Wheelchairman, I ain't done with you yet!

[SicN Twisted]

As I'm sure you know, Lenin was sceptical that workers could develop anything more than "trade union consciousness," by which he meant that workers could not see far beyond their immediate predicament. Beatrice Webb, a Marxist-Leninist you probably respect, said that workers couldn't think beyond horse racing odds. It's a general Leninist idea that workers were not capable of organizing and thinking resolutely so they required the leadership of bourgeois intellectuals who could "represent them." This is strictly in contrast with Marx's sentiment throughout Das Kapital, which I'm assuming you've read.

This lack of faith in the abilities of working class is the basis behind the tyrany of Bolchevism, commensed by none other then Lenin. Do you think workers are only capable of thinking about horse raising? Where do you stand on this, commie? Justify your idol's vulgar misrepresentation of socialist values or admit now that Lenin was not a real socialist.

[wheelchairman]

Please give a source to where you have that stuff where Lenin doesn't believe the working class could ever represent itself?

The theory of the vanguard party is based on the party educating the working class. In the evening schools, it was often the case that workers would be teaching workers.

[HornyPope]

Here's yet another fun fact:

Lenin lived in a trendy bourgeois neighbourhood during his exile in Geneva. He could have sailed to England to live in the working classes of Liverpool or Manchester but no, he stayed among the wealthy. Why? He probably wanted to penetrate the minds and the lives of the bourgeois capitalists. Another funny fact is in the same city resided multiple other Soviet dessidents--terrorists!--fed up with the Tzar, who spend days upon days plotting to kill him. Well, Lenin wouldn't let them have the pleasure. He beat them to the punch. And then killed the murderous, conspiring terrorists once they returned to the newly founded USSR.

[SicN Twisted]

Lenin's theory that workers were only capable of "trade union consciousness" is well known to any Lenin scholor. It's almost the defining difference of Leninism to standard Marxism. If you don't know this, you need to read more.

[wheelchairman]

Lenin's theory that workers were only capable of "trade union consciousness" is well known to any Lenin scholor. It's almost the defining difference of Leninism to standard Marxism. If you don't know this, you need to read more.

Then please quote a writing by him saying that. I own his selected works. I haven't come across this yet (and I can't say I've read them all, so it's possible I missed this.)

[SicN Twisted]

"We said that Social-Democratic consciousness could not exist among the workers. But it could be brought to them from without. [/i]The history of all countries testifies that workers left exclusively to their own strength can cultivate only a trade union consciousness-[/i] that is the belief in the need to unite into a union, struggle against the bosses, press the government to pass needed labor legislation, etc. The doctrine of Socialism grew out of philosophic, historical, and economic theories which were worked out by the educated representatives of the propertied class, the intelligentsia. The founders of modern scient ific socialism, Marx and Engels belonged themselves to the bourgeois intelligentsia. Just as in Russia, the theoretical doctrine of Social-Democracy arose quite independently from spontaneous growth of a workers movement, but arose rather as a natural and inevitable result of the development of ideas among the revolutionary socialist intelligentsia. . ."

V. I. Lenin: What Is to Be Done?(1902)

http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~wldciv/worl...r_2/lenin.html

Yeah, okay, workers aren't smart enough to lead themselves, so they need the bourgeois to do it for them.

[wheelchairman]

That hardly contradicts anything. What he said was true, it is rare when workers suddenly and spontaneously overthrow the oppressive class without having first being taught by a group of intellectuals. The point was that the intellectuals would teach what the workers needed to know, and then the workers would carry it forward.

[SicN Twisted]

The point was that workers were incapable of organizing their own revolution because they're not capable of exerting more then a "trade union conciousness," so they required bourgeois leaders. Lenin firmly believed workers could not chose their leaders and determine the structure of the state that's set up for them. This idea of dictatorship over the proleteriat goes against Marx's idea of dictatorship of the proleteriate, where workers will revolt and take over their means of production - under Lenin, the workers were incapable of maintaining their means of production, so the party had to do it. Please explain how the fuck this tyranical class society in any way resembles true socialism.

[wheelchairman]

This was the first example of socialism being put into practice by itself. At the time of the revolution the workers weren't fully capable of running the state. (although Lenin did try, despite your claims there were many workers in the Bolshevik party and many workers in management positions after the revolution and whatnot.) Theoretically however, it was based on the fact that the workers hadn't been able to educate themsevles into revolting before, and that what was needed was someone to give them the idea of socially owned means of production in a way that they could understand. What was the point.

As I've said before, I don't think things were run perfectly. But the revolution not only shocked everybody, the fact that it didn't spread across Europe socked them as well.