/lit/ - Literature

>>4864395
>What do you think of Lenin and his ideas?

Horrible

>Was he a good leader?
No

>>4864735
Exactly, because a good leader should be somebody like Hitler, Mussolini, Franco, Salazar, Antonescu, or Codreanu.

Some say he's still dribbling

>>4864747
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/jun/26/slavoj-zizek-living-end-times
>first sentence

>>4864744
>Exactly, because a good leader should be somebody like Hitler, Mussolini, Franco, Salazar, Antonescu, or Codreanu.

I don't miss the third reich I miss the second.

>>4864763
So what happens if you get a bad or mediocre king like Wilhelm II?

>>4864395

Marxism-Leninism and Mao's take on it were genius as Machiavellian power grabs. As formal institutions? I think we can all see what that led to.

I feel to judge him as a leader, we need to look at his lasting influence. The NEP was utterly derailed, all of his proteges were destroyed by Stalin (the man he wanted furthest from the reigns of power), the Comintern destroyed, etc.

>>4864769
>So what happens if you get a bad or mediocre king like Wilhelm II?

The same way you handle all bad rulers

you deal with it and wait for it to end

>>4864781
Ah yes. Just 'wait it out'. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7Jll9_EiyA

>>4864790
its better than having a democratic revolution thats for sure

>>4864790
I'm pretty sure he meant "wait for it to end" as in wait for the end of life to come.

>>4864395

He attached Marx's name to a new form of Utopia that was to be brought about by an all-encompassing state-monopoly in which workers would (as usual) be required to submit to their own means of production as things alien to themselves, with the state standing in as the consciousness and breath of capital-in-process in lieu of individual capitalists. Isn't it a delicious irony that the Soviet Union experienced its final economic decline and collapse in the form of a declining rate of profit and devalorization of capital?

Who has the infantile disorder now?

So, yeah, I think his ideas were pretty shitty, since I'm not a fan of Bismark's 'state socialism' with Marx's name merely appended.

He never actually led Russia, though, to be fair. I guess he was probably a pretty good party-leader, since he managed to split the R.S.D.L.P in his favor and serve as the principal 'idea-man' of the majority faction.

He was a good utopian idealist, and by that I mean he was sincere. Leadership-wise, he was inept and he killed workers because he blamed them for his ineptitude. It could be argued that he single-handedly killed Marxism since he redefined it so radically.

>>4865000

I'm curious what makes you think he was sincere? I see him as a cynic, you'd have to in order to be the only guy against WW1. I mean, he sincerely thought that the world revolution was coming, but it seemed to me he was equally interested in his personal gain. The type of Marxism he expounded was centered around exceptional individuals, so he certainly had the belief structure to back up his megalomania.

Also, I've read some of his writings in which he said the Volga famine should be made worse as a tool to smash the state. I understand you could justify it by phoning in utopianism, but if those methods aren't cynical, I don't know what is. Then there's the NEP

>>4865030
He was cynical but sincere. This can be seen by his justifying utopian socialism's glaring flaws as coming from it being "realist".

>>4865000
>was an inept leader
>yet singlehandedly built a political party from scratch and lead a successful national revolution while simultaneously splitting the largest mass political movement that world had hitherto seen

yea, okay

>>4865419
There's a big difference between getting into power, and effectively wielding it. Lenin was demonstrably good at hostile takeovers, but that doesn't make him a good CEO

>>4864744

>mad leftard zealot

>>4864395
I sincerely believe that Lenin was an absolute genius on an order that the world has not seen since, at least politically speaking. I have read all of his major, and many of his minor, works as well as studied the history a great deal.

People tend to think that there are 4 different Lenin's. The party-builder Lenin of WITBD?, the third-worldist Lenin of Imperialism: the highest stage of capitalism, the liberal/anarchist Lenin of State and Revolution, and the authoritarian Lenin of Left Wing Communism: an Infantile Disorder. I in fact think there is a great deal of unity to his thought if you actually follow his rationale for what he is doing, what he is saying when and to whom, etc.

He is greatly misunderstood.

>>4865441
Not really. Maybe if he just wrote books we might "misunderstand" hum, but since he obtained authority and demonstrated his thought in reality, there's no way to misunderstand.

