Having recently presented Classical Marxist theory, then Leninist strategy, and last time Bolshevik practice, this essay moves on to critically assess Leninist strategy as the next step toward assessing Marxist Leninist Ideology as a whole.

Most of this article, like others in this series, was conceived and written back in the early 1970s and excerpted from a book I published in 1974. This piece, titled Listen Leninist, indicates criticisms I had of Leninist strategy as I encountered it back then (and as I see it now too). But why spend so much time on ideas from over a century ago? 

I think the left sorely needs to have greater clarity than it now has about understanding the world, about envisioning what to seek in its place, and about having shared methods for how to win what we seek. My guiding concern was then and is now too: As we go forward, should we advocate or reject Marxism Leninism and other classical ideologies? 

This time the chapter the episode excerpts starts with a quote from Charles Peguy: “… who would exercise the dictatorship of the proletariat?[1] Then  follows a quotation from Kropotkin: “The idea of soviets, that is to say, of councils of workers and peasants, conceived first at the time of the revolutionary attempt in 1905, and immediately realized by the revolution of February 1917, as soon as Czarism was overthrown—the idea of such councils controlling the economic and political life of the country is a great idea. All the more so since it necessarily follows that these councils should be composed of all who take a real part in the production of national wealth by their own efforts.”[2]

Then comes the excerpted chapter which starts out: Classical Marxism Leninism is a revolutionary ideology—as such it presumably provides its practitioners with a conceptual framework for thought, a long-term goal, a set of strategic imperatives, and a number of tactical guidelines. A Marxist Leninist is ostensibly intellectually fully armed to participate in revolutionary struggle.

Classical Marxist Leninists first determine the mode of production, then the forces and relations of production and their interrelations, then the class character of on-going social conflicts, and then what form the primary and subsidiary contradictions take and how they affect one another. 

Classical Marxist Leninists next determine which forces propel class struggle and which are hindering it. And with all this done they establish goals and strategies to reach those goals. They form a party, institute discipline, and begin to establish leadership over all other already existent revolutionary groups.

To achieve these ends, Classical Marxist Leninists choose among available tactics by studying their potential effects on all class alignments, organize chosen tactics into programs, and carry out programs in the name of the oppressed classes until such time as they achieve victory over the old ruling class.

But none of this occurs in a historical vacuum. All Classical Marxist Leninists are well versed in the views of their forebears—they do not each redevelop Classical Marxist insights from scratch. Organizational and tactical insights are not reviewed, they are accepted and employed. 

One doesn’t look to see if there is a well-defined mode of production—one looks to see what the necessarily existing mode of production is. One doesn’t look to see if classes are struggling and if that struggle is of central importance—one looks to uncover the characteristics of the centrally important class struggle. One doesn’t look here and there for potential forces to be employed in the revolution—one looks at the political economy and at the interrelations of its classes to find the forces that can ultimately be employed by the working class in their revolution. Finally, one doesn’t look to see what composes the superstructure and how strongly it affects things—one looks to see the composition of the already well understood and well defined superstructure and attempts to understand how it is carrying out its tasks.

If it is true, as Cornelius Castoriadis writing as Paul Cardan tells us, that “in the last analysis, the ideas that inspire men are as much an objective factor in history as the material environment in which they develop and as the social reality which they seek to transform,”[3] then it is crucial to come to a full understanding of any faults, absences, or other weaknesses in Classical Marxist Leninist ideology. We have already discovered gross inadequacies in Bolshevik practice. These directly intimate weaknesses at the strategic level and in this chapter we explore those in somewhat more detail.

Lenin thought that it was simple and clear that classes should be led by parties and parties by individuals. His overall perspective emphasized the efficient use of class tendencies and needs, and at the same time excluded from critical consideration any of the dynamics of his party’s organization. As Lenin himself put it: “To a Russian Bolshevik, who is acquainted with the mechanism and who for twenty five years has watched it growing out of small, illegal, underground circles, all talk about ‘from above’ or ‘from below’, about the dictatorship of the leaders and the dictatorship of the masses etc. cannot but appear to be ridiculous and childish nonsense, something like discussing whether the right leg or the left leg is more useful to a man.”[4]

We agree with Lenin that a serious Leninist will be incredulous when confronted with our criticisms—so incredulous that, like Lenin, such a Leninist probably wouldn’t even bother to respond, or, if he or she does respond, it will likely be dismissively. In fact, we even accept Lenin’s explanation for the whole phenomenon. 

