What did Lenin

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L with Marx and others) is a belief in the neces­ enin’s quite unoriginal starting-point (shared sary interconnection of socialist theory and prac­ tice with the working class and labor movement. This fundamental orientation is the basis for most of what Lenin has to say. It is the basis of other key perspectives that one can find in his writings:

• An understanding of the necessity of working-class political independence in political and social struggles, and the need for its supremacy (or he­ gemony) if such struggles are to triumph;

• An understanding of the necessity for socialist and working-class support for struggles of all who suffer oppression;

• A coherent conception of organization that is practical, democratic, and revolutionary;

8 SOCIALIST ACTION MARCH 2015 • The development of the united-front tactic, in which diverse political forces can work together for common goals, without revolutionary organi­ zations undermining their ability to pose effective revolutionary perspectives to the capitalist status quo;

• An intellectual and practical seriousness (and lack of dogmatism or sectarianism) in utilizing Marxist theory;

• An approach of integrating reform struggles with revolutionary strategy;

• A remarkable understanding of the manner in which democratic struggles flow into socialist • A commitment to a worker-peasant alliance;

• A profound analysis of imperialism and nation­ alism;

• A vibrantly revolutionary internationalist ap­ proach.

These points are excerpted from Paul LeBlanc’s book, “Unfinished Leninism.”

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(continued from page 8: “Unfinished Leninism An interview with author Paul LeBlanc”) (or even have much knowledge of) Lenin, there are two essential connections.

The most elemental connection is this: at the very heart of the Bolshevik and Leninist tradition is the struggle against oppression. The proliferation of such struggles generates an atmosphere in which there is likely to be a growing interest in the revolution­ ary ideas and traditions associated with Lenin. That relates to the other connection: Lenin and his com­ rades spoke to the most urgent concerns of those who hope to overcome oppression. Following Marx, they developed a profound understanding of the intercon­ nection between the nature of oppression and the dy­ namics of capitalism, the dimensions of class struggle and the way it can develop into effective struggles for reform and revolution, and how socialists can orga­ nize themselves in a way to make this so.

The fact remains that, as you say, “socialist organiza­ tions that consciously strive to follow a Leninist mod­ el are quite small and have little influence.” But striv­ ing to follow this model and actually doing so are not the same thing. I believe would-be Leninist organiza­ tions are unable to “follow this model” in part because of the very different objective reality in which we are enmeshed and in part because there are fundamental misunderstandings of what Leninism means—if we are referring to the “Leninism” of Lenin, his basic ori­ entation and political practice. Perhaps I can explain what I mean as I respond to other questions you pose.

Quest.: Recent social uprisings like the Occupy movement did not evolve in a Leninist direction and have sputtered out. You referred to “the chaos of or­ ganizational confusion” that existed within the Oc­ cupy movement. That situation reflected a theoreti­ cal confusion, as well. In fact, Lenin’s famous dictum, “without revolutionary theory there can be no revolu­ tionary movement” certainly seemed reconfirmed by negative example in the collapse of the Occupy proj­ ect. But that is little consolation. In terms of building a healthy revolutionary organization, what does Marx­ ist and Leninist theory have to offer at the present time in a more positive way?

P.L.: One aspect of the present capitalist reality that we must understand—as Marxists, as Leninists, as Trotskyists—is that our world is quite different from what it was in the time of Marx, Lenin, and Trotsky. Some things that they emphasized had to do with a very different situation than the one we face. That af­ fects the way I saw the Occupy movement, in which I was quite active.

Lenin and Trotsky lived in a time when there was a massive international workers’ movement animated by a very high degree of class consciousness, with a highly organized and very large socialist (later Com­ munist) component, nourished by a very rich and substantial labor-radical subculture. That disintegrat­ ed under the impact of fascism, a second world war, and post-World War II developments.

Proclaiming the truths of revolutionary Marxist the­ ory in the latter years of the 20th century—as many of us were inclined to do—in the absence of a class-con­ scious labor movement will have a different impact than what was true in the time of Lenin and Trotsky. (In a way, the reality of our labor movement seems to correspond more to that of Marx’s time in the early 1860s—very undeveloped and fragmented.)

Today’s working-class movement (like the modern-day working class) has been in a process of recom­ position. The Occupy movement involved large, very broad sectors of what were, for all practical purposes, working-class youth. Their protests against the tyr­ anny of the 1% over the 99% resonated powerfully among a majority of the people of the United States— who are, in fact, working class but largely self-identify as “middle class.”

The inability of Occupy to cohere around a socialist program was inevitable. Those distressed by this had unrealistic expectations. Within this mass upsurge, however, socialists could be supportive, could partici­ pate, could help with practical and logistical matters, and could share socialist ideas that some participants would consider further, particularly in the wake of Oc­ cupy’s inevitable collapse.

Such mass phenomena as the Occupy movement and the Black Lives Matter movement are part of a re­ composition process of working-class protest, strug­ gle, and consciousness building. These are among the preconditions for the rebuilding of a working-class movement that can challenge the power of capital and, eventually, bring a socialist future. Instead of be­ ing impatient with these developments, we should embrace them as part of the process which will allow for greater numbers to consider and draw strength from the insights of Marx, Lenin, Luxemburg, Trotsky, and other revolutionary comrades.

