-movement/comment-page-1/#comment-106 Ben Thu, 12 Mar 2009 15:14:36 +0000 http://thethirdestate.net/?p=304#comment-106 WITBD is probably one of the best texts Lenin ever wrote. As the writer says, it does not sanction elitism in any form, but merely repeats orthodox Marxist arguments on the need for the working class to organise itself into a revolutionary party around a revolutionary programme. "Without revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement" etc etc Indeed, Lenin quite explicitly locates himself in the tradition of Continental Social Democracy with this text, approvingly quoting Karl Kautsky on the tasks of Marxists to: "imbue the proletariat (literally: saturate the proletariat) with the consciousness of its position and the consciousness of its task. There would be no need for this if consciousness arose of itself from the class struggle." I think where Kautsky and Lenin are quite correct to highlight scientific socialism as being a product of the intelligentsia (ie people with time to think and write) they are both off the mark in that Marx and Engels could not have formulated their programmatic world outlook without their involvement in the workers' movement. In his "three component sources of Marxism" Lenin mentions German philosophy, English (British?) political economy and French utopian socialism. The one he obviously omits is Chartism and its influence on the Marx-Engels team. The best book written on WITBD is by Lars T Lih, and well worth a read in terms of understanding how Lenin's text revolved around struggling for a party along the lines of a mass, democratic Marxist party with factions and open dissent etc along the lines of the SPD. It is to this history that the left must return if it is to advance and overcome its dispersal into stultifying, militarised regimes that are more akin to post-1920 Bolshevism in banning open dissent and factions than they are of 1903 Bolshevism and its strategy for a party which led the 1917 revolution. My interview with him can be read here: http://www.cpgb.org.uk/worker/750/rediscovering.html Apologies for going on a bit here. Brevity is not exactly my strong point. I did promise Jacob something on German Social Democracy, so if this generates some discussion then maybe it will provide the springboard for an article. But questions of party, class, democracy and factions are just as much "burning questions" as they were in 1903. Ben WITBD is probably one of the best texts Lenin ever wrote. As the writer says, it does not sanction elitism in any form, but merely repeats orthodox Marxist arguments on the need for the working class to organise itself into a revolutionary party around a revolutionary programme. “Without revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement” etc etc

Indeed, Lenin quite explicitly locates himself in the tradition of Continental Social Democracy with this text, approvingly quoting Karl Kautsky on the tasks of Marxists to:

“imbue the proletariat (literally: saturate the proletariat) with the consciousness of its position and the consciousness of its task. There would be no need for this if consciousness arose of itself from the class struggle.”

I think where Kautsky and Lenin are quite correct to highlight scientific socialism as being a product of the intelligentsia (ie people with time to think and write) they are both off the mark in that Marx and Engels could not have formulated their programmatic world outlook without their involvement in the workers’ movement. In his “three component sources of Marxism” Lenin mentions German philosophy, English (British?) political economy and French utopian socialism. The one he obviously omits is Chartism and its influence on the Marx-Engels team.

The best book written on WITBD is by Lars T Lih, and well worth a read in terms of understanding how Lenin’s text revolved around struggling for a party along the lines of a mass, democratic Marxist party with factions and open dissent etc along the lines of the SPD.

It is to this history that the left must return if it is to advance and overcome its dispersal into stultifying, militarised regimes that are more akin to post-1920 Bolshevism in banning open dissent and factions than they are of 1903 Bolshevism and its strategy for a party which led the 1917 revolution.

My interview with him can be read here: http://www.cpgb.org.uk/worker/750/rediscovering.html

Apologies for going on a bit here. Brevity is not exactly my strong point. I did promise Jacob something on German Social Democracy, so if this generates some discussion then maybe it will provide the springboard for an article. But questions of party, class, democracy and factions are just as much “burning questions” as they were in 1903.

Ben

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