gnome wrote: Doesn’t it

[robbo203]

gnome wrote:

Doesn’t it really come down to the same thing in the end; faced with the circumstances in which Lenin and Bolsheviks found themselves in 1917 wasn’t it inevitable that the pragmatic circumstances would give rise to the ideological reasons?

 Well let me put it differently – did Lenin favour the model of the Party he proposed in WITBD over the model of the Party espoused by the Social Democratic movement in general as a matter of principle and irrespective of circumstances?   I dont think he did or, if he did, not all of the time. Mind you, having said that the Social Democratic parties of  Western Europe were not exactly models of democratic organisation.  They were all leadership-based organisations that fully satisfied Lenin’s  criterion that “no movement can be durable without a stable organisation of leaders to maintain continuity”  (What is to be Done).As to the rest of your post – yes I would not disagree at all with the conclusions you reach.  Leninism in all its varieties remains an obstacle to the achievement of socialism.  My point was a far more narrow one and had to do with specific form or political vehicle which Lenin advocated as a means to acheving his and the Bolshevik’s political ends cheers Robin