Leo D.M.J. Aurini - Trotsky and Lenin： Early Marxist Philosophers [In Depth Analysis Ep. 3]

00:00:00.000 Thank you.

00:00:30.000 Thank you.

00:01:00.000 The modern-day left and right, Democrats and Republicans, should be understood through

00:01:06.620 a Marxist lens, since that is the ideology which both parties employ.

00:01:12.340 In the case of the Democrats, they follow a bottom-up Leninist approach.

00:01:17.540 With the Republicans, it's a top-down Trotskyist approach.

00:01:21.720 To understand what's going on today, we need to understand what was going on a century ago.

00:01:27.840 How different organizations and political ideas from revolutionary Russia came to influence

00:01:33.020 our present-day understanding of the world.

00:01:35.660 The heuristics through which we view reality.

00:01:38.360 And how these old ideologies determine what we're capable of seeing, and what sort of

00:01:44.240 political conversation we're able to have.

00:01:47.860 Because this is ultimately what's wrong with modern political discourse.

00:01:52.440 We're like a carriage horse wearing blinders.

00:01:55.440 Nazi this and communist that. 0.86

00:01:58.080 Ridiculous oversimplifications like the political compass test, which, incidentally, scores almost 0.89

00:02:03.720 everybody as a liberal moderate. 0.80

00:02:06.640 The problem in present-day America isn't left versus right.

00:02:11.060 It's that we're looking at the world in black and white.

00:02:16.720 Part 1.

00:02:18.680 Understanding Heuristics

00:02:20.160 Heuristics is a term you'll often hear amongst computer scientists and artificial intelligence

00:02:26.040 researchers.

00:02:26.580 It refers to the nature of a problem-solving process.

00:02:31.060 Your heuristic is a filter, which determines what you choose to observe, as well as how

00:02:37.240 you then process the information.

00:02:40.200 This is what your computer's kernel does.

00:02:42.720 It breaks down each process into a different tier of importance, and then selects which one

00:02:47.540 will have access to the processor at a given time.

00:02:50.680 A kernel with a good heuristic will maintain all the vital operations in balance, minimizing

00:02:56.980 processing time spent on background services and ensuring steady and hang-free operation

00:03:01.920 of whatever primary application you're currently using.

00:03:05.360 A kernel with a bad heuristic will regularly hang and crash out for no reason.

00:03:11.160 Heuristics are just as important in the humanities.

00:03:14.880 The heuristic you choose for your filter will determine what information you're able to

00:03:19.120 notice, and what information you write off as irrelevant.

00:03:23.500 For instance, the heuristic of philosophical materialism states that everything in reality

00:03:28.820 has a deterministic, physical cause.

00:03:32.080 This leads its adherents to explore the world around them in an effort to explain all observable

00:03:37.120 phenomenon through a mechanistic, cause-effect paradigm.

00:03:41.460 However, it also necessitates a dismissal of any phenomenon which doesn't fit into this

00:03:46.960 worldview.

00:03:47.400 I'm sure you've heard this criticized before.

00:03:51.100 My second favorite childhood book, after The Baby Bebe Bird, was The Bunyip of Berkley's

00:03:57.120 Creek.

00:03:58.300 In it, a bunyip crawls out of a billabon and goes on a journey to try and find out what 1.00

00:04:02.780 he looks like.

00:04:04.120 Eventually, he stumbles upon a scientist and asks him.

00:04:07.260 However, the scientist is too busy observing his telescope and taking notes to look over

00:04:11.820 at the bunyip and simply informs him that bunyips look like nothing, because bunyips don't exist.

00:04:19.040 Disheartened, the bunyip wanders back to his creek, only to stumble upon another bunyip emerging 1.00

00:04:23.700 from the mud.

00:04:24.940 With this, he realizes what he truly wanted was friendship, and he drops his quest for

00:04:30.100 external validation.

00:04:31.160 Now, if you're saying that a bunyip is clearly a physical phenomenon which the scientist ought 1.00

00:04:38.080 to have observed, you're missing the point.

00:04:41.440 Philosophical materialism can acknowledge that you exist as a physical entity, but it can't

00:04:46.160 acknowledge you as a person.

