Communist International
The Bolshevik Party and 'Zinovievism': Comments on a caricature of Leninism
By Doug Lorimer
- 1921 Comintern resolution
- Public debate
- Party discipline
- Ideological heterogeneity
- Lenin's struggle for a Marxist party
- Notes
The disintegration of the Stalinist regimes in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union opened an important debate within the Marxist movement about how to evaluate the history of the socialist movement, and especially of the Bolshevik Party, the party that led the world's first successful socialist revolution. One of the central aims of Links has been to provide a forum for such debate.
It is obviously important to carry out this evaluation in a way that does not make the mistake of confusing Stalinism with the theory and practice of the Bolsheviks when Lenin was the foremost leader of that party. Moreover—as was only to be expected—there are different views of what constituted the theory and practice of Bolshevism. Some of these differences have revolved around the role of Grigory Zinoviev.