ecsd on Nostr: npub15th6y…a6nvx The REAL Russian revolution was that of February 1917 (their ...
npub15th6y0m8c79aq5qg2arvpw955jr4c5cvvvvkrxz70tnh4n282dzq2a6nvx (npub15th…6nvx)
The REAL Russian revolution was that of February 1917 (their calendar then.) That was the one where the people secured the freest press the world had ever seen; the Tsar abdicated; the workers formed the Soviets and seized the factories; the people were free.
History is written by the Victors, yes? So we get the LIONIZATION of Lenin and the Bolsheviks, when students of history should not be so kind. And Stalin outlasted his adversaries and had decades to rewrite history. And Makhno won their Civil War for them. The American Labor Movement was severely damaged by [at least its association with] Communists loyal to Stalin. I went into a reading of history expecting that all the nasty stuff I'd been told about Communism was bullshit, but sadly that's not true: Communism as exported by name by Stalin was indeed a threat; see the compilation of essays under the title "The God That Failed". Stalin gave Communism a bad name. Stalin fucked up. But Lenin wasn't much better, nobody needs "my way or the highway". I admire the Anarchists overall; they should have run the country on the back of the February revolution, but Trotsky and the Bolsheviks had them all killed, circa Kronstadt. See the marvelous Angelica Balabanoff, "Impressions of Lenin" and "Memoirs of a Revolutionary".
Someone who knows, can clue me in as to whether Lenin's authoritarianism derives from Marx; or Not. I haven't read Kapital. I never had any use for the phrase "dictatorship of the proletariat", since I'm an Anarchist first, so Marx can screw himself to the extent he endorsed forcing conformity to any notion. I suppose I should read Bakunin.
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Oh, yes, read Arthur Koestler's "Darkness at Noon".
The REAL Russian revolution was that of February 1917 (their calendar then.) That was the one where the people secured the freest press the world had ever seen; the Tsar abdicated; the workers formed the Soviets and seized the factories; the people were free.
History is written by the Victors, yes? So we get the LIONIZATION of Lenin and the Bolsheviks, when students of history should not be so kind. And Stalin outlasted his adversaries and had decades to rewrite history. And Makhno won their Civil War for them. The American Labor Movement was severely damaged by [at least its association with] Communists loyal to Stalin. I went into a reading of history expecting that all the nasty stuff I'd been told about Communism was bullshit, but sadly that's not true: Communism as exported by name by Stalin was indeed a threat; see the compilation of essays under the title "The God That Failed". Stalin gave Communism a bad name. Stalin fucked up. But Lenin wasn't much better, nobody needs "my way or the highway". I admire the Anarchists overall; they should have run the country on the back of the February revolution, but Trotsky and the Bolsheviks had them all killed, circa Kronstadt. See the marvelous Angelica Balabanoff, "Impressions of Lenin" and "Memoirs of a Revolutionary".
Someone who knows, can clue me in as to whether Lenin's authoritarianism derives from Marx; or Not. I haven't read Kapital. I never had any use for the phrase "dictatorship of the proletariat", since I'm an Anarchist first, so Marx can screw himself to the extent he endorsed forcing conformity to any notion. I suppose I should read Bakunin.
--
Oh, yes, read Arthur Koestler's "Darkness at Noon".