00:04:47.720 It won't tell you what the true meaning of friendship is, or where the artist finds the

00:04:52.060 inspiration to write a song.

00:04:54.080 The bunyip in the story is a metaphorical representation of the human spirit, and science does not, cannot

00:05:01.060 address the question of why music moves the soul.

00:05:06.240 It will have quite a bit to say about serotonin and audio frequencies, but it won't be able

00:05:11.400 to explain why any of this matters.

00:05:13.920 Philosophical materialism is a wonderful heuristic when it comes to examining physical reality.

00:05:20.560 It dispels Carl Sagan's demon-haunted world, which still plagues places like Africa, but

00:05:26.700 it utterly fails in providing meaning or purpose in society.

00:05:31.800 Psychiatry, one of its offshoots, is very useful at keeping people medicated so that they

00:05:36.420 don't cause too much friction, but it often fails at providing long-term improvement in

00:05:41.260 the individual, and even when it does, it's not a testament to the philosophical materialism

00:05:46.120 of the practitioner.

00:05:47.460 Rather, it is the spiritual heuristics that said practitioner also employs.

00:05:53.780 Now keep in mind, science versus spirituality is just one example of a heuristical conflict.

00:06:00.260 These sort of conflicts also crop up within science and spirituality.

00:06:03.960 For instance, there is presently an incipient revolution happening in our understanding of

00:06:10.300 the cosmos, which can be tracked back to heuristical assumptions, heuristical assumptions which are

00:06:16.160 implicit in our biological makeup.

00:06:18.940 As creatures who exist on the surface of a planet with an oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere, with

00:06:24.260 a sun of a certain magnitude, we've developed sensory organs attuned to the world around us,

00:06:29.420 an environment which is strikingly exceptional when you consider what the rest of the universe

00:06:34.760 looks like.

00:06:36.160 The challenge for the cosmologist is to pull himself out of this environment, to try and

00:06:40.680 understand a cosmos that is mostly empty space, or at least, what appears to be empty space

00:06:46.260 from our perspective.

00:06:48.580 According to this new theory, which is challenging traditional cosmology, the old school has failed

00:06:54.020 on two fronts, our understanding of matter, and on the importance of gravity.

00:07:00.160 Here on Earth, we're mostly familiar with solids, liquids, and gases.

00:07:04.740 Plasma, the fourth state of matter, is almost completely unknown, despite being omnipresent in

00:07:10.640 the empty spaces between the stars.

00:07:14.040 Similarly, gravity is incredibly important to us naked apes, crawling about on the surface

00:07:19.280 of the third rock from the sun, but when it comes to fundamental forces, it's one of

00:07:24.060 the weakest, paling in comparison to electromagnetism.

00:07:28.300 The Electric Universe theory holds that plasma and electromagnetics are far more important

00:07:33.820 than gravity, and that they may offer an explanation for the curious movements of stars and galaxies

00:07:39.340 that doesn't require speculation about dark matter or dark energy.

00:07:44.260 Whether the theory is right or not remains to be seen, but it serves as an example of how

00:07:48.440 heuristical assumptions can lead you down the wrong path and make you blind to the reality

00:07:53.320 right in front of your notes.

00:07:56.060 With history and political science, the challenge is to find a heuristic that gives you the most

00:08:00.200 useful picture and to constantly challenge it with new perspectives.

00:08:04.480 When analyzing a society, data such as population density, technological levels, and farming capacity

00:08:11.440 of the land are obviously important.

00:08:14.440 But what about standardized weights and measurements?

00:08:16.980 What about cultural worldview?

00:08:19.660 What about social stratification?

00:08:22.440 Failure to take these into account, or, conversely, placing too much emphasis on them, will result

00:08:28.880 in a distorted understanding of the world and complete blindness to the historical forces

00:08:33.280 at play.

00:08:34.640 Present-day universalism, for instance, assumes that all religions are essentially the same

00:08:39.140 because they all address the same topics—birth, death, marriage, and the question of the

00:08:44.960 ineffable.

00:08:46.480 Sometimes, this assumption can be valid.

