Nasser Paydar
Communism Abolition of Wage Labor and Leninist Militant Reformism
With the October Revolution, the productive, political and social order of capitalism was disrupted for several years. This disruption could not last for long. One of the two basic classes of society had to make the task of collapses and disorders clear as soon as possible. There were no more than two ways. The first way was for the working masses, from within the anti-wage labour national councils, to plan the process of work and production and social life on the axis of the abolition of the relationship of buying and selling labour power. The workers and poor peasants, who constituted the overwhelming majority of the inhabitants of society, hand in hand, abolished every form of ownership by capitalists and landowners in the city and the countryside and everywhere. They put an end to the existence of small peasant ownership, crafts or private businesses of individuals. They completely destroyed the previous order. They eliminated every power beyond themselves. They established the power of the councils in industry, agriculture, mining, health care, education and all areas of human life. Whatever concerns factories, agriculture, service matters, the distribution of welfare and livelihood necessities, and various issues related to the upkeep and development of social life, they should all be the responsibility of the councils. Volunteer and able-bodied citizens, from former specialists and planners to party elites, politicians, specialists and revolutionary intellectuals, should be included as their partners and advisors within the councils. They should completely prevent the formation of any new state structure, the establishment of an official army, “Vensenkha” or any institution above them. With the widest, most informed, creative, freest and most equal presence in these councils, they should discuss the definition of work, whether it is produced or not, determining the fate of the social product of labour, global solidarity with the chained workers and participation in the internationalist anti-capitalist movement of the working class and all other matters, make decisions in a council, freely and equally, and implement the results of the decisions. This was the first way. A path that naturally crossed erosive rocks, but could be followed, and if followed successfully, would lead to the socialist transformation of the economy, the establishment of the soviet labour organization, the abolition of wage labour, the abolition of the state and classes, and the abolition of the capitalist system.
The second path was the path of capital. If the working class refused to do the above and follow the first path, then only capital would speak, would begin to plan the economy, politics, civilization, law, culture, and reconstruct the state machine and the productive, political, and social order and all its affairs. Here, what is of no importance at all is the name and tradition of the forces, people, government, or institutions that took on this task and carried the burden of this mission to its destination. In any case, when the workers were unable, for whatever reason, to begin, follow, and complete the first path, capital would begin and pursue its path with all the necessary capacity and strength. In such a situation, statesmen, thinkers, economists, planners and all the rulers of the day, knowingly or unknowingly, with reluctance or desire, eager or distressed, under any flag, name, ideal and school, with any strategy, solution and practical plan, put into practice what capital demanded and decreed.
The fact is that in Russia, in the years after October, the society was stuck on these two paths for a few days, but it was from the very beginning of capital that started to dig and pave its way. With this black, bitter and poisonous irony that this time, the government and the party that was the executor of the capital’s rule and was working to restore the economic and political order wore the red cloak of communism on its shoulders, its Armor, its helmet and the combat uniform of the proletariat. It is absolutely not the case that Lenin, Bolshevism and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union did this deliberately and knowingly?! No, such a suspicion is very numerous. With their own narrative of capitalism and socialism, they were not on the path to take the first path, they did not see the prospect of struggle and victory of the revolution as a guarantee of taking this path from the very beginning. They did not look for the power of this path in the capacity of the working masses. They did not think about struggles, demands, organization, subversion, orientation and revolution of the workers as crossing points of the labour movement to achieve this power, and they did not put such thought into practice. On the day after the revolution, they did not think about preparing and equipping the working masses to go this way.
This was the dilemma of Lenin and Bolshevism, and on the other side of the story was capital, which did not want to be left behind. In the midst of such a situation, Lenin, the party and the government of the day saw no other way than the second. The “New Economic Program” (NEP) emerged from this situation. “NEP” was capital’s twisted version of its own reconstruction, which was implemented by the “dictatorship of the proletariat”!! Just as before, the formation of the official army, the daily weakening of the soviets, the dismantling of the workers’ control system in the factories, the transfer of the industrial affairs department to the Ministry of Economy, the establishment of the Taylor system, the one-man and one-man management in the work canters, the planning and policy-making of all social affairs by the 19-member party bureau, were all interconnected links in the reconstruction of the productive, political and defensive order of capital, which were again dressed up as implementation by the Communist Party and the dictatorship of the proletariat!! And finally, all of this, all of these twists and turns and solutions, without exception, were given a socialist and proletarian baptism by the passionate and iron speeches, arguments, and speeches of Lenin himself!!