"He was great! No, he wasn't, he was authoritarian. Actually, he was okay. Well, Marxism swims out of the 19th century like a fish..um.. Berkley is really great, I'll use Lenin for my spee-*aids*"

- Michel Foucault

>>4865447
He took power in a weak, backwards, war-torn state with the assumption that only an international socialist revolution could provide the conditions for Russia's success. Lenin knew damn well that the revolution was an utter failure and that he had to retreat (this is the whole point of his Left Wing Communism pamphlet).

Besides he got sick and died only a few years after.

This is my favorite Lenin piece ---- http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1922/feb/x01.htm

An intelligent and sincere man whose ideas would still have made him a very significant figure in leftist thought even if the revolution in Russia had failed. Probably the most well read of all the 20th century authoritarians. However he was still an authoritarian and played an important role in the creation of institutions that would ultimately sink the union.

Its a shame he died so early, it would have been fascinating to see how he would have acted after the aftermath of the civil and world war had been dealt with.

>>4864395
Filth, an open drain.

>>4865441
This is the correct answer.

>>4865469
He took toward in a socialist democracy because he didn't win the vote

intelligent man and great leader gifted with a shitty place to implement his ideas

>>4865732
>you will never live in the universe where Lenin lived in the US and brought glorious socialism there first

>>4865768
I think a more interesting and probable situation would have been the German and Hungarian revolutions succeeding.

>>4865768
>state capitalism
>glorious

>>4864757
>The Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek has an admirable form of reply to the near-continuous dribble of attacks on him, whether from the bienpensant liberals he so enjoys provoking, or even, as last year in the conservative American magazine the New Republic, a crazed and borderline illiterate review alleging that Žižek was a "fascist" and also anti-semitic. He simply writes another book.
>Steven Poole, The Guardian.
Is this the face of Evola Kid?

>>4865792
>still doesn't understand historical materialism
>doesn't realize that Lenin wouldn't need to institute state capitalism in a society that was already at that stage

>>4865797
>dribble
It's him. Now, who will.. "redact" him?

>>4865803
>still doesn't realize that the stage was just an idea and Lenin was basing policy off of a priori assumptions at the cost of human lives

Is Prof. Leninist bookshelves still lurking about?

Not the person you are arguing with but do you believe it was possible to create a communist society in the conditions of 1918 Russia?

>>4865815
Out of curiosity why did you save that guys bookshelf photo?

>Not the person you are arguing with but do you believe it was possible to create a communist society in the conditions of 1918 Russia?

Was meant for >>4865811

>>4865830
>Out of curiosity why did you save that guys bookshelf photo?
Not him, but probably because it's sexy.

>>4865840
It's impossible to create a communist society except in a post-scarcity stateless world.

>>4865811
>at the cost of human lives
As opposed to all other political policies ever. Are you seriously implying there was a model for immediate communism for a nation the size of Russia, never-mind the entire USSR?

>>4865848
So do you think lenin and others like him were wrong in attempting a socialist transition rather than waiting for capitalism to develop these conditions.

>>4865862
>state capitalism is socialism
Glorious distribution of keks, comrade

>>4865861
>>4865848

why is there so much political discussion on /lit/? do you guys realize that there's a board for this? >>>/pol/

>>4865867
Seriously though do you believe that the only solution is to wait for capitalism to develop these conditions?

>>4865867
>STILL doesn't understand historical materialism

>>4865867
Why can't you just answer the questions?

>>4865884
No, I don't state capitalism is a necessary stage any more than fascism is.

>>4865894
>still thinks a priori is science

>>4865882

Have you ever been there?

>>4865909
yes

>>4865830
Their lack of GRRM, King and such. Pretty crazy shelves.

>>4865904
Can you expand on this a bit more? What do you think would have been the correct course of action for Lenin and the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party?

>>4865925
It's not the place for political discussions. Should be renamed /paul/

So we allow some political philosophy threads.

