Reminder that the Bolsheviks were also tailing the masses in terms of radical action until Lenin returned from hiding in Finland and browbeat the shit out of the Central Committee to do a fucking coup instead of just writing furious, insistent letters to do it.
It really is one of those exceedingly rare fulcrum moments of history where the world changed because of the actions of one individual. No Lenin, no October, no USSR. Russia probably would have instead experienced a White Terror under a military junta.
EDIT: I do need to clarify that this is by no means intended to devalue the actions of thousands of Russian workers and peasants. They were very much driving events. But they were indecisive, they were standing at the ledge and had cold feet on whether or not to take the leap of faith. The Bolshevik leadership had this far worse than the masses in this regard.
October is THE go-to example of why decisive and clear leadership is absolutely necessary for revolutions to happen and why mere radical spontaneity of the masses is simply not enough on its own. The radical near-anarchy of the post-February environment was largely directionless, just raw radical energy careening through space like a bull in a china shop. Lenin's in-person arrival was twice like a bolt of lightning that jolted the left into decisive action in the right direction - first when he returned from exile at Finland Station and shortly after published the April Theses; second when he returned from hiding in actual Finland and personally yelled at the Bolshevik leaders until they voted to launch a coup in October. If these events had not happened, the history of the world would have been very different.
Makes sense that the alphabet agencies assassinate leftist leaders all the time.
He countered the revolution of people who were ready to appoint a military dictator with an actual revolution.
Someone needs his binky, because it looks like he's been diagnosed with an infantile disorder :lenin-shining:
"Acktually Lenin was a right wing thug who came to power off the backs of the masses" - Vote Blue no matter who "best" American intellectual totally an anarchist and not an op
Dude, what gets me is they rail on tankies for saying ML is scientific, arguing that science adapts itself and changes based on its failures and ML is dogmatic and doesn't do that, but when you argue that all countries that have had an ML revolution and are still around, Vietnam, Cuba, Loas, China, etc (if I'm missing any), have adapted and changed themselves with market reforms to avoid the failure of the USSR, they just say shit like "oh, so you're actually a capitalist" or if they really wanna get to me lol "oh, so your only accomplishment is a mild social democracy".
USSR also had a market reform and that one seems to be fairly unpopular around this parts.
Dude, what gets me is they rail on tankies for saying ML is scientific, arguing that science adapts itself and changes based on its failures and ML is dogmatic and doesn’t do that,
That just makes everyone on both sides of the issue wrong in their understanding of science.
This person thinks that democracy is a viable option lmao. Bordiga forever
I'm going to assume this is a joke and devote no more thought to it.
Covers ears, lalalala
this guy is a moron, im seeing way too much of his dumb takes lately
Wasn't he though?
Not in the pejorative harming the proletarian revolution sense, but in the counter to a revolution already in progress sense.