In all these cases, the preferred point of view and the support of Lenin’s argument to justify the plans and policies was the reference to the lack of capitalist growth or the remnants of microeconomics in Russia!! A topic that is very decisive for understanding the background of Lenin’s understanding of socialism and the material and social foundations of the socialist transformation of the capitalist economy. Everywhere, instead of exploring the problem of revolution and socialism in the situation of the labour movement, in the inferiority of the soviets or the anti-capitalist soviet movement of the broad masses of the working class, Lenin goes directly to the insufficient growth of capitalism. Instead of moving on the track of consolidating the position of this movement, strengthening the soviets as widely as possible, raising awareness as much as possible and providing more and more conditions for the free, equal and conscious involvement of the working masses in the planning of labour and socialist production, yes, instead of all these, he explores the way to the growth of productive forces, solving the problem of microeconomics, eliminating the shortcomings and deficiencies of capitalist development and the like. It was mentioned elsewhere in this article that, despite all the righteous struggle that Lenin waged in the area of the importance of seizing political power and smashing the bourgeois state machine against the Bolshevik views of the leaders of Social Democracy, in looking at the material and social preconditions for the establishment of socialism, he actually became a partner in Bolshevisms. The framework of his speeches in justifying the “NEP” is also filled with precisely this theme. The general lines of the NEP were to open the hands of the prosperous peasants to freely sell their products in exchange for paying a commodity tax, to transfer the affairs of industry to institutions called “Narkomzem” (People’s Commissariat of Agriculture) and “NarkomNin”, to abolish the workers’ councils and institutions, to restore the order of production and accumulation of capital in all industrial units under the management of bourgeois experts and managers, to privatize domestic trade, to inject the necessary rubbles into the market, and to other measures that were all effective for the further development of capitalism and to help the rural bourgeoisie in expanding the scope of capital accumulation.
With the implementation of the NEP, everything became clear. The result of Lenin’s words to the Russian working class was always that socialism was nothing other than large-scale production and advanced capitalist industry, but under the ownership and rule of a state that called itself the dictatorship of the proletariat. Lenin whispered these words in the ears of the workers many times and on various occasions, and he considered any statement to the contrary to be worthy of all slander. The next important point that was now added to his usual words on the eve of the implementation of the new economic program was that Russian society lacked the material resources needed to achieve this goal. Large-scale production, technology, and modern capitalist industry had not developed sufficiently here. Therefore, what is now on the agenda of the working-class party is to develop capitalism with the help of sections of the bourgeoisie and in this way provide the economic foundations for the establishment of socialism!! “The whole problem, both theoretical and practical, is to discover the correct methods for how to direct the development of capitalism, which is inevitable to a certain extent and for a certain period, into the channel of state capitalism. What conditions must be created for this, and how the transformation of state capitalism into socialism in the near future must be ensured.” (On the commodity Tax).
We have already said that by state capitalism Lenin does not mean industries or canters of work and production owned by the state. He considers this sector to be socialist. Here, as elsewhere, he means all canters of capitalist work and production owned by private owners who, in their working conditions or business affairs, accept the regulations announced by the government of the day. Continuing the above discussion, Lenin says: “The dictatorship of the proletariat consists in the leadership of politics by the proletariat. As the ruling class, the leader, it must be able to direct politics in such a way as to solve the most urgent and acute problem in the first place. What is now most urgent is measures by which the level of the productive forces of the peasant economy can be raised without delay. Only in this way can we both improve the condition of the workers and strengthen the unity of the workers and peasants, that is, the dictatorship of the proletariat. “That proletarian or representative of the proletariat who wants to go any other way to improve the condition of the workers will practically become an assistant to the White Guard and the capitalists”!! (Ibid.)