00:08:49.140 A civil engineer, for instance, shouldn't waste time considering whether a public transit

00:08:52.780 system is being developed for a Buddhist country or a Christian country.

00:08:56.600 It's extraneous data.

00:08:57.600 But in other situations, this cultural chauvinism will have disastrous results.

00:09:04.340 So when it comes to considering the tenets of Marxism, it's important to remember that

00:09:08.820 it isn't merely a political system.

00:09:11.480 We're not simply discussing policy disagreements between the left and the right.

00:09:15.320 What we're talking about is a fundamental approach and assumption about the nature of humanity, which

00:09:22.460 has many cachet values within it, and many blind spots on matters it considers irrelevant.

00:09:28.940 So with that in mind, let's jump into the history between Leninism and Trotskyism.

00:09:36.340 Part 2.

00:09:38.280 Understanding Marxism

00:09:39.540 To understand the difference between Leninism and Trotskyism, we need to understand about

00:09:45.280 the preceding split between the Bolshevist and Menshevist forms of Marxism.

00:09:51.340 And to understand why Marxism split into Bolshevism and Menshevism, we need to understand both the

00:09:56.820 theory and the historical context in which all of this occurred.

00:10:01.420 This is a tall order, but we're going to simplify things by analyzing each shade of Marxist thought

00:10:07.020 from three separate angles.

00:10:09.400 First, as a theory of history.

00:10:11.680 That is, an explanation of why history and politics operated as they had up to that point.

00:10:18.540 An explanation of the situation which Marxist philosophers found themselves in.

00:10:23.640 Second, as a movement within a particular historical context.

00:10:29.400 Why such and such a school arose, at such and such a place, and what they were trying to achieve.

00:10:35.900 And third, as a methodology of operation.

00:10:41.480 We'll be looking at how the theory, plus the historical context, led to a certain prescription

00:10:46.720 as to what should be done.

00:10:49.720 This breakdown will allow us to specifically identify each movement, what sort of animal

00:10:54.540 it was, how it operated, and where its blind spots were.

00:10:59.360 For example, let's apply this breakdown to the social science of marketing and propaganda.

00:11:05.540 First, as a theory.

00:11:09.760 The theory which underlies modern marketing techniques goes all the way back to the beginning

00:11:13.660 of the 20th century, to a man named Edward Bernays.

00:11:18.020 Inspired by the psychoanalytic theories of his uncle, Sigmund Freud, Bernays posited that

00:11:22.920 individuals are subconsciously motivated by a universal set of desires.

00:11:28.640 Sex, popularity, agency, etc.

00:11:31.860 And that arguments which appealed to these subconscious desires would be more effective than arguments

00:11:38.880 which targeted rational self-interest.

00:11:42.560 Second, as a historical context.

00:11:45.420 The modern science of marketing and propaganda arose in conjunction with two specific technologies.

00:11:53.120 The first is industrialization and the normalization of replaceable parts.

00:11:58.640 These days, not only is every 10mm bolt identical to every other 10mm bolt, we've even homogenized

00:12:05.540 agriculture.

00:12:06.920 Think about when you buy a dozen eggs from the grocery store.

00:12:09.440 All 12 are not only the same size, they're even the same color.

00:12:15.200 The second important technology which influenced Bernays' theories was the mass media, the one-to-many

00:12:22.480 data model which could assume mass consumption.

00:12:26.800 The confluence of these two physical technologies is what drove the formation of marketing as a

00:12:32.380 social technology.

00:12:33.280 We have a one-size-fits-all product and a one-size-fits-all media outlet.

00:12:42.100 Marketing addressed the question of how to combine these two different systems, which, on

00:12:47.780 their own, would both be innately alienating, but by combining them, he was able to create

00:12:54.900 something which seemed intimate and comforting.

00:12:58.020 And finally, marketing as a methodology.

00:13:04.720 The marketer or propagandist starts out by breaking down their audience into specific

00:13:09.420 groups or lifestyles.

00:13:11.640 Stay-at-home mums, blue-collar workers, urban yuppies, so on and so forth. 0.99

00:13:17.000 And then, they determine what sort of psychological need is being unmet amongst each group.