We see, as Lenin seems to see, that Bolshevik thought is informed by Bolshevik experience. But we also see that, as Sartre puts it, “action and thought are not to be separated from organization since one always thinks in terms of the structures he or she finds him or herself in and acts according to the organizations to which he she belongs.”[5]

I interject from now, 2026: I am no expert on Sartre or existentialism. But the above quote has serious merit. It says it isn’t only the ownership relations in the economy, or even those plus other economic, political, and cultural social relations of society that matter in seeking change. It is also the social relations we create and work within as we carry out our left endeavors, but I probably didn’t need to inject that, as I suspect and certainly hope the point will be made in what follows. 

The excerpted chapter 1974 continued: We just say these things differently than Sartre or Lenin. We say an individual works in the context of his or her consciousness which in turn derives in considerable part from the person’s surroundings and work groups. It is nearly impossible for a person to see beyond the bounds of his or her own consciousness. A person cannot easily even be fully aware of possibilities or criticisms generated outside his or her conceptual domain. Lenin didn’t put much credence into criticisms about his tactical thoughts because he was unable to accept or even understand such criticisms—he usually didn’t think them deserving of anything more than a flippant reply. Later we will come to understand how the narrowness of Lenin’s theory led to this kind of sectarian stance on such matters.

If the proletariat as a group controlled economic life and was a majority, if it became increasingly more and more oppressed, and if the group considered its oppression unjust, its members would probably not need any substantial political consciousness to initiate some kind of revolution. But none of this is the modern-day case: workers do not control society, they do not think of themselves as a powerful, deserving majority, and they are not constantly being forced into what they perceive to be worse and worse conditions of life. They are not “immiserated,” and so long as they lack political consciousness they will tend to accept their hardships as necessary concomitants of the rewards their society also produces. Modern workers thus require high levels of political awareness to move from reactionary political ideologies to revolutionary ones. They must overcome racist, sexist, authoritarian, classist, and liberal obstacles, see beyond fascist alternatives, and overcome all kinds of political inhibitions. Revolutionary organizations can’t solely be premised on the fact that workers or anybody else will move solely because starvation compels them to. Instead revolutionary activism must foster conditions of motion in the workers’ environment and in his and her consciousness. As we will see, modern Leninists don’t ponder these matters deeply enough before choosing their organizational forms.

I interject: That is, modern Leninists see and understand that claim, but on the one hand they tend to exaggerate it a bit, and on the other hand, they often fail to perceive what kinds of activism can counter harmful past beliefs rather than only abide or even intensify them. Citizens of existent societies bring baggage to their choices. Biases. Habits. Even delusions as well as loves, and hatreds. Leninist inclinations and choices mostly just ignore all that. They are largely blind to baggage and as a result as an unintended consequence they often intensify its obstructive impacts. 

The chapter continued: Two quotes from Rosa Luxembourg set the stage for our discussion of Leninist organization, and also help to remind us that not all Marxists were oblivious to the dynamics we will soon discuss: “But Socialist Democracy is not something that begins only in the promised land after the foundations.  of socialist economy are created, it does not come as some sort of Christmas present for the worthy people who, in the interim, have loyally supported a handful of socialist dictators.”[6]

Luxembourg added: “The ultra-centralism asked by Lenin is full of the sterile spirit of the overseer. It is not a positive and creative spirit. Lenin’s concern is not so much to make the activity of the party more fruitful as to control the party—to narrow the movement rather than develop it, to bind it rather than unify it.”[7]

Paradigmatically, Leninist parties are generally supposed to bring the masses together around revolutionary political actions dictated by Marxist Leninist analysis. But such parties become hierarchical pursuing and practicing the dynamics of what they call “democratic centralism.” Their goal is efficiency, their means is centralization, their product is all too often primarily Bolshevik-style law and order.

Leninist parties do not aim mostly at developing the political effectiveness of their members but instead aim mostly at directing the activities of their members. Decision-making goes unshared; information and experience is monopolized by those at the top.