Lenin raises these issues in Russia in 1921, and every bit of what he says is a repetition of the same beliefs that he had expressed 20 years earlier in his article “Two Tactics of Social Democracy in the Democratic Revolution” or some other writings of that time. Russia’s need for the most complete development of capitalism and the necessity of the proletariat’s efforts to carry out a revolution that would pave the way for this development are the restatement of his words of that day. A statement that is now repeated with the same clarity and emphasis, 4 years after the victory of October and the establishment of what he calls the dictatorship of the proletariat. At that time, what was not discussed was the relevance of organizing anti-capitalist soviets of the masses of the working class, and what was explained as urgent and important was the establishment of a party of professional revolutionaries. In this regard, the same words are repeated with new formulations and formats. Again, the party and the state above the workers are everything, and the Council movement for the abolition of wage labour is nothing. Lenin’s “socialism” was not to be built by the conscious working masses organized in the Soviets, it was the bourgeoisie that laid it out brick by brick and built its architecture. The path to this socialism did not pass through the process of abolishing wage labour and the elimination of the surplus value production relationship; on the contrary, it passed through the “NEP” of the ever-increasing growth of capitalism, the decline of the Councils, and the ever-increasing consolidation of the foundations of state power over the workers. The NEP further organized the fragmented fringes of the Russian capitalist economy and led the cycle of reproduction of social capital from a state of disintegration and disorder to the shores of order, stability, and profitability. In the first years after the victory of the revolution, the pressure of the working masses organized in workers’ councils and factory committees on the one hand, and the special conditions of the civil war on the other, forced the Bolsheviks to adopt the plan called “war communism” as their agenda. According to this plan, most of the production and commercial units belonging to large, medium, and in some cases even small capitalists were taken out of the hands of their owners. The surplus of the peasants’ crops was collected. Private trade was closed down. The distribution of products was placed under the control of labour organizations. The provision of the minimum public needs of the population was to some extent guaranteed. Workers’ wages were equalized. Those who hired wage labour were subject to certain deprivations. The message was given to the whole world that every exploited, oppressed, and oppressed person who reached the borders of the Soviet Union would be a citizen of this society. “The New Economic Program (NEP)” declared the end of the period of war communism. It removed obstacles to the accumulation and desired profitability of capital. It allowed the rural landowning bourgeoisie, which controlled the largest part of agricultural production, to use its capital without any restrictions in the exploitation of labour. It developed the relations of buying and selling labour. It turned the vast mass of poor peasants into their wage slaves. The NEP further opened the hands of the capitalists in intensifying the exploitation of workers and further deprived the workers’ councils of their sphere of influence. With this approach, the NEP created the conditions under which a few years later the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and Stalin’s clique, by carrying out two tasks, completed the process of complete reconstruction of the capitalist economy to the highest level. First, the massacre of all workers who in any way disagreed with this approach, and second, the organization of the improvement of the productivity of social labour through the application of technologies and expertise in such a way that Russian capitalism could become one of the greatest poles of power of world capital in the shortest possible time. The NEP paved the way to achieve this goal, and it was this path that Lenin declared to be an important turning point for the establishment of socialism.
Posterior
At the beginning of this article, every effort was made to be as brief as possible, but in any case, it became somewhat long. It will not deal with Lenin’s theory of the party and will not discuss issues such as Lenin’s incorrect and completely un-Marxian account of the socialist consciousness of the proletariat, the class organization of the labour movement, and the like. Because these points have been discussed more or less in other places, and I have also spoken about them in several separate articles. I will come to the last point of this article. About seventy years before the October Revolution, Marx began writing the “Manifesto” by declaring the bourgeoisie’s terror of the Ghost of communism. With the great event of October, a significant part of humanity believed that this Ghost had become a reality and that communism had triumphed. But it was not true. These two communisms were worlds apart. One wanted the workers of the whole world to unite and fight against the entire bourgeoisie, against the basis of capitalism, against the surplus value production relationship, and for the establishment of a world free from exploitation, classes, and the state. The second, but most of all, was that the working masses, along with the Gandhi, Sun Yat-sen, or even the Reza Khans, should fight imperialist expansionism, and that the horizon before them was truly nothing other than state capitalism. Although the first communism spoke in the depths of capitalism seventy years earlier, it firmly saw any improvement in the lives of the exploited and the downtrodden anywhere in the world as contingent on an independent, conscious and internationalist campaign by the working class against wage slavery. It did not say that all countries of that day were necessarily capitalist, but for the workers of any part of the world, the struggle for the establishment of this or that form of capitalism was not a recipe for war. It acknowledged the inevitable effects of the aggression and predatory behaviour of the British bourgeoisie on the economic and historical development of Indian society and the role of this forced development in paving the way for the rise of social and liberation movements, but it did not hold that the working class must make a revolution, establish a “dictatorship of the workers and peasants” in order to develop capitalism!! He did not hang the struggles of the exploited Chinese of those days on the gallows of nationality or dress them up in the garb of national self-determination. On the contrary, he saw it as a lever for disrupting the productive and political order of capital in Western capitalist countries. He explored its impact on weakening the power of capitalism in the world. He looked at the chain of connection between that country’s revolution and the anti-capitalist movement of European workers, and through all these factors, he explored the power equations between the two classes, the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, in the current world situation. “The Chinese revolution has thrown a spark into the present industrial system, which is like an overcharged mine, and will cause the explosion of a general crisis which has long been in the making. A crisis which, as it spreads abroad, will ignite the political revolutions of Europe, and what a strange sight it will be. While the European governments are exporting order to Shanghai, Nanking, and the mouths of the Grand Canal with English, French, and American ships, China is sending chaos to the Western world.” (Marx, Revolution in China and in Europe).
