That's awfully presumptuous. His argument is to cater your suite of strategies to the citizenry you're surrounded by, and their class consciousness. Strategies ill-suited to the material conditions you find yourself in do not help your cause. Insofar as the proletariat is invested in the system, you must use that system.

Yes, obviously, endeavor to enlighten them. But the people are slow learners, and just because your leftist friends are ready to derail the tram does not reflect the class consciousness of your countrymen. Even the Germans in question had a higher level of class consciousness than modern Americans. Lenin's argument logically extends.

[–] AntiOutsideAktion@lemmy.ml 10 points 1 day ago

This is word salad

[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Insofar as the proletariat is invested in the system, you must use that system.

This is just bowing to sponteneity. The party's role is to raise the consciousness of the proletariat to their level, not to remain where the working classes are at. That's the purpose of political parties, to organize and create proletarian intellectuals as a counter to bourgeois intellectuals. Otherwise the proletariat stays at the level of trade union consciousness if it has no means to see the political struggle as a whole.

Stop dragging Lenin through the mud to justify supporting imperialists.