Leninist Party leaders function according to their ideological views and try to mold everyone else’s actions to comply. They see themselves as being at the top due to their knowing more than anyone else, so they feel responsible for enforcing their views on everyone else. With time such leaders associate their own interests with the interests of the entire revolution—this rationalizes their position, influence, and power.

This type efficiency couples with Classical Marxist dictates to create blind discipline. The party is initially well motivated. It considers itself a servant of the people. But eventually, due to its own ‘good’ desires it begins submerging the will of the people in its own plans and needs. The party comes to see the revolution’s future and its own future as inseparable—the party acts to strengthen its own scope in the belief that it is thereby broadening the strength of the base of the revolution. But as time passes the analysis is done more and more in terms of the party’s welfare and less and less in terms of the revolution’s welfare, though of course they are always described as inextricable.

The hierarchical party disciplines the revolution so that its patterns follow those of the party, and so that party people will be in command. This is what our survey of Bolshevism displayed. One is reminded of the story of the old peasant in southern Russia, about 1923, who was standing with some other villagers watching a loud speaker being put up on the main street. A young party official said to the peasants, “Just think! With this, you’ll be able to hear Lenin all the way from Moscow!” “Good!” replied the old peasant. ”And will Lenin be able to hear us?”[8]

The party’s leaders project their styles and views upon the party—the party projects upon the whole revolution. The revolution is supposed to look like the Communist vision and not vice versa. In time the party is deemed the revolution, those who disagree with it obstruct the revolution. They must be dealt with as enemies, or as Lenin put it in an address to a Party Congress in young revolutionary Russia: “The time has come to put an end to opposition, to put the lid on it; we have had enough opposition.”[9]

I interject: We might reasonably ask, whether reading those words now or in 1974 when the chapter excerpted here was published, what does it take for an advocate of Marxism Leninism to hear or read even just that one sentence—much less all the rest of the indicative quotes and instructions from Lenin—and then, as some do, keep right on advocating Marxism Leninism without so much as a hiccup of critical consideration, much less self-doubt.

The chapter continued: The results are only too clear. If a Classical Leninist Party achieves power, the leaders’ and Party’s interest, the maintenance of their own essentially absolute dominance, leads to dictatorial bureaucracy. If a Party does not seize power, but only a position of influence within the old system, then the leaders’ and Party’s interests become to defend the Party’s role in society-as-it-is, and thus become counter to the workers’ interest in overthrowing the society-as-it-is. And even if the leaders are relatively incorruptible when in opposition, and thus capable of moving from electoral participation to militant opposition, they will nevertheless continue to enforce their own conceptions, stifling creativity and foreshadowing their even more dictatorial days to come. 

Whether in opposition as militants or even reactionaries, or in power as dictators, the Classical Marxist Leninist Party and leader characteristics are essentially the same: hardening of the political arteries, theoretical myopia, and organizational sclerosis, all brought about by steadily worsening effects of the dreaded disease ‘vested interesto-authoritosis’, and certainly unhampered, if not furthered, by continual feeding from Classical Marxist Leninist analysis. 

I interject: My apologies for the peculiar disease comment. Coming out of the Sixties, I guess youthful anger exploded into that. But even without that included, I can imagine a Leninist listening to this and growing steadily more upset, and perhaps even pulling the plug. But, if you happen to be leaning that way, before you do it, please note: That is not a substantive response. That instead fulfills a critical prediction. Having presented Leninism as voiced by Lenin and Trotsky, and then presented their actions as Bolsheviks again as presented in their own words to display the horrible results, I am now not only suggesting that their strategic approach didn’t prevent the horrible outcomes but instead predictably advanced them. The ideas and history are all of a single pattern. The problem wasn’t that Lenin or Trotsky were incompetent Leninists or unschooled and illogical Marxists. The problem was that they thought and behaved consistently and even brilliantly in tune with what has come to be called Marxism Leninism. Bolshevik practice is where it took them. Is that where contemporary advocates of Leninism want to wind up?