The second communism was a prisoner of other calculations. It saw the current world war as a war between the people and the occupying finance capital. It wanted everything to defend a socialism that revolved around wage labour, its political order was determined by the 19-member Central Committee of a party above society and beyond the working masses. The working conditions of its workers were stamped with the Taylor system and a dictatorship. Its borders were guarded by an official army. Its production order was planned by the “Vensenkha”. This form of communism was not anti-capitalist, but rather in preparation for organizing popular movements to ward off the danger of imperialist aggression. It was not an anti-capitalist world revolution, but a revolution with the participation of capitalists and landowners for the development of capitalism and against international financial monopolies, which it recommended to the workers of the countries. It neither believed in nor showed any inclination for the organization of anti-wage labour councils of the working masses of the world. Instead, it wanted them to obey the orders of the party above them. The communism that emerged from the October Revolution, the communism of the Comintern and its constituent parties, was the latest type of communism, and the reality is that what was later called “Leninism” was nothing more than a code name for this same communism. Here, a very important and decisive point needs to be planned. An issue that is of utmost importance for the global labour movement and the compassionate and true activists of this movement. It is a huge mistake if we put the huge burden of mistakes and complications of “Leninism” on Lenin. Humans at the highest level of influencing and playing a role are only able representatives and masters of a certain class or political approach. Lenin was a radical, hardworking and revolutionary person in the labour and left movement of that day, a person who loved the liberation of the proletariat and the liberation of the whole humanity with all his being. A powerful revolutionary who’s entire being was full of hatred towards capitalism. In addition to what we said about his opinions and strategies, let’s take a moment to look at another part of his words in other contexts. “The Soviets are the state organizations of the working class and the poor peasants, through which the dictatorship of the proletariat is practiced until all forms of government have disappeared…. The functions of party gatherings should under no circumstances be confused with the functions of state organs, including the Soviets. The party must, within the framework of the constitution of the Soviets, ensure that its decisions are made by the Soviet organs. The party’s task is to try to guide the Soviets, not to replace them” (speech at the Eighth Party Congress). Examples of these differences in other forms and with other resonances can also be seen in parts of the book “State and Revolution.” “We, the workers, relying on our working-class experience and the habit of strict and iron discipline, backed by the state power of the armed workers, will organize large-scale production on the basis of what capitalism has created so far, and we will transform the role of state employees into that of simple executors of our orders, into responsible and replaceable foremen and accountants with small salaries. This is our proletarian task, and this is what can and must be the starting point in the proletarian revolution.” The beginning of work in this way, on the basis of large-scale production, will of itself lead to the gradual decline of all forms of administrative apparatus and the emergence of such order – order in the true sense, that is, an order that has nothing in common with wage slavery, that the tasks of foremanship and accounting will become easier day by day, will be performed by the general public in turn, will then become part of habit, and will finally be eliminated as the duties of a special class of individuals. There is no doubt that the content of Lenin’s words here, in any case, does not contradict the essence of his previous statements and views.