>>4865730
nice pic my frendo

>>4865789
>implying hungary wasn't a backwater during the immediate post WW1 era

fuck mane, they had a revolution. do u even lukacs?

there is barely any material in english on the topic, but i've read what there is. it sounded fucked. they tried to nationalize furniture, like literally, they rounded up every1's furniture and budapest and tried to re-distribute it

they also sent soldiers out into the countryside to try to turn churches into movie theatres. that i approve of

>>4864735

>dribble

>>4865934
>so we allow

>>4865882
everyone from /pol/ comes here and they're terrible. it's loud enough to drown out the people who actually read books.

>>4865965
I havent read much about but I do know that it was short chaotic and brutal + Bela Kun was disappeared during the purges. What I do find particularly interesting about it is the fact that Kun attempted to nationalize the farms right away unlike the soviets and the consequences that had for the revolutions failure.

Do you know any other particularly interesting figures or works on it? Most people tend to focus simply on 1956.

>>4864777
>I think we can all see what that led to.
Popular liberation movements whose achievements and dreams continue to inspire society's victims to this day and naturally were, and continue to be, under attack from the powerful and their mislead pawns.

>>4865965
>that i approve of
Back to your grave, Hitchens.

>>4866099

Sure sucks to be a misled pawn. I wish I was eating the rotten flesh of a horse inside a labor camp instead. Just out of curiousity, how do you delusional reds deal with Khrushchev's secret speech? Dude outright admits the terror went way too far.

>>4866129
The same way people who believe in liberal democracy and capitalism deal with the rampant inequity, political corruption and diminishing working conditions.

>>4866129
>I wish I was eating the rotten flesh of a horse inside a labor camp instead.
>Seriously thinking the diseased, hormone and syrup infused "meat" he has to eat while stuck working below living wage customer service labor he's forced into because of glorious capitalism is worth defending
Sure sucks to be a misled pawn.

wow, look at all this tu quoque

>>4866159
>too much of a little bitch to reply to someone directly
I mean you're anonymous for gods sake

>>4866164
The same applies to you, faggot.

>>4866153

>Implying I'm not secretly bourgeois

Mission Accomplished

>>4865930
A flexible system incorporating multiple varieties of socialism, open to change and subject to study and comparison.

>>4866226
How do you organize such a such system when you are in an extremely hostile environment like the Revolutionary France and the Russians faced? How do you prevent the vestiges or remainders of the old order from abusing this flexibility or likewise more nationalistic or authoritarian tendencies from doing the same ?

It seems like a practice that could only be carried out in a relatively peaceful environment which is a something almost no left wing revolutionaries past or future will have the benefit of.

>>4866244
it probably wouldn't have been so hostile--even under the circumstances--if Lenin didn't force an artificial dictatorship upon a democracy. Fanni Kaplan was in the right, really

>>4865441
you are the most interesting poster in this thread. Please tell me, what is the golden line of continuity

(and if I want to truly understand Lenin in a way that transcends these viewpoints, what should I be reading?)

>>4866254
Russia was invaded by multiple world powers simultaneously and had to contend with regimes that actively sought its destruction just as France did to say that the world has hostile to the soviet union because it was authoritarian is to put the horse before the cart.

Look at what happened in Chile, the only way you could achieve a semi peaceful environment like the one you speak of would be to not jepordise the private ownership of property and capital which hardly seems reasonable or effective.

Fanni did the Union a great disserive not only in cutting Lenin's life short preventing him from making the party more progressive and open because (for all the bluster and slurs thrown around he wasnt a paranoid or disingenuous man and genuinely believed in a transition to more democratic structures) but also in giving ammunition to the more authoritarian groups within the party.

Killing someone like Dzerzhinsky probably would have been a far sounder option from her ultimately flawed perspective.

>>4866335
>I'm going to be a shitty dictator
>I'll try to kill you
>Ha! Now I'll kill and torture a thousand people to teach y'all a lesson!
Clearly it's all her fault for making him shittier

>>4866348
>I'm going to be a shitty dictator

funny coming from someone who harps on about priori assumptions

>I'll try to kill you

Because clearly thats a great way of dealing with the issue isn't it? It sure worked in stopping tsarist oppression didn't it oh wait it did not.

>Ha! Now I'll kill and torture a thousand people to teach y'all a lesson!

Ha lets try and kill one of the most reasonable leaders of the Bolsheivks, because lets face it Lenin is the sole reason they are authoritarian, Trotsky and Stalin will turn into doves having seen this!