The chapter, written, keep in mind, in 1972-73, but I believe still quite relevant, continues: Rosa Luxembourg had a decidedly more instructive approach to the same problems Lenin so counter-productively ‘solved’ when she wrote: “Freedom only for the supporters of the government, only for the members of the party—however numerous they may be—is no freedom at all. Freedom is always and exclusively freedom for the one who thinks differently. Not because of any fanatical concept of justice but because all that is instructive, wholesome, and purifying in political freedom depends on this essential characteristic, and its effectiveness vanishes when freedom becomes a special privilege.”[10]

In short, revolution depends upon creation and creation depends upon freedom—but creation and “strictly imposed discipline” are antithetical. Further, in the modern context, even allegiance in the first place, at least on the left, and hierarchical discipline are antithetical. 

I interject: the phrase “at least on the left” is necessary. Hierarchical discipline can and does attract adherents on the right. But given its impact on creativity and on allegiance on the left, after Bolshevism, for Leninists there typically emerged, at best and with one massive exception, countless contending sects and not effective mass parties.

The chapter continued: The Leninist model is perhaps not so bad if one wants a transfer of power in an environment of chaos, or if one wants merely to run a bourgeois factory effectively. But for an all sided revolution or any kind of broadly humanitarian endeavor it is terrible. As Cohn-Bendit says, “Democracy degenerates into the ratification at the bottom of decisions taken at the top.”[11]  And under such conditions the Marxist Leninist ideology becomes eternally stagnant. It doesn’t grow with passing time. It forces itself upon its surroundings. It develops a sectarian life of its own. It acts contrary to real interests of revolution. Initiative disappears, new ideas are submerged, and old ideas are repeated endlessly—freedom dies in the dictatorship of ideological leaders.

I interject: I should qualify that. Marxist Leninist ideology did not “only stagnate” after Bolshevism. Maoism, in particular, made many changes. More academically, so did various scholars. But in practice, in its main features, not much altered. The defining attributes back then remain the defining attributes now. Indeed, and ironically, in our 2026 times, Marxist Leninists severely criticize what they call identity politics for paying insufficient attention to class but also for being too identity focused—but they do so without realizing that Marxism Leninism itself manifests exactly those same faults, though the involved identity isn’t race or gender but Marxist Leninist ideology, and the class avoidance is about matters often labelled PMC or, by me, coordinator class, not capitalists versus labor. 

The excerpted chapter continued: In talking of the two-way dynamic of disciplined centralization, Rudolf Rocker’s criticism is very like our own. He wrote: “Power operates only destructively, bent always on forcing every manifestation of life into the straitjacket of its laws. Its intellectual form of expression is dead dogma, its physical form brute force. And this unintelligence of its objectives sets its stamp on its supporters also and renders them stupid and brutal, even when they were originally endowed with the best of talents. One who is constantly striving to force everything into a mechanical order at last becomes a machine himself and loses all human feeling.”[12]

I interject, perhaps hearing this, Rocker seems unduly harsh to you, but consider the examples from last episode’s discussion of Bolshevism. The repression. The dismissiveness. The authoritarianism. The violence. And consider what it built. Rid yourself of wanting your words to not appear such that anyone could even mistakenly think you oppose fundamental change, and what would you then say about Bolshevism? Perhaps roughly what Rocker said?

The chapter continues: The preceding episode’s study of Bolshevik practice suggested still another of Leninism’s weaknesses: It ignores hierarchical organization’s’ long-run tendency towards bureaucracy and towards the undermining of revolutionary goals. But at least here the Leninist view is quite consistent. For if their Party is as effective as anything could be, then in their view any minor costs its practice creates can be dealt with easily enough after the productive mode is altered. Changing the mode of production is the Leninist’s central historical problem; all others need only be addressed in relation to it. Those problems that persist or that are even exacerbated during struggle can be handled easily enough when power is attained. But there are other perspectives on this same issue as, for instance, Murray Bookchin wrote: “This remarkable susceptibility of the left to authoritarianism and hierarchical impulses reveals the profound roots of the radical movement in the very society it professes to overthrow. In this respect nearly every revolutionary organization is a potential force for counter-revolution. Only if the revolutionary organization is so ‘structured’ that its forms reflect the direct, decentralized forms of freedom initiated by the revolution, only if the revolutionary organization fosters in the revolutionist the life-styles and personality of freedom, can this potential for counter-revolution be diminished. Only then is it possible for the revolutionary movement to disappear into its new, directly democratic, social forms, like surgical thread into a healing wound.”[13]

And of course Bookchin describes a positive process almost exactly opposite to the one which characterized Bolshevik relations to Russia’s freely created soviets. For rather than the Party becoming one with the soviets, the soviets were altered and made to become ‘one’ with the Party. They were dissolved into the Party’s form rather than vice versa. The potential for a real alteration of all productive relations and not just ownership relations disappeared. The interests of the leadership, molded by their ‘domineering roles’ and their narrow ideology, overwhelmed the interests of the workers.

