These are not the best of times for Marxists. The denial of individualrights, the bureaucratic nature of command economies and the monopolyon political power - all characteristic of Marxist regimes - havebeen thoroughly discredited and rejected within the Soviet bloc.Given the USSR's long history of problems and its eventual collapse,Marxists have attempted to take both political and theoreticalstock by re-examining the October revolution. This re-examinationof 1917 tends to focus on either the objective conditions of therevolution/civil war or the theory/practice of the Bolshevik party.

Ron Taber, a leader of the Trotskyist Revolutionary SocialistLeague (RSL), explores to what extent the theory and practiceof Leninism was responsible for the social system of state capitalismand the crimes of Stalin. Although Taber's book predates the SovietUnion's collapse (it was published in 1988), A Look At Leninism nonetheless addresses the theoretical and epistemological rootsof the authoritarian character of Soviet society. In re-readinga number of Lenin's most important theoretical works, the authorcarefully documents how the often ruthless practices of the Bolsheviksflowed directly from the words of the party's leading theoretician.

Taber begins his re-examination by considering the nature of therevolution that the Bolsheviks had intended to carry out. Theauthor argues that Lenin's "April Theses" marked a change in Bolshevikstrategy, a "socialist" revolution became the stated goal ratherthan a "bourgeois" revolution which would have been more appropriategiven the underdeveloped nature of Russia. This move to advocatea socialist revolution was done without any real thought or discussionwithin the party about what a revolutionary democratic societywould entail. As a result, the Bolsheviks fell into the trap ofequating a dictatorship of professional revolutionaries with areal workers' state. In such a context, Taber argues, it is understandablehow Stalin could get to be the General Secretary of the Party.

Questions concerning the type of revolution the Bolsheviks advocatedand carried out are tied to questions about the role of the revolutionaryparty and the development of socialist consciousness. Taber arguesconvincingly that Lenin's major work, What is to be Done?, justifies the dominance of the revolutionary party over workers.This justification is based on Lenin's belief that workers —on their own — were only capable of developing "trade union consciousness"(for example, understanding the need to organize as a union andstrike for better wages) and not "revolutionary socialist consciousness"(for example understanding the need to unite as a class and overthrowcapitalism). The elitist nature of such thought is largely selfevident.
A Look At Leninism also provides an interesting discussion of the "ethos of Bolshevism."This ethos, according to Taber, can be defined in terms of botha cult of hardness (in personal interaction and in party functioning)and a cult of centralization (heavy reliance on scientific planning).The social distortions that followed from the Bolsheviks' cultof hardness are many: revolutionary puritanism, heavy-handed discipline,and hostility toward any pleasurable activities. The Bolsheviks'cult of centralization also led them to celebrate both one manmanagement and capitalist technology. Taber argues that the Bolsheviks'mercilessness and fixation on scientific planning set the foundationfor Stalin's reign of terror and the emergence of state capitalism.

One chapter of Taber's book features a discussion of Lenin's mostlibertarian work, State and Revolution. As most anarchists know, Marxists are very quick to point toState and Revolution as proof that Lenin himself was not an authoritarian. Taber writesthat this work does not ring true because Lenin's argument reliestoo heavily on theoretical abstraction and scientific categories.The withering away of the state that Marx, Engels and Lenin theorizeabout only comes after the reality of building a very strong stateby revolutionary forces. The underlying conditions for the USSR'sundemocratic nature may be found in Lenin's belief in the inevitabilityof dialectical logic.

The most original component of Taber's critique of Leninism isfound in his discussion of the Bolshevik leaders' theory of knowledge.Because Lenin believed in both absolute truth/knowledge, and thatMarxism was the knowledge of truth, Taber argues that Lenin andthe Bolshevik party — because they were the only true Marxistsin Russia — believed that their ideology was absolutely correct.Again, the undemocratic and authoritarian implications of suchthinking are abundantly clear.

Taber concludes his book on Lenin by stating that the authoritariantendencies within Lenin's thinking far outweighed the libertarianand democratic impulses. For the author, Leninism — in theoryand in practice — is neither radical nor revolutionary. In proposingchange within the RSL, Taber instructs its members to look towardthe anarchist/libertarian milieu and away from Marxist and SocialDemocratic thinking if it is serious in its desire to help createa democratic, egalitarian society.

Taber's work is interesting in that he attempts to draw explicitlinks from Lenin's theory to Bolshevik practice, but in all fairnessto Leninists this is done without any serious discussion of whatconstitutes state capitalism or Stalinism. Moreover, Taber's booklooks at Bolshevik theory in a vacuum; there is no discussionof the force of circumstance that may have pushed Lenin and theBolsheviks in certain directions. While Marxists may find Taber'sbook useful, anarchists no doubt would extend and sharpen hiscritique of Leninism.

Central to any anarchist critique of Leninism and Marxism is atheoretical and practical rejection of its deeply embedded authoritarianism.In rejecting and critiquing domination in all its forms, anarchistscould never accept the primacy of a revolutionary party or theprivileging of the industrial working class over all other socialgroupings in the making of a revolution. Compared to Marxist-Leninisttheory, an anarchist theory of revolution would be federalistand decentralist in nature, and anti-authoritarian in purpose.