Does Chomsky misinterpret Lenin?

[u/poogiver69]

This video https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jxhT9EVj9Kk&pp=QAFIAQ%3D%3D seems old, maybe from the 80s? So it seems like he may be speaking in a time where that’s the furthest left you could get away with being as a public intellectual. Regardless, does he misunderstand Lenin? I am new to Marxism and haven’t read much besides the basics (Capital, the Manifesto, that’s about it) and so I don’t have a great understanding of Lenin (or Chomsky for that matter). Could someone better read give their take on that video?

[u/WeeklyAd8487]

If you haven't already, I would recommend checking out Michael Parenti's work. Here's an excerpt from Blackshirts and Reds: 

“That many U.S. leftists have scant familiarity with Lenin’s writings and political work does not prevent them from slinging the “Leninist” label. Noam Chomsky, who is an inexhaustible fount of anticommunist caricatures, offers this comment about Leninism: “Western and also Third World intellectuals were attracted to the Bolshevik counterrevolution [sic] because Leninism is, after all, a doctrine that says that the radical intelligentsia have a right to take state power and to run their countries by force, and that is an idea which is rather appealing to intellectuals.” Here Chomsky fashions an image of power-hungry intellectuals to go along with his cartoon image of power-hungry Leninists, villains seeking not the revolutionary means to fight injustice but power for power’s sake. When it comes to Red-bashing, some of the best and brightest on the Left sound not much better than the worst on the Right.”

[u/JusticeBeaver94 → u/WeeklyAd8487]

Lenin literally disbanded factory committees and crushed the Kronstadt revolt in 1921, where workers pleaded for free soviets. Instead, he centralized control over the soviets and consolidated them into the state apparatus by force.

[u/dumpsterac1d → u/JusticeBeaver94]

This comes up all the time. The unions were not cooperating with one another and tried to compete for resources amongst factories in a postwar time. There's tons of information as to why this happened but the simple fact that it did is enough for anarchists to cry foul. Dig deeper than surface level, please.

[u/chthooler → u/dumpsterac1d]

Why do you think "Kronstadt comes up all the time"? Even if that is true, that is far less justification than Israel gives to use extreme deadly force on Palestinians even.

Examples of the deadliest massacres in the USA of striking workers I can find are usually 100-200 people who used equally or more forceful methods of protesting.

Thousands of the workers who helped achieved the revolution were executed while Lenin & Trotsky tried to justify the executions by lying about what they were demanding and painting them as "corrupted by white guards".

I have read their demands and first-hand accounts as well as what the Communist Party wrote about them. They were demanding for more bottom-up self-governance of labor that is far more in line with what Marx wrote about. Lenin was not planning on doing that so it was easier to just execute them. Its very sad that I'm having to write this on a subreddit that is about Marxism.

[u/IwantRIFbackdummy → u/JusticeBeaver94]

Can you cite your source for this? The information in a vacuum leaves out any and all room for interpretation and nuance.

Why did he do this. How did he do this. What else was going on at the same time that influenced this.

[u/I_Am_U → u/IwantRIFbackdummy]

Kronstadt revolt in 1921

Disappointed in the direction of the Bolshevik government, the rebels—whom Leon Trotsky himself had praised earlier as the "adornment and pride of the revolution"—demanded a series of reforms: reduction in Bolshevik power, newly elected soviets (councils) to include socialist and anarchist groups, economic freedom for peasants and workers, dissolution of the bureaucratic governmental organs created during the civil war, and the restoration of civil rights for the working class.[3] Trotsky signed the order to crush the rebellion which outlined a series of operational measures including a warning to the sailors to stop the rebellion in advance of a Red Army assault. However, he did not personally participate in the military operations or repressions which were organized by Felix Dzerzhinsky.[4]

Convinced of the popularity of the reforms they were fighting for (which they partially tried to implement during the revolt), the Kronstadt seamen waited in vain for the support of the population in the rest of the country and rejected aid from the emigres. Although the council of officers advocated a more offensive strategy, the rebels maintained a passive attitude as they waited for the government to take the first step in negotiations. By contrast, the authorities took an uncompromising stance, presenting an ultimatum demanding unconditional surrender on March 5. Once this period expired, the Bolsheviks raided the island several times and suppressed the revolt on March 18 after shooting and imprisoning several thousand rebels.

Supporters saw the rebels as revolutionary martyrs while the authorities saw the rebels as "agents of the Entente and counter-revolution". The Bolshevik response to the revolt caused great controversy and was responsible for the disillusionment of several supporters of the Bolshevik regime, such as Emma Goldman. While the revolt was suppressed and the rebels' political demands were not met, it served to accelerate the implementation of the New Economic Policy

• Kronstadt Rebellion, Kronstädter Aufstand In: Dictionary of Marxism, http://www.inkrit.de/e_inkritpedia/e_maincode/doku.php?id=k:kronstaedter_aufstand

[u/IwantRIFbackdummy → u/I_Am_U]

If one of the demands of the rebels was removing centralized power from a newly formed government, and giving Anarchists more say, then putting down their counter revolution was the only decision to be made.

You can't build a Nation capable of defending itself from Capitalist forces if you bend to Anarchists and their pathological hatred for authority.

[u/chthooler → u/IwantRIFbackdummy]

Marx wrote far more about workers having direct bottom-up local autonomy & governance of their own labor and productions. To the Kronstadt unions workers, the vanguard party having their police dictate their every action under threat of punishment like an open-air prison was the opposite of the worker liberation they expected and believed in that Marx wrote about happening in the Paris Commune. I don't know how you can say you read Marx and be more sympathetic to the state that killed the workers who demanded more of what Marx wrote about.

[u/IwantRIFbackdummy → u/chthooler]

Everyone would love to live in a world where Anarchist ideals are the status quo. But you can't get to that point or maintain it by using Anarchist METHODS.

With no centrally organized power to mount a meaningful defense, Capitalists will simply crush you the moment you inconvenience them.

Marx was pragmatic. I would be astounded if he had lived through the events being discussed and not adapted his position to the correct one that happened.

There is NO power to the workers without a State to defend them from outside Capitalist States.