00:13:22.920 For instance, you might have a working mother who feels guilty about not being able to cook 0.98

00:13:27.040 from scratch.

00:13:28.400 So what you do is you take instant pancake batter, just add water, and remove the dehydrated

00:13:34.680 eggs.

00:13:35.900 Now you have to add water and eggs, and this token gesture assuages her sense of guilt,

00:13:42.140 even though it doesn't change the nutritional value of the meal itself.

00:13:46.460 So that's the science of marketing and propaganda as understood and developed in the 20th century.

00:13:52.240 Today, in the 21st century, much of it no longer applies, due to easy product customization and

00:14:00.200 the many-to-many model of internet communications.

00:14:04.720 Failing to understand this has resulted in numerous marketing failures, in particular, the notorious

00:14:10.740 PSP rap video from Sony.

00:14:13.640 So now let's consider the original topic of this video, Marxism itself.

00:14:24.160 Marx's theories are often misunderstood as being primarily economic in nature, from each

00:14:29.640 according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.

00:14:33.840 There are several reasons for this.

00:14:35.520 First is the legacy of the Cold War, the battle between free-trade capitalism and state-run

00:14:43.000 communism.

00:14:44.500 Second is the sociopolitical environment in which Marx developed his theories.

00:14:49.500 We'll touch more upon this shortly.

00:14:51.740 And third is the simple fact that economic policies are far easier to delineate and define

00:14:57.860 than the esoteric heuristics which are the actual core.

00:15:01.840 Marxism is primarily a theory of history, more properly known as dialectical materialism.

00:15:12.080 It looks at society as a negotiation between different physical and social forces, technology, capital,

00:15:19.160 religion, and culture, and predicts a certain pattern to how all human cultures will develop.

00:15:26.020 The first stage is known as primitive communism, an egalitarian society where one's contributions

00:15:35.460 are recognized by the rest of the tribe, all members are provided for, and high status

00:15:40.500 and rewards are granted organically.

00:15:43.660 Today you can see this sort of organization spontaneously arising in hippie communes such as the annual

00:15:49.820 rainbow gathering, as well as being orchestrated by larger organizations such as the military.

00:15:55.220 The currency of these organizations is how much you contribute to the group as a whole.

00:16:02.840 The second stage of dialectical materialism is the slave society, which is triggered by

00:16:08.720 two interrelated events.

00:16:11.080 The rise of agriculture, requiring laborious managed servitude, and the organization of religion.

00:16:18.840 No longer did we have shamans offering guidance on the individual's path through the ineffable,

00:16:23.540 but instead, we developed god-emperors and the priestly caste who maintained order by threat

00:16:29.920 of violence.

00:16:31.460 In this world, and the next.

00:16:34.920 These slave societies created massive suffering for most of the individuals within them, but

00:16:40.540 they also created societal success.

00:16:43.380 Eventually, they created sufficient excess wealth to lead to the next stage of development.

00:16:49.160 Feudalism.

00:16:49.820 In the feudal society, elites no longer needed to grind the peasants under their heels.

00:16:55.940 Life was still difficult, but the slaves were becoming serfs, tied to the land, but no longer

00:17:01.240 tasked by the master's whip.

00:17:03.300 And the aristocracy began leading as much by example as by divine fiat.

00:17:08.720 This loosening of social controls opened up avenues for a new caste within society, the 0.98

00:17:14.300 bourgeoisie merchants.

00:17:16.560 The excess wealth provided opportunities for speculation and traders, and the merchants

00:17:21.400 found ways to profit off of wealth's redistribution.

00:17:25.800 Eventually, they became so powerful that they overtook the ruling class, leading to the next

00:17:30.580 stage in societal development.

00:17:32.900 Capitalism.

00:17:33.500 This was the society in which Marx developed his theories.

00:17:38.320 The ruling aristocracy was on the wane.

00:17:40.980 In France, they'd been completely ousted, while in Britain, their rights and privileges were worth 0.98

00:17:45.720 less and less by the day.