These statements are not without problems, but at the same time, they are quite different from beating the drum of autocracy and dressing the 19-member Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in the guise of total class rule. Lenin’s problem was not at all the lack of his hatred of capitalism, love for socialism and the true liberation of man. The important problem is that this hatred, love, struggle and sacrifice alone are not enough to play a radical anti-wage labour and Marxian role in the class struggle. Lenin was at the peak of his anti-capitalist passion and socialist idealism, but as has been emphasized several times in this article, Lenin, his companions, Russian Social Democracy and the entire Social Democracy of the day saw the capitalist system, socialism, labour organization, class consciousness and various issues of the class struggle in a way that was different from the Marxian and anti-wage labour approach of the working class. Lenin was more radical, more capable, more passionate and more militant than most of his companions in this broad spectrum or this broad movement of workers and non-workers. In the heated class campaign, he tried to push back the dense fog of false narratives from the space of his thoughts, beliefs and search for solutions, but this effort remained completely fruitless as far as his understanding of the fundamental problems of the anti-capitalist movement of the working class was concerned. Lenin criticized social democracy, but the scope of his criticism, at its sharpest, did not go beyond denouncing the compromises of social democratic parties with several Western European governments, which he called oligarchies of the political power of finance capital. Lenin fought against parliamentarism from a revolutionary and radical stronghold, but he sought a working-class and socialist alternative to parliamentarism not in the anti-wage labour councils of the working class but in the party at the top of the workers’ table. He rebelled against reform from the powerful embankment of the revolution, but he did not see the revolution as a means of advancing towards a society based on the abolition of wage slavery, which he saw as a motive for achieving state capitalism. Lenin tried with all his might to be the Marxist communist of the world labour movement instead of the social democrat of the Second International, but he did not succeed. The political equations and the arrangement of social forces of the day in the world played a very decisive role in isolating the anti-wage labour approach. It was not only the pressure of social democracy that, through the architecture of the horizons and strategies of the labour movement, tipped the balance of power to the detriment of wage labour communism. The influence of various social movements arising from the imperialist conditions of capitalist production also played the same role. If the former placed right-wing reformism before the working masses, the latter presented nationalist anti-imperialists’ as an alternative to the working class’s anti-wage labour struggle.
Whoever first used the term “Leninism” was Stalin who called Leninism “Marxism” of the imperialist era. It is not worth arguing here that the ideological seal and seal of Marx’s narrative of class struggle and the addition of the suffix “ism” to Marx’s name were the exact opposite of the essence of his teachings. Two other important points are worth mentioning.
First, Leninism was neither an extension of the Marxist critique of imperialist capitalism, nor a continuation of the Marxist and anti-wage labour approach to the class struggle of the working masses but was actually a distorted explanation of that critique and a misguided excavation in the path of that approach.
Second, and much more importantly, Lenin did not create Leninism. It would be a great mistake to blame Lenin for what became known under that name. From analyses, horizon-building, solutions and strategies to the version of party building and bourgeois democratic revolution and other issues, they were a system of thoughts and teachings that sections of the bourgeoisie in Russia, in Asia, Africa, Latin America and everywhere in the world saw their desired application as a need to field and express their life and establish their rule. What Lenin said, wrote, did and summarized could have been subjected to radical practical criticism as the mistakes of an idealistic revolutionary man, an anti-capitalist worker at the same time or in later periods. But this was not done. The anti-wage labour movement of the working class was much weaker and more degraded to undertake such a task. On the one hand, there was this, and on the other hand, there were huge interests of sections of the bourgeoisie that saw their fulfilment in the glorification of these words and in the comprehensive elevation of Lenin’s mistakes to “Leninism”. It was not Lenin who created Lenin. If he had lived, he might have criticized his mistakes, or he might never have done so, but layers of the bourgeoisie had no hesitation in turning Lenin’s words into mortar and building blocks for “Leninism.” If the workers’ movement, under the pressure of its own weaknesses and rebellious illusions, was not able to criticize Lenin’s Marxism, the bourgeoisie had all the necessary capabilities to adapt Lenin’s words with the aim of building “Leninism”.
A long time has passed since then. During this long period, many changes have occurred in the world. The life cycle of the peasant movements was forever wrapped up in history a few decades later. Popular anti-imperialism has long since lost its historical relevance. For many decades, the relationship of buying and selling labour power has determined the dominant mode of production throughout the world, and the bourgeoisie has become the dominant economic and political class in all parts of the world. All these developments have occurred, but “Leninism” is still only a campaign banner for some circles and forces. Forces and circles that are the dying generation in their social existence are the same popular movements and nationalist anti-imperialism. The prospect of their struggle is the establishment of bourgeois communism, or state capitalism, as is well known. To this end, they beat the drum of forming a Leninist party and are captive to the desire to turn the working masses into foot soldiers of such a party so that one day, one day, they can overthrow the existing political order of capital and replace it with a political order corresponding to the centralized state planning of capital. They shoot at the shadow of any attempt to organize an anti-wage-labour council of the working-class masses, because they see this effort as a fire in the harvest of the dream of establishing state capitalism and the political power of a party beyond the workers. These circles and forces are becoming more and more impoverished every day. Once they built a group and a party in order to branch out. Now they do not even have the interests of forming a party, and they spend the rest of their reserves on their continuous divisions.
