Feeling inspired and polemical and a little nerdy and thought this was an interesting post. But....
1. The comparison between the CP manifesto's language of internationalism and MAGA nationalist rhetoric is bizarre, as is the idea that the "workers party" in 1848 (when "party" hardly meant what it means today) is the same as the Workers Party of the 1920s, or that either had a constituency similar to MAGA (internationalists, immigrant,, pro-labor vs. ultra nationalist, xenophobic, anti-union) is impossible to follow.
2. Lenin had nothing to do with what happened in 1946, having died two decades earlier, which means neither he or the "Bolsheviks" could "enter" Bulgaria in the 1930s...your description of Lenin and the Bolsheviks rings more true with the official state ideology under Stalin. Lenin would have had a stroke (ironically, he died from one) at the idea of the "beautification of the workers--as a national religion."
3. The quote about "dictatorship" has an important context, and that is the period immediately following the 1905 revolution. It comes from Lenin's criticism of the Cadet Party's participation in the Duma and compromise with the "dictatorship" of the autocracy as he see it.
"At the moment when the firing in Moscow was subsiding, and when the military and police dictatorship was indulging in its savage orgies, when repressions and mass torture were raging all over Russia, Polyarnaya Zvezda protested against the use of force by the Lefts, and against the strike committees organised by the revolutionary parties. The Cadet professors who are trading in their science for the benefit of the Dubasovs went to the length... of translating the word “dictatorship” by the words “reinforced security”! These “men of science” even distorted their high-school Latin in order to discredit the revolutionary struggle."
"Please note once and for all, Messrs. Kiesewetter, Struve, Izgoyev and Co., that dictatorship means unlimited power based on force, and not on law. In civil war, any victorious power can only be a dictatorship. The point is, however, that there is the dictatorship of a minority over the majority, the dictatorship of a handful of police officials over the people; and there is the dictatorship of the overwhelming majority of the people over a handful of tyrants, robbers and usurpers of people’s power."
"By their vulgar distortion of the scientific concept “dictatorship”, by their out cries against the violence of the Left at a time when the Right are resorting to the most lawless and outrageous violence, the Cadet gentlemen have given striking evidence of the position the “compromisers” take in the intense revolutionary struggle."
Lenin was providing a definition of dictatorship generally, and in the context of a revolution-civil war. He was saying the Cadets sided with the autocracy and thus a dictatorship of the few over the many,, while the Soviets (councils) were defeated and could only have won by establishing a dictatorship of the many over the few. That might be a problematic argument, but it definitely does not imply what your use of the quote suggests.
4. 1917-1922, from the rise and fall of the Provisional government through the civil war and intervention of (I believe) 14 foreign militaries against the Bolshevik regime and the solidification of the one-party state was marked with tragedy and yes, I would say contained the seeds of Stalinism. But the experience of two revolutions, in the midst of world war, followed by years of civil war, famines, and chaos and the decisions made by the Bolshevik party are hardly reducible to "Lenin." Much of what happened in 1917-1918 was improvised and were believed by Lenin to be regrettable yet necessary compromises or temporary but justified as events unfolded...Trump declaring his plan in advance, absent these conditions of war and revolution, with the support of capital and a majority of white Christian middle class voters, can only be seen as "the same" as or even comparable in any way at all to Lenin in 1917 or Marx in 1848 if one has the most exaggerated ahistorical and imaginary sense of what's happening now.
Thanks for the clarification, Charles. It’s good to know that you know your Russian History! I should read more deeply into it. My points are not as complicated, ie the American MAGA movement are resorting to the same rhetoric and same tactics as the “Communists” — radical “Socialists” in their eyes — that they have despised for decades and somehow now, because there is a billionaire hyper-capitalist cult of personality behind them, it’s ok! That’s really it. Of course there is more to this story, as you pointed out, and exact comparisons are impossible. But the similarities are frightening. I only have eyes and attention spans long enough to drive home that point. And yes, Lenin made good use of the chaos in place to push through an agenda and set the stage for Stalin, more than himself.