00:17:48.100 Back in 1600, the Crown had commissioned the East India Company, granting the merchants permission

00:17:53.080 to earn money for the British Empire.

00:17:54.780 By the 1700s, the Crown had become reliant upon the merchants.

00:17:59.860 Organizations such as the South Sea Company were vital in financing foreign wars and servicing

00:18:05.860 the national debt.

00:18:07.780 While the aristocrats still held nominal power, it was the bankers and capitalists, that is,

00:18:14.540 the owners of large factories whom the peasants turned worker proletariat, dependent upon 0.96

00:18:20.100 for employment, who truly ran the country.

00:18:22.980 This is the historical context in which Marx's theory arose, a society driven not by the rhythm

00:18:29.660 of nature or by the narrative of chivalry, but by the incessant, clanging demands of remorseless

00:18:37.060 machinery.

00:18:38.780 The aristocrat might put on airs of noblesse oblige, but they were ultimately co-opted by

00:18:44.520 their dependence upon money.

00:18:47.160 They'd become parasitical off of the capitalist class, allowed to exist so long as they did

00:18:52.980 as they were told.

00:18:54.620 The proletariat, meanwhile, the peasants and serfs and slaves who had become workers, found 0.99

00:19:01.960 themselves divorced from the means of production.

00:19:05.940 They performed meaningless tasks in ugly environments, disconnected from the long-term purpose of their

00:19:11.240 laborers, and subject to the whims of economic trade winds which they could not predict, let

00:19:16.720 alone control, all while renting their homes from absentee landlords.

00:19:22.980 Marx saw the pregnant possibilities of this technological era, as well as the strict class 0.98

00:19:28.740 divisions and the withering of the old world's cultures and religions. 0.97

00:19:32.920 Inspired by Hegel's theory of historical dialectic, that is, unmovable object A meets unstoppable

00:19:41.220 force B, creating new society C, he predicted a world where wealth could be effectively limitless,

00:19:49.680 where narratives based upon superstition could be eschewed, where the owners would be overthrown,

00:19:56.040 and a new communist man could emerge to glorify in his mastery of the material.

00:20:03.060 His methodology was revolution, a worldwide elimination of all cultures and histories, a purely 0.74

00:20:11.440 materialistic belief system that eschewed narrative for machinery, a resetting of the clock to year

00:20:18.440 zero.

00:20:18.820 With a century and a half of retrospective, we can see the foundational flaws in his theory.

00:20:26.720 For one thing, it's ahistorical.

00:20:30.360 Primitive tribes are not peaceful. 0.96

00:20:32.720 Their form of primitive communism relies upon exclusion and murder to maintain a productive

00:20:38.480 core.

00:20:39.860 Both the hippie communes and the military use similar, though less brutal, techniques to achieve

00:20:45.700 the same.

00:20:46.140 They are both very selective about who is allowed in.

00:20:51.560 They are merely enclaves of primitive communism within a larger social context.

00:20:58.120 Another problem is the emphasis on materialism.

00:21:01.680 If there's one thing that the 20th century taught us, it's that we're not as smart as we

00:21:05.640 think we are.

00:21:06.920 The Great War managed to kill more than 15 million people and devastate Europe, even though nobody

00:21:11.640 wanted it.

00:21:12.300 And then we have Frederick Gordell and Alan Turing, proving what philosophers have been

00:21:17.840 saying for centuries, that there are hard physical limits to how far our reasoning can

00:21:22.920 take us.

00:21:24.480 Nineteenth-century materialism saw man as the pinnacle of creation, not just the measure of

00:21:30.500 all things, but the master of the measuring system itself.

00:21:34.900 And through our own hubris, we fell hard.

00:21:40.420 And finally, there's the imprecision of Marx's terminology.

00:21:46.860 What is a capitalist?

00:21:49.160 What is productive capital?

00:21:50.720 In 1850, the answer was obvious. 0.83

00:21:54.520 The man who owned the factory and the machines that were used to produce.

00:21:59.380 But what about nowadays?

00:22:02.120 If you drive for Uber, does that make your car capital and you a capitalist?

00:22:08.420 What about Mark Zuckerberg?

