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Leninism has always lead to great oppression. But that doesn't mean that the people who supported it understood that. Lot of bright, well-meaning people have p

Leninism has always lead to great oppression. But that doesn't mean that the people who supported it understood that. Lot of bright, well-meaning people have philosophical, political and religious beliefs that are very wrong. Also, remember, we are not just talking about Lenin's own motives and beliefs, but many if not most of the thousands of party members who supported Leninism. Most of them were sincere idealists (which is why Stalin got rid of them all in the Moscow purge trials).T I strongly disagree that only the bourgeoisie would be opposed. Leninist revolutions take place in preindustrialized societies. That is because Lenin believed that peasants were naturally cooperative and so would eagerly adopt socialism (he got this from the Russian philosophy of narodnikism). But that is simply mistaken. Peasants are deeply conservative and traditional, including being completely embedded in extended kinship networks, raised to value life as a farmer, and extremely religious. Communism in a preindustrial society means tearing that whole culture completely apart, and that requires enormous state violence. Yes, a lot of them got fooled by propaganda for a while, especially before the revolution was over, but many more in Russia were never won over, and many of the ones who had supported it changed their minds once they saw it in practice. And in fact I have read that once the Communists came to power in Russia, Lenin regularly denounced, in private, the peasants for their resistance. So what I am saying is that leninists are generally well-meaning, intelligent people who sincerely believe it will lead to a socialist paradise, but leninism's ideas, when you try to put them in practice in a preindustrial society invariably lead to massive state violence.

boomboomsubban 6y ago
>I strongly disagree that only the bourgeoisie would be opposed. Leninist revolutions take place in preindustrialized societies I made myself very clear that I was not discussing a Leninist system. As I said, that system prioritizes obtaining power over the wellbeing of the people. Many Leninists thought their seizure of power could then be used to help the people, but prioritizing anything over the wellbeing of the people is going to end in some form of oppression. Plenty of Russian Socialists agreed with this take, it was at least part of the reason for the Bolshevik/Menshevik split. I don't understand what conversation you're trying to have. You've abandoned your attempted condemnation of Chomsky, and seem to be trying to get me to defend an ideology I oppose.
- woodandsteel 6y ago
  Ok, we agree that Leninism leads to oppression. My point is that, as far as I can tell, Chomsky doesn't agree, and the same is true of many on the left. And that this is why he took the position he did on Cambodia, and why so many defend him. Let me say some about where I am coming from. I have been interested in these issues since the late 1950's. At the time the left was split over Stalin and the Soviet Union. Many of them said they were wonderful. Many others said they were terrible, and this was the inevitable result of leninist philosophy. Later like with Solzinitzen, it became impossible to defend Stalin. So many on the left switched to arguing that leninism could turn out fine, and it had gone badly in this case because the leaders had fallen away from good communist principles. It seems to me that this is Chomsky's position, and many on the left who defend him. But you seem to be a lot more familiar with Chomsky than I am. So let me ask you, what is his position on leninism?
  - boomboomsubban 6y ago
    His words >Leninist doctrine holds that a vanguard Party should assume state power and drive the population to economic development, and, by some miracle that is unexplained, to freedom and justice. It is an ideology that naturally appeals greatly to the radical intelligentsia, to whom it affords a justification for their role as state managers. I can't see any reason -- either in logic or history -- to take it seriously. Libertarian socialism (including a substantial mainstream of Marxism) dismissed all of this with contempt, quite rightly https://web.archive.org/web/20070205081148/http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/interviews/9612-anarchism.html https://web.archive.org/web/20070205081148/http://www.zmag.o... As I've said, Chomsky's defense of Cambodia was based on a distrust of the US controlled sources.
    - woodandsteel 6y ago
      So it looks like I was wrong. Thank you very much, that's just what I was looking for.

boomboomsubban 6y ago

>I strongly disagree that only the bourgeoisie would be opposed. Leninist revolutions take place in preindustrialized societies I made myself very clear that I was not discussing a Leninist system. As I said, that system prioritizes obtaining power over the wellbeing of the people. Many Leninists thought their seizure of power could then be used to help the people, but prioritizing anything over the wellbeing of the people is going to end in some form of oppression. Plenty of Russian Socialists agreed with this take, it was at least part of the reason for the Bolshevik/Menshevik split. I don't understand what conversation you're trying to have. You've abandoned your attempted condemnation of Chomsky, and seem to be trying to get me to defend an ideology I oppose.

woodandsteel 6y ago
Ok, we agree that Leninism leads to oppression. My point is that, as far as I can tell, Chomsky doesn't agree, and the same is true of many on the left. And that this is why he took the position he did on Cambodia, and why so many defend him. Let me say some about where I am coming from. I have been interested in these issues since the late 1950's. At the time the left was split over Stalin and the Soviet Union. Many of them said they were wonderful. Many others said they were terrible, and this was the inevitable result of leninist philosophy. Later like with Solzinitzen, it became impossible to defend Stalin. So many on the left switched to arguing that leninism could turn out fine, and it had gone badly in this case because the leaders had fallen away from good communist principles. It seems to me that this is Chomsky's position, and many on the left who defend him. But you seem to be a lot more familiar with Chomsky than I am. So let me ask you, what is his position on leninism?
- boomboomsubban 6y ago
  His words >Leninist doctrine holds that a vanguard Party should assume state power and drive the population to economic development, and, by some miracle that is unexplained, to freedom and justice. It is an ideology that naturally appeals greatly to the radical intelligentsia, to whom it affords a justification for their role as state managers. I can't see any reason -- either in logic or history -- to take it seriously. Libertarian socialism (including a substantial mainstream of Marxism) dismissed all of this with contempt, quite rightly https://web.archive.org/web/20070205081148/http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/interviews/9612-anarchism.html https://web.archive.org/web/20070205081148/http://www.zmag.o... As I've said, Chomsky's defense of Cambodia was based on a distrust of the US controlled sources.
  - woodandsteel 6y ago
    So it looks like I was wrong. Thank you very much, that's just what I was looking for.