Also I find these kinds of monuments similarly ridiculous and disturbing 😀
Feeling inspired and polemical and a little nerdy and thought this was an interesting post. But....
1. The comparison between the CP manifesto's language of internationalism and MAGA nationalist rhetoric is bizarre, as is the idea that the "workers party" in 1848 (when "party" hardly meant what it means today) is the same as the Workers Party of the 1920s, or that either had a constituency similar to MAGA (internationalists, immigrant,, pro-labor vs. ultra nationalist, xenophobic, anti-union) is impossible to follow.
2. Lenin had nothing to do with what happened in 1946, having died two decades earlier, which means neither he or the "Bolsheviks" could "enter" Bulgaria in the 1930s...your description of Lenin and the Bolsheviks rings more true with the official state ideology under Stalin. Lenin would have had a stroke (ironically, he died from one) at the idea of the "beautification of the workers--as a national religion."
3. The quote about "dictatorship" has an important context, and that is the period immediately following the 1905 revolution. It comes from Lenin's criticism of the Cadet Party's participation in the Duma and compromise with the "dictatorship" of the autocracy as he see it.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1906/victory/iii.htm#v10pp65-214
"At the moment when the firing in Moscow was subsiding, and when the military and police dictatorship was indulging in its savage orgies, when repressions and mass torture were raging all over Russia, Polyarnaya Zvezda protested against the use of force by the Lefts, and against the strike committees organised by the revolutionary parties. The Cadet professors who are trading in their science for the benefit of the Dubasovs went to the length... of translating the word “dictatorship” by the words “reinforced security”! These “men of science” even distorted their high-school Latin in order to discredit the revolutionary struggle."
"Please note once and for all, Messrs. Kiesewetter, Struve, Izgoyev and Co., that dictatorship means unlimited power based on force, and not on law. In civil war, any victorious power can only be a dictatorship. The point is, however, that there is the dictatorship of a minority over the majority, the dictatorship of a handful of police officials over the people; and there is the dictatorship of the overwhelming majority of the people over a handful of tyrants, robbers and usurpers of people’s power."
"By their vulgar distortion of the scientific concept “dictatorship”, by their out cries against the violence of the Left at a time when the Right are resorting to the most lawless and outrageous violence, the Cadet gentlemen have given striking evidence of the position the “compromisers” take in the intense revolutionary struggle."
Lenin was providing a definition of dictatorship generally, and in the context of a revolution-civil war. He was saying the Cadets sided with the autocracy and thus a dictatorship of the few over the many,, while the Soviets (councils) were defeated and could only have won by establishing a dictatorship of the many over the few. That might be a problematic argument, but it definitely does not imply what your use of the quote suggests.
4. 1917-1922, from the rise and fall of the Provisional government through the civil war and intervention of (I believe) 14 foreign militaries against the Bolshevik regime and the solidification of the one-party state was marked with tragedy and yes, I would say contained the seeds of Stalinism. But the experience of two revolutions, in the midst of world war, followed by years of civil war, famines, and chaos and the decisions made by the Bolshevik party are hardly reducible to "Lenin." Much of what happened in 1917-1918 was improvised and were believed by Lenin to be regrettable yet necessary compromises or temporary but justified as events unfolded...Trump declaring his plan in advance, absent these conditions of war and revolution, with the support of capital and a majority of white Christian middle class voters, can only be seen as "the same" as or even comparable in any way at all to Lenin in 1917 or Marx in 1848 if one has the most exaggerated ahistorical and imaginary sense of what's happening now.
Thanks for the clarification, Charles. It’s good to know that you know your Russian History! I should read more deeply into it. My points are not as complicated, ie the American MAGA movement are resorting to the same rhetoric and same tactics as the “Communists” — radical “Socialists” in their eyes — that they have despised for decades and somehow now, because there is a billionaire hyper-capitalist cult of personality behind them, it’s ok! That’s really it. Of course there is more to this story, as you pointed out, and exact comparisons are impossible. But the similarities are frightening. I only have eyes and attention spans long enough to drive home that point. And yes, Lenin made good use of the chaos in place to push through an agenda and set the stage for Stalin, more than himself.