Lenin’s endearing flaw:

Though I have yet to read it, Vladimir Lenin states in his book “What Is To Be Done” that only a disciplined party of professional vanguard revolutionaries can bring and maintain socialism for the proletariat.

This is why Lenin and the bolshevik party-

-set the precedent for a socialist nation being totalitarian. Lenin believed that democracy was too dangerous as it allowed the at the time uneducated illiterate masses of Russia to be fooled and manipulated by counter revolutionaries.

It was basically a “we know what’s best for you” justification for the first communist nation being a dictatorship, because Lenin believed his party represented the proletariat. Hence, dictatorship of the proletariat. However, considering Stalin-

-came along and basically fucking ruined EVERYTHING we know this cannot work. Leninists can’t seem to acknowledge that the vanguard party mindset leads to regressive dictatorships that even the most well intentioned marxists can cross lines they shouldn’t. Dictators-

-being overthrown, only to be replaced with communist ones and while you can argue how say Castro was better then Batista, a dictator is a dictator. Doesn’t matter which cloth they are cut from. It puzzles me that Marxist-Leninists seem to forget in all-

-of their “lol read theory. Read Lenin” bullshit that Lenin himself knew how it was gonna lead to tyranny in the form of Stalin in his later work. Hell, even Trotsky knew this. Though you could argue Trotsky would’ve implemented democratic reforms-

-in the Soviet Union since he expressed desire for democracy from the beginning, but that’s another topic for another day.

Point being; even Lenin himself saw the fatal flaw in his own ideology, but by then it was too late. If his testament is to be believed-

-he himself saw the danger the vanguard party doctrine posed. This harmful doctrine influenced even the most progressive socialist nations. Now, there are components of Lenin’s theory that even as an anarchist continue to interest me as I read his work. He uses words like-

-disciplined, professional, revolutionaries and vanguard in his theory on how to not only establish but to protect a worker run society. The flaw here is the separation between the state and the people. Or rather the party and the people. Lenin-

-was indirectly or directly implying that the working class wasn’t trustworthy enough to govern themselves and thus saw his party as a way to protect their revolution. Which I understand.

However, I think back to the red scare. I don’t subscribe to the idea of there being-

-multiple red scares. I believe that since the west has always been scared of socialism the red scare never ended. We’re still living in it. But look how successful it’s been! An entire CENTURY of propaganda, rhetoric and social demonization (regardless of its motivations) has-

-even to this day done as awesome job at suppressing and suffocating leftist movements in the west. Despite the creation of unions, social security, worker benefits, the weekend, the 8 hour work day, free healthcare and the like being a result of-

-leftist perseverance, the west has never come anywhere close to true socialism. The only reason these policies passed is because it appealed to the masses through common sense and it just barley managed to break through the “Meh commie” bullshit that’s-

-been shoved down workers throats for a century. See, the west is SOMEWHAT operating on a joke of a democratic system. The state had to make sure that it wasn’t the only opposition to socialism so as to maintain the illusion of non totalitarianism-

-which ironically was one of the things they boasted as having that made them better then the USSR. The state ensured through the capitalist media machine that the workers themselves would act as the on the ground-

-opposition to socialism. You see this whenever you have thanksgiving arguments with your conservative uncles.

Now, I recognize that totalitarianism is toxic but I also understand Leninists opinion of it being the only way necessary to suppress the right.

See, the west trusted their people to uphold and maintain a capitalist society through propaganda and media rhetoric against the left and in case you’ve been living under a rock and don’t know anything about modern western history IT FUCKING WORKED!

It literally took until capitalism was on its deathbed (which is now) for its iron grip on the masses to finally break as we’ve been starting to see!

So my question is, why not employ these tactics?! Trotsky stressed the importance of recruiting-

-former bourgeoisie puppets to help build up a revolution. Why not just reverse the red scare against the right by utilizing propaganda and media to OUR advantage. I’m not taking Steven Universe level of “aww we should accept people” I’m taking burning the realities of-

-and the horrifying truths of capitalism from day 1 into people’s heads post revolution.

Lenin was right about disciplined, professional revolutionaries being the vanguard of the working class, but he was wrong about it being a party. The truth is, the-

-vanguard of the proletariat MUST BE the proletariat. Workers maintain the roads, sewers and skyscrapers. We must have workers maintain the revolution themselves. My fellow Anarchists, say what you want about the USSR but they did a DAMN good job of demonizing-

-western capitalism in the eyes of the public. Even as it collapsed, most Russians wanted to keep the USSR intact. That shows the power of fear. Fear is the common denominator when it comes to capitalism and communism. If the west can-

-build and maintain anti left democratic society through fear there’s no reason to think 2 can’t okay at this game. We don’t need the vanguard party. We must be the vanguard party. Every one of us, together. That is how you maintain the revolution. A truly eternal revolution.

I’d like to dedicate this thread to @NB_agenda If it wasn’t for you, I’d be even more hopeless for the future at this point then I was pretty radicalization. You’ve saved me, and opened my mind to a whole new world of possibilities from the written words of those who-

-who failed where we want to succeed.

A revolution must be maintained by the workers, just like every well oiled machine. We have to be our own protectors, every last one of us. When we all contribute and help build it in any way we can, only then can we-

-truly trust everybody to have a say in it.

That’s the beauty of democracy.