The essence of this criticism is that capitalist societies inculcate in their citizenry oppressed and oppressing modes of behavior which are aggravated rather than overcome by hierarchical forms so that such forms rather than being temporary measures that overcome oppressions, virtually inevitably become ends in themselves which in fact continually recreate the dynamics they were supposedly aimed at conquering. The ability to understand and relate to such an analysis is an obviously important success criterion for any political consciousness to be used in a capitalist society. 

The fact that Classical Marxism Leninism doesn’t relate to that analysis is critically important. The reasons are twofold: First, relating to the analysis doesn’t correspond well with Classical Marxist Leninist desires to lead and have loyal followers, and second, the thinking involved is somewhat outside the Classical Marxist theoretical methodology. There is thus a kind of ‘unhappy’ coincidence between a lack in theory and a vested interest in behavioral arrogance and elitist self-conceptions, and it is just that kind of coincidence that we know often leads to sectarian narrownesses that prevents one’s seeing one’s own shortcomings.

I interject: Even if one says the problem was Lenin and Trotsky’s and other’s personal failings, that would still mean the ideology didn’t effectively block and correct those failings. On a trip to England way back in time, I was standing with a Leninist party leader looking at a party member who was hawking the party newspaper to workers on their way into their workplace. I watched for a bit the mechanical, plastic, actually robotic caricature of a feeling, thinking person that was the hawker. I somewhat timidly asked the leader, who was after all, kindly showing me around: Do you see anything off-putting or otherwise strange about that newspaper hawker’s manners, style, words, posture, or anything at all. He said: Nope, she is doing a fine job. We literally saw two different things as we looked at the one thing before us. At a smaller scale, that was like the Leninist leader and I looking at society, at workplaces, at families, at organizing, at his party’s history, at the Russian revolution, and so on, and our seeing dramatically different entities and processes with dramatically different implications. And that dynamic was, in a nutshell, what this sequence of episodes is about. The complexity of society was largely stripped away in the example. Did what his ideology let him see even in that very limited situation advance or obstruct prospects of fundamental change, and was the image he saw, as compared to what I saw, due to something anatomically wrong with his eyes like his being color blind, or to a momentarily disruptive mood due to some news he just got, or was it perhaps due to something in the air—or was it due to the impact of his identity, based in his ideology? Or, of course, perhaps he was clear sighted and I saw a mechanical off-putting robotic scene because my biases distorted my perception. In some quite serious sense, deciding which, writ large, is the task of these articles.

The chapter continued: Lenin thought that principled rejection of compromise was stupid. As he said, “There are compromises and compromises. One must be able to analyze the situations and the concrete conditions of each compromise, or of each variety of compromise.” A leader must “be able to attack ruthless compromises and sellouts, while at the same time using those that help the cause.”[14]

But the problem was and always is how one does actually determine which compromises are good and which are bad. One of our main criticisms of Classical Marxism Leninism is that it is not well suited to this type of critical determination. For example: Lenin defended participation in reactionary parliaments against those who said that it was the place where the bourgeoisie was always most successful in deceiving workers. Lenin said simply, that the Party should overcome its own weaknesses in functioning in Parliament, and should then participate.

He was objectively correct, but it is hard to tell whether he truly understood the reasonableness of the fears of the Parliamentary critics, though it’s not critical to speculate about. The real problem was that his analysis of the parliamentary tactics ignored its possible internal effects on the cadre who would become ‘statesmen’ and on the movement of which they would still constitute a part. Lenin’s major question was, will there be a sellout or not? He didn’t have the more reasonable tack of trying to ascertain both the benefits and costs at all levels. For example: Will acting in Parliament hinder or foster left growth? Will  it have good or bad psychological effects upon the people who do it and the party which supports them? Will the new ways of acting affect our old ways of acting, feeling, and thinking, favorably or otherwise? It seems that our analysis of the concerns of Leninist strategy and of Bolshevik practice gives us ample evidence that these type questions were never considered precisely because the Classical Marxist Leninists never really concerned themselves with understanding the internal dynamics of their own movements. We’ll later try to find roots for this in the methodology of Classical Marxist theory.

