• Camarada ForteOP
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      63 years ago

      If you think Marxism-Leninism is a “finished” theoretical framework, then you haven’t grasped at the idea that history is constantly ever-changing, and that theory needs to adapt to space and time.

      This article however, reminds us that while Leninism is not a closed theoretical framework, the dictatorship of the proletariat still stands as a real political objective to be pursued.

      But if on the other hand you remain content with a superficial view of these contradictions and of their historical causes, if you remain content with the simplistic and false idea according to which you have to “choose” between the standpoint of theory and that of history, real life and practice, if you interpret Lenin’s arguments simply as a reflection of ever changing circumstances, less applicable the further away they are in history, then the real causes of these historical contradictions become unintelligible, and our own relation to them becomes invisible.

        • Camarada ForteOP
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          3 years ago

          You are treating ideas and actions – theory and practice – as if they were separate and isolated things. As if any action is not also guided by the ideas. In the days before the Russian revolutions, when Russian Marxism was but a seed, there was mainly one “ideological communist”, which was Plekhanov. Although Lenin would later correctly criticize Plekhanov, he credits him for the growth of Russian Marxism through his published books. Lenin was also called an “ideologue”, and what would later become the Bolshevik Party was called a “study club”. The Bolshevik Party would later become the guiding force of the 1917 revolution.

          You ask where did Lenin possibly go wrong in ensuring a dictatorship of the proletariat when you talk about the dissolution of the USSR 80 years later, while ignoring the fact that this was the first dictatorship of the proletariat in history for 80 years. The burden is on your back to show where Lenin got wrong, because he has shown in practice the feasibility of the dictatorship of the proletariat and the theoretical correctness of his analyses.

          The PCF’s abandonment of the term is therefore a political washing of the term so the dictatorship of the proletariat is said to be something from the past, and not actually possible to implement in practice. This is a defeatist and infantile point of view, and is in opposition to Marxism in general. I should remind you that Marxists do not underestimate the importance of theory and its relationship with practice.

          The weapon of criticism cannot, of course, replace criticism of the weapon, material force must be overthrown by material force; but theory also becomes a material force as soon as it has gripped the masses. Theory is capable of gripping the masses as soon as it demonstrates ad hominem, and it demonstrates ad hominem as soon as it becomes radical. To be radical is to grasp the root of the matter. (Marx, 1843, Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, bolder emphasis added.)

          PCF’s ideas reinforce the defeatist position, when history has shown us that it is in fact possible for a dictatorship of the proletariat to be implemented, so yes, this should be insisted more vigorously indeed. You sound like the Anarchists who thinks that we can “abolish the state”, and consequently, “abolish classes” overnight. You ignore that a socialist revolution in encircled by capitalist states, which promote counter-revolutionary activities and intervention. The position you are defending is in fact the idealist one. You also seem to ignore that

          1. Marx was mostly an ideologue (as in a propagandist and theorist). His practice included insisting on his position during his life.
          2. Marx defended the dictatorship of the proletariat long before Lenin. Here’s a 1852 Marx letter:

            Now as for myself, I do not claim to have discovered either the existence of classes in modern society or the struggle between them. Long before me, bourgeois historians had described the historical development of this struggle between the classes, as had bourgeois economists their economic anatomy. My own contribution was 1. to show that the existence of classes is merely bound up with certain historical phases in the development of production; 2. that the class struggle necessarily leads to the dictatorship of the proletariat; 3. that this dictatorship itself constitutes no more than a transition to the abolition of all classes and to a classless society. (even bolder emphasis added)

          This should enlighten your confusion and hopefully invite you to study this debate further.