Lenin today – Alex Callinicos and Michael Albert
Posted by ac on February 16th, 2010
Alex Callinicos explains the role of the Leninist party in the self-emancipation of the working class. He debates anarchist Michael Albert.
Callinicos: “We of the revolutionary Marxist tradition don’t seek the seizure of power by a particular party, not by ourselves in particular. The seizure of the state by a political party, however committed its members, however radical its program, would in the end simply reproduce the existing hierarchy of domination and exploitation… By taking power we mean something radically different. We mean the development of workers’ councils; the working class self-organized. Spreading networks of workers’ councils across countries, indeed across the world, ultimately, that wrest power away from the corporations and the state, and take over the running of society. [We mean] creat[ing] a radically democratic self-run society on ultimately a global scale. The role of a revolutionary party in the Leninist tradition… is not to substitute itself for this council democracy, but to help to knit together the different struggles in a focused struggle for power.”
February 17th, 2010 at 12:20 pm
That we can’t believe the claims of contemporary Leninists of not seeking power for their party, which in their minds, is always correct, is the precise problem we face. And the historical record for the role of the Bolsheviks in the Soviets is dubious. Even Alex Callinicos needs to get behind his own rhetoric.
February 17th, 2010 at 5:33 pm
We need a non-partisan civil network to unite community groups of various sorts, NGOs, and everyone interested in making democracy function in all aspects of our cultures — not just in politics, where it has been malfunctioning for a brief two hundred years.
February 18th, 2010 at 2:11 am
@Matthew: I think Callinicos makes a stronger argument for a focused and united revolutionary party than Albert makes against the Leninist party.
Your assertion is that you don’t believe that Leninist organizations are not seeking power for themselves. I would argue that anarchism can not pose a serious challenge to power, or capitalism, and can barely organized itself into being a serious challenge to windows.
“Even Alex Callinicos needs to get behind his own rhetoric”. Callinicos backs up his arguments. What you have just said is, in fact, purely empty rhetoric.