What we are discussing here is not whether Lenin was correct but rather whether he had an accurate interpretation of Marx and Engles. If you want to argue that Marx and Engles were wrong, and that Lenin was wrong because he was following in that tradition, that’s a completely different position from that of the person I replied to, that Marx and Engles were right and that Lenin was wrong because he deviated from that position.
I’m not really interested in getting sidetracked here from this point into this much broader discussion. I’d be happy to discuss it another time, but for now, we’re talking about whether Lenin correctly interpreted Marx’s writings and followed in his tradition or not.
I realize I expanded the scope by bringing Engels’ “On Authority” into the conversation. I want to remain focused on Lenin’s vanguard party as an implementation of the “dictatorship of the prolitariat”. I agree that Lenin’s ideas were informed by the writings of Marx.
Marx’s “dictatorship of the prolitariat” could be implemented as a vanguard party as per Lenin. Lenin’s iteration could be construed as accurate to Marx’s definition.
However, Marx also referred to the Paris Commune as a “dictatorship of the prolitariat” even without a vanguard party. Therefore my qualm, similar to the original comment, is that Lenin’s vanguard party is a method to extract rents from the prolitariat.
Then you agree with me.
What we are discussing here is not whether Lenin was correct but rather whether he had an accurate interpretation of Marx and Engles. If you want to argue that Marx and Engles were wrong, and that Lenin was wrong because he was following in that tradition, that’s a completely different position from that of the person I replied to, that Marx and Engles were right and that Lenin was wrong because he deviated from that position.
I’m not really interested in getting sidetracked here from this point into this much broader discussion. I’d be happy to discuss it another time, but for now, we’re talking about whether Lenin correctly interpreted Marx’s writings and followed in his tradition or not.
I realize I expanded the scope by bringing Engels’ “On Authority” into the conversation. I want to remain focused on Lenin’s vanguard party as an implementation of the “dictatorship of the prolitariat”. I agree that Lenin’s ideas were informed by the writings of Marx.
Marx’s “dictatorship of the prolitariat” could be implemented as a vanguard party as per Lenin. Lenin’s iteration could be construed as accurate to Marx’s definition.
However, Marx also referred to the Paris Commune as a “dictatorship of the prolitariat” even without a vanguard party. Therefore my qualm, similar to the original comment, is that Lenin’s vanguard party is a method to extract rents from the prolitariat.