(January 7, 2014 at 12:55 pm)Gish Wrote:Actually Lenin only implemented central planning as a emergency wartime measure called "war communism". This is actually a frequent wartime measure. The idea was to go back to market socialism after the war. The only prominent party member at the time who wanted to keep war communism as a permanent measure was Bukharin, who was considered one of the most right-wing members of the communist party (comparatively of course, Bukharin was still far left).(January 7, 2014 at 12:39 pm)MarxRaptor Wrote: Find me one quote suggesting that the mature Marx supported centralized planning. The mature Marx supported decentralized democratic planning.
The mature Marx? Granted, I haven't read that much Marx, so you're probably right. How different is mature Marxism from the Leninist variety that I am more familiar with?
There are of course differences between Leninism & orthodox Marxism as well. Lenin centralized power in a way Marx had advocated in the Manifesto, but the more mature Marx went back on such ideas. Rosa Luxemburg also criticized Lenin & Trotsky from a Marxist perspective, believing they had taken, rather than given, power to the workers. The "Pope of Marxism"; Karl Kautsky was an even more fierce critic of Leninism, believing Russia to be underdeveloped & unfit for communism. This I tend to agree with, as Marx said that capitalism would have to develop before communism could be achieved. Russia was still a feudal country. Leapfrogging over the capitalist stage of development was sure to end in disaster.
