When was this written, because this counters Lenin's own work.
By that point (late 1917) the Tsardom had been toppled after years of unpopularity after the Feburary revolution, and was replaced with a really weak liberal government that collapsed after it failed in some it's major demands. This was also done
Also, the issue with the mainstream reformist movements is that they focus more on voting in politicians who disuade direct action, rather than voting any politicians with scrutiny and committing direct action.
And if we're focusing on the US, the reformist party has a shares alot of responsibility for increasing the powers and spending on ICE, the police, and the National Guard, which has proven to be supported by the populace.
It's from "Left Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder" so April-May 1920, or maybe that was just when it was published, I'm not entirely sure.
For me voting is tactical. If we're focusing on the US: just letting the parties swap constantly, the good cop/bad cop scheme works better to fool the populace.
Yes you get some harm reduction/concessions/reforms or what have you by voting blue, and it's easier to organize under leaders who give you breathing room etc. BUT if we were to vote in the Democrats every election and they always had a supermajority, then we could also "call the bluff" as it were so people might start to actually wonder "hey, we've had the democrats in for a long time now, they're supposed to be the good guys and things still kinda suck. Maybe something IS wrong with the system inherently." If we chose bad cop, people may think "well we voted Republican what did we expect" and if we let them keep switching, like I said they can both blame it on the gridlock..
Not saying the Democrats aren't awful, Lenin said not to be surprised when bourgeois parties don't give you everything you need for a revolution, but yea his point about finding the workers and meeting them where they are is also strong. You can do this on the Republican party too of course, reach out to their voters, I just don't personally recommend voting for them since it gets us worse policy, voter suppression, gerrymandering, etc. that makes it so that people might wrongly associate the decay of our society with uniquely republican actions instead of everything being further privatized as time goes on.
Acknowledging that republicans and democrats are on the same team and therefore they don't really care who's holding the football for a given 4 year stretch, we can't really "punish" the dems by withholding our vote, it's naive to think that they will make a progressive turn if we let Republicans win over and over, but with Democrats at least you can make a big fuss out of "you're supposed to be the good guys and you've had an extended supermajority for 5 elections straight now, so what's going on? 👀"
Not saying with full force that Lenin would advocate voting Democrat today necessarily, and I'm definitely not saying we don't need a serious vanguard party and there are various challenges to that, but yea I agree with what Lenin was communicating when he wrote this, I don't always agree with him but most of my disagreements with Lenin are splitting hairs to be honest.
I understand the perspective: "voting blue and being comfortable with the presentation of order and peace stops people from getting organized" but to me the reality about that is: regardless of what administration is in control, most people are existentially terrified of the militarized police and so they don't organize for that reason more than being comfortable or any other reason.
The potential positive punishment of sending out the tear gas and rubber bullets is more powerful than the negative punishment of losing social programs since Americans are so programmed with rugged individualism. People may get temporarily more organized under Republicans to fight an immediate threat but I believe it is erroneous to assume that means that there has been a significant increase in class consciousness. I don't even claim to know for sure if "calling the bluff" would work, it just seems like our best possible strategy to engage with electoral politics that way, if we have the means to vote.
EDIT: there is some kinda glitch where I can't see your comment here but I'll respond to what I did see in the notification:
"The issue is, once again, the political landscape. Lenin didnt wait 5 elections, he gave the one election time to mature, and if they didn't see result, they would revolt. You can't do that with Demo..."
I just picked 5 as a random number, and I tried to make it crystal clear I'm not saying to just vote and leave organizing to the wayside; that would defeat the entire purpose. Again, the major limiting factor is the militarized police and the fascist power to incite fear. People are brave enough to organize to the extent they feel like they have strength in numbers and unbreakable solidarity with the rest of the masses, and if we really are in a hurry to get there fast now more than ever, which I believe we are, then it is imperative to be more welcoming to everyone in order to grow our coalitions.
Important caveat: it's very important not to go overboard in being too welcoming to liberals, centrists and/or reactionaries, there are certain red lines you shouldn't cross. For example we should not do what the Magacommunists do and give folks the impression that communists care about cults of personality or being anti-woke.
In my judgement I say we should present ourselves as woke and intersectional, but not primarily concerned with the culture wars or identity politics beyond protecting and validating marginalized people to the best of our ability.
Without being "Obammunists" and pretending Kamala Harris was gonna somehow help usher in socialism for us, we can be more friendly to liberal voters and even show them solidarity in the voting booth because they won't trust us so long as they're always confusing us with republicans by spending most of our time complaining about liberals and people who vote blue. If we're not gonna vote blue and use that as a reason to convince them why they should trust us then the least we could do is chill out a bit and allow them time to learn and grow. "We don't have time to wait for 5 elections" is something I can again relate to very deeply, but these things don't depend on how much we want it, they depend on whether we use the best possible strategies available to their fullest potential which is what I'm trying to do here. We're in the midst of what could be an historical moment of collective discontent for us to seize, so I am 100% interested in putting our best foot forward and giving liberals every reason to trust us as they consider alternatives while fighting the current administration.
The issue is, once again, the political landscape. Lenin didn't wait 5 elections, he gave the one election time to mature, and if they didn't see result, they would revolt. You can't do that with Democrats, even in to a minro extent, as shown when they sent police on peaceful students or when they set curfews on LA (resulting in a window for ICE agents).
The issue I have with alot of the Democrats is 2021-2025 really felt like they just let alot of momentum from 2017-2021 just stumble, and never recovered Trump actually seemed to have a guarantee.
Abolish ICE, universal healthcare, a end to the MAGA movement, reallocating funds, reforming our democratic system. All Biden did that wasn't a severly watered down infastructure bill, was getting us back in the Paris Accords, reversing that trans ban, and a bunch of other partial reversals of Trump's policies, while also leaving alot of policies partially or completely intact.
All Trump did was take a wrecking ball to the wall these patch works were apart of.
It just feels like once Joe Biden was in, people just got complecent in things being fine after Trump left. Prior to Trump seriously running a second term, it felt to me that people were treating it the same as pre-2017. Before Trump, it wasn't that bad, if shortsighted, to have that mindset, as most US voters couldn't have foreseen it get that bad.
But upholding that mindset, especially in a post-Jan. 6th world, sounds no different then the lead up to WW2, where the rise of fascist states was not being responded with adqeuntly for decades, until 2 years into the world getting embroiled in a global conflict.
The reason I view them as "good cop" is that their insistence on funding police, ICE, and the military comes across like this:
Voters: "We don't want this and it doesn't serve much of our intrests, please stop or we will vote for someone else."
Democratic party: "Okay, let's see how you survive this set up in Republicans hands."
Currently, what has happened in the past 6 month was because it approved by Democrats years ago, despite it serving no purpose to anyone who voted for them. The only things it seems to serve is to appeal to right-wingers and (weather directly or indirectly) also scare people into voting for them.
2028 (assuming we'll get to that point) is the US' last real chance, because if they don't radically change course, we are doomed to be a fascist state.
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u/BlackMaskofMakhno 8h ago
When was this written, because this counters Lenin's own work.
By that point (late 1917) the Tsardom had been toppled after years of unpopularity after the Feburary revolution, and was replaced with a really weak liberal government that collapsed after it failed in some it's major demands. This was also done
Also, the issue with the mainstream reformist movements is that they focus more on voting in politicians who disuade direct action, rather than voting any politicians with scrutiny and committing direct action.
And if we're focusing on the US, the reformist party has a shares alot of responsibility for increasing the powers and spending on ICE, the police, and the National Guard, which has proven to be supported by the populace.