I interject: Do you feel the analogy with the Leninist leader and I seeing two different things while looking at the party member hawking party newspapers was fair? I can imagine a listener or reader taking issue with all above discussion of compromise, for example, asking or asserting that no, Lenin did ask exactly that kind of question regarding parliamentary participation. In fact I myself might make just that case against my own paragraph. However, what I think probably drove the paragraph, and certainly what I now take from it, is that those type questions were certainly not raised by Lenin regarding the imposition of discipline and particularly what they called one-man management, where they certainly should have been, and in any event, Lenin’s conceptual tool box wasn’t well equipped to answer the concerns. And, as well, Leninist ideology and ensuing identity typically foreclosed and still forecloses sincerely doing so.

The chapter continued: It seems reasonable to surmise, even at this point, that Classical Marxist Leninist tactical weaknesses have their roots in theoretic narrownesses or errors. Lack of needed strategic insights into the dynamics of elitism, authority, and bureaucracy suggest that we should later examine Classical Marxist theory for flaws which would contribute in these directions. Indeed, this is our whole presentation’s logic. We move from positively describing Classical Marxism and then Leninism to critically viewing Bolshevik practice and then to critiquing first strategy and finally theory. We do it in a loose flow, not causal so much as suggestive, and we do it in our order because our general understanding of the interrelations of theory, strategy, and practice suggest that such an approach is the best way for generating new insights and for correcting old ones.

In this light, consider Lenin’s view of the need for “efficiency and discipline” in all things and especially in the economy. In One Step Back: Two Steps Forward Lenin glorifies the effects of factory life on accustoming “the proletariat to discipline and organization.” Rosa Luxembourg responded quite forcefully: “The discipline which Lenin has in mind is driven home to the proletariat not only in the factory, but in the barracks, and by all sorts of bureaucracies, in short by the whole power machine of the centralized bourgeois state… It is an abuse of words to apply the same term ‘discipline’ to such unrelated concepts as the mindless reflex motions of a body with a thousand hands and a thousand legs, and the spontaneous coordination of the conscious political acts of a group of men. What can the well ordered docility of the former have in common with the aspirations of a class struggling for its emancipation.”[15]

Lenin felt that his answer concerning efficiency was enough—if he ever even considered Luxembourg’s question at all. Why else would he have maintained that it was fine to use capitalist forms to build a socialist state? His words are instructive enough as to his mentality and they at least suggest something about the shallowness of his theoretical tools that somehow allowed him, smart as he was, to think that while ownership mattered and who is in command mattered, the roles imposed by institutional choices did not matter. So it is that he wrote: “A single huge state bank, with branches in every rural district and in every factory—that will already be nine-tenths of a socialist apparatus.”[16] And he proclaimed, “We must raise the question of piece-work and apply and test it in practice… we must raise the question of applying much of what is scientific in the Taylor system…”[17] And he also asserted that “Socialism is nothing but state capitalist monopoly made to benefit the whole people.”[18]

Lenin didn’t make such forceful statements simply because he was compelled by circumstance—one can be compelled to use tactics as the best of a bad lot, but not to extol them and push them on others as if they were universally correct dogma. And if such views were only un-worshiped responses to situations of the moment they would not have lived on as part of the overall approach of virtually all Marxist Leninist groups. No, we should expect a reasonable likelihood that the inadequacies of Classical Leninist strategy are endemic to the processes of its creation by real people in real circumstances, struggling for power using Classical Marxist theory as a guide. Classical Marxist theory in the first place simply doesn’t have sufficient understanding of the effects of shop level productive relations as a whole, and in the second, hides that ignorance from its practitioners. 

And I interject: In the third place, of course, classical Marxist Theory also falls short regarding extra-economic relations, partially corrected in the century since, but far from wholly corrected. More, in any case, it barely enters the thought patterns of most workers, who the party doesn’t educate and elevate, but instead manipulates and commands.  