Quest.: Democratic centralism is an organizational principle for a revolutionary party, or for a group that aspires to become a party. A shorthand definition of democratic centralism is “freedom of discussion, uni­ ty in action.” Is this guiding idea really a useful guide? In actual political activity, don’t we more typically see a pattern where there is a drop of democracy and a case of centralism, followed by expulsion or splits? Is that problematic pattern a reason why democrat­ ic centralism is a crucial part of the current debate about Leninism?

P.L.: We need an additional category. We do not have a revolutionary party in the United States, although we badly need one, and some of us want to do what we can to bring that into being. There are, as you say, groups aspiring to become a revolutionary party—and that often generates, within and between groups, problematical dynamics that create serious obstacles to being able to help bring a revolutionary party into being. In contrast to this, there are other groups seek­ ing to contribute to the creation of a revolutionary par­ ty but understanding that they, by themselves, cannot become such a party.

Groups in this third category realize that (1) a rev­ olutionary party can actually come into being only when a class-consciousness layer of the working class is prepared to move in that direction; (2) there must be ongoing preliminary processes that will contribute to the crystallization of such a working-class layer; and (3) the group must join with revolutionaries in other groups, with radicalizing activists who are not and will not be in the existing groups, and with people who at the moment are neither radicals nor activists, and that together—in the future—we will all be help­ ing to forge the revolutionary party we need.

I agree with how you define democratic central­ ism—freedom of discussion, unity in action. But those words can be understood and implemented in very different ways. For a group viewing itself as the repos­ itory of Revolutionary Truth and aspiring to become the revolutionary party, democratic centralism tends to be defined in a restrictive manner, which (in order to preserve the group’s ability to become the unadul­ terated revolutionary party) create a certain ortho­ doxy to which all must adhere, that limits discussion and generates a climate in which disciplinary actions and splits become all too common.

A healthy conception of democratic centralism in­ volves a critical-mindedness, an openness, a political courage that characterized the way in which Lenin, Trotsky, Luxemburg, and other such comrades func­ tioned. Shades of difference and outright disagree­ ments are normal and necessary—especially given the complexity of the realities we face. That under­ stood, it remains a fact that revolutionary socialists need to work together, as a democratic collective, to be effective in advancing the interests of the workers and the oppressed, creating the possibility of revolu­ tionary party, and building a mass socialist movement that can bring revolutionary change.

Understood in this way, I think democratic central­ ism is a necessity, but it will be very different from what passes for “democratic centralism” in groups having a stilted understanding of themselves.

Quest.: In “Lessons of October” (1924), Trotsky wrote: “Without a party, apart from a party, over the head of a party, or with a substitute for a party, the proletarian revolution cannot conquer. That is the principal lesson of the last decade” [since the Russian Revolution of October 1917]. Trotsky was contrasting the failures of socialist uprisings in Germany, Finland, and Hungary to the success of the revolution in Rus­ (Above) Lenin speaks to Russian workers in 1917.

sia. He was, in other words, grounding his analysis on living history. But, in the 90 years since these words were written, has the sheer quantity of time changed the quality of this argument? Does a century of revolu­ tionary history discount the tradition of Bolshevism?

P.L.: The answer to this is yes and no. As you say, “the sheer quantity of time must necessarily change the quality of the argument”—things clearly cannot be just the same as they were 90 years ago. But there are certain aspects of the Bolshevik tradition that, none­ theless, transcend the amazing changes that have taken place over nine decades. Jean-Paul Sartre once said the continued existence of capitalism means that Marxism “remains the philosophy of our time,” since we have not gone beyond the circumstances that brought Marx’s analyses into being. I think similar points can be made about the Bolshevik tradition.

Quest: Can we truly and meaningfully speak of Le­ ninism as “unfinished”? Certainly “Capital” is unfin­ ished; Marx did not live long enough to complete his masterwork. Lenin, though, lived long enough to build and direct a revolutionary workers party that over­ turned capitalism in Russia. After 1917, he essentially codified his ideas in (largely polemical) essays and books written against other socialist writers and ten­ dencies. He established the Communist International and wrote the Twenty-One Conditions, adopted at its Second World Congress, which defined the standards that socialist parties had to meet in order to join the Comintern. In short, don’t we really know what Lenin­ ism is?

P.L.: Who is this “we” to whom you refer? Most peo­ ple are not familiar with the term Leninism. Of those who have heard of it, many cannot give a definition. Of those who could give a definition, there are some who would indicate that it is consistent with the practices and mindset of the bureaucratic-authoritarian and murderous tyranny that arose in Russia particularly with the rule of Joseph Stalin. There are others who would associate it with the practices and perspectives of various left-wing sects proclaiming themselves to be “Leninist.”

A very small number, compared to the others just mentioned, see the “Leninism” of Lenin and his cothinkers—in contrast to Stalinism and small-group sectarianism parading under the Leninist banner—as representing something important and necessary for the workers and the oppressed.

In this sense, then, when some sincere people on the Left announce that “Leninism is Finished,” the “we” who constitute this small number feel compelled to say: “No, Lenin is not finished.” Since it is our convic­ tion that most people do not comprehend what Lenin­ ism actually is, we have a responsibility to explain— including why its history and meaning have been partly obliterated and partly distorted.

As with anything like this, there may be information and insights about this that some of some of us do not have, and differences among us on how best to under­ stand what actually happened in history. There is a collective retrieval process of this historical Leninism that is far from complete, so in this sense, too, Lenin­ ism is “unfinished.”

There is yet another way in which it is unfinished, and this relates to Lenin’s methodology. Reality is (continued on page 7, in “Women and the Climate Crisis”)

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