She did make things objectively worse for the people of the Soviet Union just as black hand assassins did for Serbia or Carl Weiss did for Louisiana

Marx said societies go from tribalism to fuedalism and from fuedalism to mercantilism and then to capitalism and then socialism and finally communism, but what comes after communism? we've only had civilization for 6000 years so I'd be skeptical we would just stick to communism forever

>>4866400
It was wearing Lenin's panties what gave Stalin his legitimacy

>>4866448
It was lennins early death that gave Stalin power.

>>4866467
It was Lenin crushing democracy and using the wage system and external management, (state) capitalism, to organize production, that gave Stalin power.

>>4866476
Stalin wouldnt have been an issue but for the early death of Lenin

It was Lenin's early death that prevented him from moving past these extra-ordinary measures not to mention creating a premature power vacuum for Stalin to take. Lenin was a genuine believer in the transition process.

Lenin's ideas were basically extensions of the ideas of other philosophers, especially Marx. His main contribution was further refining the Marxist/socialist doctrine, and he did that not by really adding much to what was already there, but to writing ceaselessly about how it could be put into practice. While clearly an intelligent person and a student of philosophy, he wasn't a great philosopher in terms of coming up with many new ideas or adding to the canon that much.

I admire Lenin personally because he was without a doubt a great leader. Edmund Wilson always praised him for similar reasons - he was an intellectual who actually *did* things, he was a man of action and he managed to help organize and lead the communist faction in Russia to victory over the provincial govt. and the whites.

So, great leader, but not a great ideas man. He was committed to the idea (of his own making) that a vanguard was needed to jump-start communist development, hence the October Revolution. But he died at a young age before he could really work out what the USSR was supposed to be. If he had lived to stay in control of the new polity, world history might have looked very different.

>>4866514
>you aren't ready yet, my children!

>>4866585
Attempting to implement what you have suggest would have made him precisely the utopian idealist and inept leader you slurred him with in your original post.

Im not a proponent or a particular fan of Lenin's work the simplistic way in which you had waved all his actions and contributions is just incorrect.

>>4866643
>The tacit assumption underlying the Lenin-Trotsky theory of dictatorship is this: that the socialist transformation is something for which a ready-made formula lies completed in the pocket of the revolutionary party, which needs only to be carried out energetically in practice. This is, unfortunately – or perhaps fortunately – not the case. Far from being a sum of ready-made prescriptions which have only to be applied, the practical realization of socialism as an economic, social and juridical system is something which lies completely hidden in the mists of the future. What we possess in our program is nothing but a few main signposts which indicate the general direction in which to look for the necessary measures, and the indications are mainly negative in character at that. Thus we know more or less what we must eliminate at the outset in order to free the road for a socialist economy. But when it comes to the nature of the thousand concrete, practical measures, large and small, necessary to introduce socialist principles into economy, law and all social relationships, there is no key in any socialist party program or textbook. That is not a shortcoming but rather the very thing that makes scientific socialism superior to the utopian varieties.

>The socialist system of society should only be, and can only be, an historical product, born out of the school of its own experiences, born in the course of its realization, as a result of the developments of living history, which – just like organic nature of which, in the last analysis, it forms a part – has the fine habit of always producing along with any real social need the means to its satisfaction, along with the task simultaneously the solution. However, if such is the case, then it is clear that socialism by its very nature cannot be decreed or introduced by ukase. It has as its prerequisite a number of measures of force – against property, etc. The negative, the tearing down, can be decreed; the building up, the positive, cannot. New Territory. A thousand problems. Only experience is capable of correcting and opening new ways. Only unobstructed, effervescing life falls into a thousand new forms and improvisations, brings to light creative new force, itself corrects all mistaken attempts. The public life of countries with limited freedom is so poverty-stricken, so miserable, so rigid, so unfruitful, precisely because, through the exclusion of democracy, it cuts off the living sources of all spiritual riches and progress. (Proof: the year 1905 and the months from February to October 1917.) There it was political in character; the same thing applies to economic and social life also. The whole mass of the people must take part in it. Otherwise, socialism will be decreed from behind a few official desks by a dozen intellectuals.