00:22:10.500 His capital is a domain name and a bit of code that people voluntarily subscribe to.

00:22:16.400 Is he a capitalist?

00:22:17.600 For that matter, being a CEO of a company seems like a lot more work than most people

00:22:22.780 are interested in doing.

00:22:24.500 Most of us would prefer the easy work and weekends off that a salaried job offers, rather

00:22:30.100 than the 24-7 dedication and stress of running a multinational firm.

00:22:36.900 Dialectical materialism mistook a temporary socioeconomic condition for an absolute state of

00:22:43.260 being.

00:22:43.580 It was as if he saw a man kicking a vending machine because it just ate his last dollar

00:22:48.120 and decided that he must just be an angry individual, probably with bad parents.

00:22:53.640 At most, dialectical materialism was a contemporary critique of British manufacturing and foreign

00:22:59.220 policy in the late 1800s.

00:23:01.080 But by providing such a rational-sounding theory, which fit in perfectly with the average working

00:23:06.960 man's problems, and that prescribed a specific response with the promise of utopia, it managed

00:23:13.440 to take root in many places throughout the globe.

00:23:17.400 Even in Russia, despite the fact that industrialization had yet to take place across that vast wilderness.

00:23:24.740 At the turn of the 20th century, Russia was still firmly entrenched in the third Marxist

00:23:32.300 stage of feudalism.

00:23:34.840 How could they leap over the fourth stage of capitalism to achieve the utopia promised

00:23:39.740 by the communists?

00:23:41.760 Russia's population was still 90% rural, the breakdown of most medieval societies.

00:23:47.240 In stark contrast to contemporary Great Britain, where less than 20% of the population lived

00:23:53.400 in rural or mostly rural districts.

00:23:56.540 Less than half of Russians were literate.

00:23:59.000 Well over 90% of Britons could read and write.

00:24:02.620 The Marxist game plan assumed a society where the nobility and priestly castes had withered

00:24:08.060 into irrelevance.

00:24:09.660 Where the bourgeoisie had risen to prominence, capturing the means of production, and where

00:24:14.580 the peasants had matured into the city-dwelling proletariat who chafed under the yoke of capitalism.

00:24:21.940 Russia had the wrong mix of elements. 0.88

00:24:26.080 The Romanov dynasty had been ruling for 300 years.

00:24:29.680 The population was primarily composed of uneducated peasants in rural areas.

00:24:34.440 The proletariat, the city-dwelling workers, were a minority.

00:24:38.540 And even worse, the bourgeoisie capitalists whose investments had created this small proletariat 0.90

00:24:44.800 mostly dwelt in foreign lands, offering no direct antagonists for the revolutionaries

00:24:50.640 to target.

00:24:52.060 Despite this, the political upheavals that had been plaguing Western Europe for the past

00:24:56.340 century and a half began to reach the Near East.

00:24:59.380 Demands for an end to the Romanov autocracy, and for workers' rights, led to repeated clashes

00:25:04.840 between government forces and various radical factions, but the latter remained disorganized

00:25:10.300 with no specific plan or strategy for seizing power.

00:25:14.620 Enter Vladimir Lenin.

00:25:17.920 Part 3.

00:25:19.400 Examining Leninism

00:25:21.080 Born in 1870 to a wealthy middle-class family in Simbersk, a major city 500 miles east of Moscow,

00:25:29.140 he became involved in radical politics following the death of his brother, who was executed

00:25:34.200 in 1887 for his attempted assassination of Alexander III, the penultimate Russian emperor.

00:25:41.700 Lenin was the most important political agitator of his time.

00:25:46.020 He was responsible for organizing the various radical groups and adapting Marxist philosophy

00:25:50.480 to the agrarian Russian conditions.

00:25:52.260 He started off by offering an explanation of why Marx's predicted utopia had failed to

00:25:58.160 manifest in the West.

00:25:59.900 It's a theory that all of you will be intimately familiar with, since it's still taught in

00:26:04.980 high schools to this day.

00:26:07.420 Capitalist Imperialism

00:26:09.440 A new stage of Marxism in between capitalism and utopia

00:26:14.920 According to imperialist theory, the rise in class consciousness of the working proletariat

00:26:21.620 provoked a response in the capitalist bourgeoisie.