“Critique of Leninism”
From the years before and after the October Revolution, many criticisms have been raised against Lenin, his strategies, opinions and works. The biggest part of these criticisms has been the construction of thought workshops and the production of capitalist monstrosity. From the point of view of the entire bourgeoisie, Lenin is the supreme symbol of communist thinking and practice, and it is clear what the statesmen or representatives of the political, intellectual, literary, law, sociology, and culture of this class will do with someone who has such a narrative of his role? Regarding what has been proposed from the official platforms of the capitalist class’s politics and thought or by the representatives of this class in this passage, we will completely ignore it. The task of this section of critics is too clear to need any explanation. Leaving aside the bourgeoisie and its anti-humanist reactionary criticism, during this one century, occasional criticisms from the left point of view have also been directed at Lenin’s ideas. In some cases, this section of reviews has brought decisive labour and communist elements. Rosa Luxemburg’s criticism of Lenin’s theory of the party, her criticism and those like Anton Pannekoek ‘s criticism of what happened in Russia in the years after the revolution, have been of this type. The problem of all these criticisms has been that none of them have analysed and criticized the foundation of Lenin’s view of capitalism and socialism from a Marxian and anti-wage labour point of view. They have considered Lenin’s party narrative incorrect, pointing to the problem of weakening the soviets, the disaster of excluding workers from the sphere of influence in planning, and the monopolization of the party elite in all spheres of social life. They have criticized the inability of the Soviet government to expropriate the capitalists and the role of this government in paving the way for the bourgeoisie to return to the sphere of property and power. They have criticized the so-called New Economic Program (NEP), the twisted version of one-man management and the Taylor system in factories, the formation of an official army, or many other events that were all theorized by Lenin and the work program of the government. Each of these critics has addressed a corner of these issues and has put Lenin’s political record under the microscope. But none of them has focused on what really caused the failure of the revolution or the reasons for the occurrence of these events. If the revolution had been successful, had not failed, and had not suffered any of these disasters, then the labour movement of 1902 to 1917 and later in Russia would have been a different movement. If “Leninism” is to be criticized, Lenin’s strategies for this movement in all these years must be criticized. The Russian labour movement, under the pressure of the analyses, perspectives, and strategies of Lenin and the Bolshevik Party, took a path in these years that was not the path of preparation and acquisition of the necessary readiness for socialist planning of labour and production and the organization of an anti-wage labour council. This movement did not practice this preparation in these years, did not organize itself against capitalism, did not open the horizon of the abolition of wage labour before itself. It did not line up its conscious class power against capital and did not make the path of the practice of exercising this power against capital its agenda. It did not advance its demands of the day from an anti-capitalist perspective and did not make its current demands the cause of a war against wage labour. Instead of all this, he hung his head on the party. It was ordered by the party to make the revolution democratic and pave the way for the growth of Western-style capitalism, to take the path of a supra-class anti-regime, to consider the comprehensive exposure of the tsarist regime as the content of its class recognition. The Russian labour movement in this period learned these words and actions from Lenin and Bolshevism, made the revolution with the call of Lenin and the party, and went to the factories on the day after the victory of the revolution. At this level of awareness, preparation, organization, and recognition of the horizon of the struggle and its attachment to the party beyond itself, this movement was unable to continue the revolution and advance towards socialism abolishing wage labour. The critique of “Leninism” is dependent on the Marxian critique of the entire praxis and approach that led the Russian labour movement to such a fate. The real criticism of “Leninism” depends on the anti-wage labour critique of Lenin’s account of capitalism, of socialism, of the imperialist conditions of capitalist production, of the characteristics and requirements of the field of communism abolishing wage labour, of the conscious existence of the working class, of the solutions and all other issues related to the anti-capitalist movement of the working masses.
Those who have criticized Lenin from the perspective of the left have not done so and do not do so now. The worst kind of this criticism can be found in the work of those who’s entire “Leninism” is reduced to a sleight of hand in theoretical clichés and a handful of academic terms. “Marx saw the relationship between object and mind in this way, Engels saw it in another way, Lenin failed to understand this relationship correctly, and it is because of this lapse that history has lost its way, and the international working class has fallen into this state of affairs.” These are not the photographed formulations of this group of critics, but the whole substance of their criticism is nothing other than these words. It is not without reason that this group of critics, until yesterday, were the most faithful and ardent Leninists, and today, by abandoning Leninism, they recommend and propagate the way to fight capitalism by attaching it to “NATO”!!