In January 1917, Lenin thought the revolution would not happen in his lifetime. Conditions were very different then, but it’s a good reminder that life is unpredictable.
We of the older generation may not live to see the decisive battles of this coming revolution. But I can, I believe, express the confident hope that the youth which is working so splendidly in the socialist movement of Switzerland, and of the whole world, will be fortunate enough not only to fight, but also to win, in the coming proletarian revolution.
I was mostly very realistic in this thread, but if you want to be optimistic, in Lenin’s time the Social Democratic parties of Europe actually where some of the most important hubs for communist youth to start to crystallize their radical ideology into something distinct from social democracy. This same phenomenon happened half a century ago in the Students for a Democratic Society movement, though not much material change came from it. There’s no specific reason it can’t happen with the Social Democratic movements of today except their relative powerlessness in the west.
In January 1917, Lenin thought the revolution would not happen in his lifetime. Conditions were very different then, but it’s a good reminder that life is unpredictable.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/jan/09.htm
I wonder how pessimistic Lenin would have been if he knew about Vaush.
The kind Vladimir Ilyich would have funny clown hammered everyone here.
People like Vaush have always existed. Lenin had to live at the same time as Eduard Bernstein and Kautsky (to a lesser extent)
The Kautsky comparison always gets brought up but Kautsky actually read Marx and wasn’t a pedophile.
You got me there
yeh even the losers that the old marxists clowned on were more well read than most “left wingers” today
He would have given him the Kautsky treatment and dedicate a chapter long dunk in state and revolution to him
Damn, so he at least saw young people be revolutionary. Most people younger than me that I meet are fascist or soc dems.
I was mostly very realistic in this thread, but if you want to be optimistic, in Lenin’s time the Social Democratic parties of Europe actually where some of the most important hubs for communist youth to start to crystallize their radical ideology into something distinct from social democracy. This same phenomenon happened half a century ago in the Students for a Democratic Society movement, though not much material change came from it. There’s no specific reason it can’t happen with the Social Democratic movements of today except their relative powerlessness in the west.