Posted on 08/16/2009 11:50:17 AM PDT by mainestategop
For the next several days, I will publish letters and Essays by Vladamir Lenin On the United States. Examine Bolshevik views on the US way of life and free market. I hope you all find it very interesting
EXCERPT
The sharpening of the struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie is to be observed in all the advanced capitalist countries. The tendency is the same everywhere, though it manifests itself differently in accordance with the difference in historical conditions, political systems and forms of the labour movement. In America and Britain, where complete political liberty exists and where the proletariat has no revolutionary and socialist traditions that could be called living traditions, this sharpening of the struggle is expressed in the mounting movement against the trusts,(corporate monopolies) in the extraordinary growth of socialism and the increasing attention it is getting from the propertied classes, and in workers’ organisations, in some cases purely economic ones, that are beginning to enter upon systematic and independent proletarian political struggle.
In Austria and Germany, and partly also in the Scandinavian countries, this sharpening of the class struggle shows itself in election campaigns, in party relationships, in the closer alignment of the bourgeoisie of all sorts and shades against their common enemy, the proletariat, and in the hardening of judicial and police persecution. Slowly but surely, the two opposing camps are building up their strength, consolidating their organisations, drawing apart with increasing sharpness in every sphere of public life, as if preparing, silently and intently, for the impending revolutionary battles.
In the Latin countries, Italy and particularly France, the sharpening of the class struggle is expressed in especially stormy, violent, and occasionally forthright revolutionary outbreaks, when the pent-up hatred of the proletariat for its oppressors bursts out with unexpected force, and the “peaceful” atmosphere of parliamentary struggle gives way to episodes of real civil war.
The international revolutionary movement of the proletariat does not and cannot develop evenly and in identical forms in different countries. The full and all-round utilisation of every opportunity in every field of activity comes only as the result of the class struggle of the workers in the various countries. Every country contributes its own valuable and specific features to the common stream; but in each particular country the movement suffers from its own one-sidedness, its own theoretical and practical shortcomings of the individual socialist parties. On the whole we clearly see a tremendous step forward of international socialism, the rallying of million-strong armies of the proletariat in the course of a series of practical clashes with the enemy, and the approach of a decisive struggle with the bourgeoisie—a struggle for which the working class is far better prepared than in the days of the Commune, that last great proletarian insurrection.
Commentary: Lenin again mistakenly views the American revolution as a war for liberty exclusively for the higher ranking social classes. What is ironic is that the very areas that these corporate monopolies exercised corruption over the workers used the same techniques that the left uses to undermine the economy. They were capitalist in name only. Meanwhile, workers that migrated out to the American west escaped much of this exploitation and through many dangers and risks that came from this migration, many succeeded in finding the American dream.
Today, the former American frontiers are now as much enslaved to government control and corruption by the corporations as much as the urbanized areas of the nation are. It is also an indication that America's liberal elite are more to the left than Lenin and the Bolsheviks.
PING!
In the context of what's going on today with the finanial bailouts, CDS's, etc., etc....this recently discovered (I've never read any Lenin until recently) Lenin quote I found interesting...
The supremacy of finance capital over all other forms of capital means the predominance of the rentier and of the financial oligarchy; it means that a small number of financially “powerful” states stand out among all the rest. The extent to which this process is going on may be judged from the statistics on emissions, i.e., the issue of all kinds of securities.
Education BUMP!
fantastic. please ping me with your future posts on this subject if you are doing a ping list. thanks.
Like I said, The american left is way out even more than the Bolsheviks were.
>>government control and corruption by the corporations
Increasingly one and the same.
Corporatism, Collectivism, State Communism - all being forms of the same ugly facet of human nature, where the collective structure of governance becomes the mandated object of worship by subjugated individuals.
For a Biblical reference see “BAAL” - which is a Hebrew word meaning “Master, Lord, Posessor...”; and which, in Babylon, was the State.
It was precisely that nature from which the founders intended to protect themselves and their progeny. Thus the 1st amendment, secured by the 2nd.
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