The chapter continued: The Bolshevik leaders saw capitalist organization of production as something which, in itself was socially neutral. It could be used indifferently for bad purposes (as when the bourgeoisie used it for the aim of private accumulation) or for good ones (as when the ‘workers state’ used it for the ‘benefit of the many’). What was wrong with capitalist methods of production in Lenin’s eyes, was that it had in the past served the bourgeoisie. They were now going to be used by the workers’ state and would thereby become “one of the conditions of socialism.” It all depended on who held state power.[19]

At one stage, Lenin pointed out that Communism was like a contagion—it sprang from every side of life and if one channel of the invasion was blocked up another side would open. This was quite true, but what Lenin and the Leninists didn’t perceive was that capitalism and authoritarianism were also contagious—even though one aspect of one or the other might be overcome, other aspects could go on fighting so strongly that they could succeed in resuscitating the old disease and holding off the communist contagion for ages and ages.

Given Leninism’s attitudes about organizational forms, the importance and unimportance of various economic considerations, and also tactics in general, we might well be tempted to suggest that it was Lenin, and not the workers, who was never able to rise above a trade union consciousness. He was the one who always thought in terms of bourgeois motivations and bourgeois forms of organization, precisely because and not in spite of the fact that he was the most creative and confident of all the Classical Marxists. For as we saw in our earlier chapter on Classical Marxist theory the Classical Marxist theory of knowledge and the Classical Marxist theory of classes lead together quite naturally to the Leninist perspective on capabilities of workers and to the Leninist belief in the supreme value of ‘efficiency’ in all things.

A quotation from Lenin and one from a Solidarity pamphlet contrast interestingly and outline a part of our overall emerging theses. In State and Revolution Lenin said: “We want the socialist revolution with human nature as it is now, with human nature that cannot dispense with subordination, control, and managers.”[20] In the Solidarity pamphlet on the Bolsheviks and workers’ control we find the explanatory postulation: “The concept that society must necessarily be divided into leaders and led, the notion that there are some born to rule while others cannot really develop beyond a certain stage have from time immemorial been the tacit assumptions of every ruling class in history.”[21]

Our assertion is not so much that Lenin wouldn’t ideally agree with the second statement as that he ignored its implications and fell victim to the logic of that deficiency.

Classical Marxism Leninism roughly says: 1- formulate all plans toward furthering class struggle, 2- do all strategic thinking with regard for the contradictions propelling oppressed classes toward revolt, and 3- do all analysis in the context bounded by the Classical theory of Marxism and the concrete realities of concrete experiences.

Practitioners overlook or minimize forces lying outside the class categories of Marxism. They don’t fully understand and are not able to cope with the changing import of old contradictions. They don’t understand how and why old modes of class struggle are assimilated into the system, especially when such understanding might threaten some of their more fervently held beliefs. They don’t relate well to issues of power. They don’t understand the full gamut of forces that add to worker restlessness and so they have little understanding of how their tactical choices affect those forces. They don’t understand, and have no real tools for even trying to understand the interrelations between consciousness, revolutionary practice, and societally given or still emerging and changing material or cultural conditions. They don’t understand the full importance of racial or sexual oppressions nor how they affect and are affected by other more class focussed dynamics. Perhaps most damning from their own perspective, they don’t even understand the effects of productive relations and most particularly of firm level productive relations on workers and on society’s overall dynamics as well. They aren’t prepared to address the full gamut of worker’s needs, nor even their material needs most effectively; and they are not even sufficiently aware of all the other important groups of people whose needs they should also address. They don’t seem to realize the importance of a fully outlined goal, or of the many aspects of life such an outline must relate to, and as a result they can’t really address people who have no necessity to act but rather only potential desires to do so. But to really fully understand these assertions in practical terms one must do a broader analysis of the Bolsheviks than ours, and even more importantly an equally broad analysis of present day Classical Marxist Leninist groups in the U.S. and elsewhere. Not having space or time for such tasks here we will move on to instead immediately consider Classical Marxist theory—but from the specific orientation of understanding the theoretical roots of Classical Leninism’s and Bolshevism’s weaknesses. Thus this chapter’s brevity is not for lack of more things to say but in anticipation of saying at least some of them still more persuasively in the next chapter.

And so ended the chapter criticizing Leninism. Why did I title the episode “Listen Leninist”? Two reasons. First, though I wasn’t a fan of everything that Murray Bookchin had to say, early on he wrote what I considered a brilliant little pamphlet titled “Listen Marxist,” and I thought I’d pay homage to that, and honestly, I admit, I am also a big fan of alliteration. And second, like Bookchin, I too fear that the case made here won’t be heard. So, to listen is a plea, I suppose, to hear what is said and react, and not to reflexively ignore. 

I should repeat, yet again, that this whole sequence of articles was written as book chapters in 1973-1973—minus the interjections which I tried to keep to a minimum. There is much I have been moved by, educated by, and advocated since then that while consistent with and even foreshadowed by what is in these articles, has gone considerably further regarding theory, strategy, and vision. One thing, in particular, bears on what I tend to think is the most egregious operational failing of Marxism Leninism—that it doesn’t highlight or even recognize and in fact even denies and obscures the existence of a critically impost class between labor and capital based not on ownership, but on empowerment, or not. A class that complicates class struggle within capitalism and can even and has even become a new ruling class after private ownership is eliminated. Marxism Leninism obscures the importance and even the existence of this “coordinator class,” and indeed even favors use of institutions for decision making, for the division of labor, and for allocation that elevate this third major class to ruling status. 

One of Marx’s many insights is that when judging a set of concepts and their connections and implications, which is to say, an ideology, one shouldn’t pay much attention to what its advocates claim they desire to achieve with it. Rather one should pay attention to what its use arrives at. For example, advocates of bourgeois ideology claim to seek freedom, justice, etc. etc. However, they deliver capitalist regimentation, injustice, etc. etc. Marx even highly insightfully urged that ideologies in general serve particular interests and obscure whatever would undercut those interests and that to determine those is paramount for assessing ideologies. 

What happens if we take that particular advice? Wouldn’t it follow that instead of being the ideology of the working class, as its adherents claim, we would have to conclude that Marxism Leninism is really, instead, the ideology of the class between labor and capital that I call the coordinator class? 

Even without much reference to that conclusion, even now, in 2026, I think What Is To Be Undone’s assessment as conveyed in the current sequence of articles more than warrants efforts to collectively transcend Marxism Leninism.

Finally, for those interested, and I do hope, I should admit, that that will include everyone who hears these episodes, the new book, The Wind Cries Freedom: An Oral History of the Next American Revolution, presents nineteen future revolutionaries who describe in very personal and practical ways their successful revolutionary practice as it goes forward from now into their future time and place. These contributors are academic but activist. They do not look at and recite quotations concerning the past. They instead present their own and their movement’s choices, feelings, problems, and solutions each in their own way based on their own experiences and backstories. You can and I very much hope you will visit windcriesfreedom.org to find more about that book and to perhaps then go on to read, refine, and augment or perhaps dismiss it. 

Footnotes

1. Peguy quoted in Preface to Rosenberg, A History of Bolshevism, Doubleday.

2. Peter Kropotkin, Kropotkin’s Revolutionary Pamphlets, Dover Publications, New York. 254.

3. Cardan in “From Bolshevism to the Bureaucracy,” Solidarity, London.

4. Lenin, Collected Works, International Publishers, New York.

5. Sartre, Search for a Method, Alfred A. Knopf, New York.

6. Luxemburg in Cohn-Bendit, Obsolete Communism: A Left Wing Alternative, McGraw Hill. 215.

7. ibid. 216.

8. There are countless quotes and examples in Brinton’s book which demonstrate these dynamics.

9. Lenin in Paul Avrich, Kronstadt 1921, Princeton University Press. 228.

10. Luxemburg, op. cit.

11. Cohn-Bendit, op. cit. 249.

12. Rocker in Anarcho-Syndicalism, London.

13. Bookchin, “Listen Marxist,” in Post-Scarcity Anarchism, Ramparts Press.

14. Lenin, Left Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder, International Publishers, New York, N.Y.

15. Luxemburg in Cohn-Bendit, op. cit. 215-216.

16. Lenin in Brinton, The Bolsheviks and Workers’ Control, Solidarity, 12.

17. ibid. 40.

18. ibid.

19. Brinton, op. cit.

20. Lenin in State and Revolution, International Publishers, New York, N.Y. 22.

21. Brinton, op. cit. xii-xiii.