00:26:25.320 Realizing that they could no longer exploit the working man of their own countries, 0.87

00:26:29.540 they turned their gaze abroad to undeveloped, technologically primitive lands.

00:26:34.880 The capitalists would develop these countries, but only for the sake of extracting natural resources.

00:26:41.040 A form of super-exploitation, which kept the natives laboring in bondage,

00:26:46.560 subjugated by invisible masters in foreign lands.

00:26:49.760 The resources thus acquired would be sufficient to keep the European proletariat content, 0.94

00:26:55.280 while keeping the far-off, third-world peasants ignorant and impoverished. 0.99

00:27:01.100 This new historical stage of capitalist imperialism required a new sort of communism,

00:27:06.740 a global communism, where the workers of the world would finally unite to achieve this unity.

00:27:11.900 And this revolution would start in Russia before eventually expanding to the rest of the globe.

00:27:18.420 To achieve this, Lenin proposed a two-pronged strategy.

00:27:23.780 The inner-party vanguard and the dictatorship of the proletariat.

00:27:29.680 The communist vanguard would be made up of the inner-party intellectuals,

00:27:34.480 those who had the knowledge and historicity to understand what was happening on a global scale.

00:27:40.220 The dictator of the proletariat, meanwhile, would arise through education of the masses,

00:27:46.800 introducing them to an understanding of the global situation

00:27:49.740 and their own role of becoming democratic dictators of industrial resources.

00:27:56.500 Lenin's theories were adopted by the Bolsheviks in Russia,

00:27:59.680 who came into conflict with the Mensheviks.

00:28:02.240 The latter were more moderate in tone.

00:28:06.100 They wanted to create a wide base, an alliance of everybody on the left.

00:28:11.100 Marxists, social democrats, anybody and everybody.

00:28:15.000 They wanted an ideological movement which allowed input from the masses and discussion of policy,

00:28:20.320 rather than a top-down indoctrination and one-party democracy.

00:28:24.280 This open-mindedness would eventually lead to their downfall.

00:28:29.540 With such a diverse base, they weren't able to form a specific strategy.

00:28:34.380 They could organize against the Tsar,

00:28:36.400 but they were powerless against their supposed allies to the left.

00:28:42.380 When the Romanov dynasty fell in 1917,

00:28:45.840 the Mensheviks were quickly ousted,

00:28:48.080 and Marxist Leninism was adopted as the party platform of the revolutionary Russians.

00:28:52.900 One party, an inner vanguard, and the indoctrination of the masses.

00:28:59.800 Now let's briefly review Leninism using the three-fold breakdown from earlier.

00:29:05.360 Leninism as a theory,

00:29:07.320 Leninism as a historical event,

00:29:09.880 and Leninism as a methodology.

00:29:13.560 As a theory.

00:29:16.440 Leninism addresses two failures of traditional Marxist theory.

00:29:20.000 The first is its failure to achieve its predicted utopia

00:29:24.320 through raising the class consciousness of the proletariat.

00:29:28.780 The second is its failure to acknowledge events in societies outside of Western Europe

00:29:33.840 or to consider how they could come into play.

00:29:37.900 Leninism posits a fifth historical stage which Marx and Engels had ignored.

00:29:43.380 In between capitalism and utopia was capitalist imperialism.

00:29:47.200 In this stage, ignorant second and third world peasants would be hyper-exploited 1.00

00:29:52.800 for the sake of satiating the working class in first world countries. 0.56

00:29:57.580 Thus, the first world proletariat would never develop class consciousness 0.98

00:30:01.240 until the second and third world workers threw off their own chains, 0.83

00:30:05.920 at which point the revolution would become global.

00:30:09.260 To accomplish this would require the education of the third world peasants, 1.00

00:30:14.480 indoctrination into Leninist theory by an inner-party vanguard. 0.73

00:30:19.100 On their own, the third world peasants would be too ignorant 1.00

00:30:21.700 and too far away from their capitalist owners 0.85

00:30:23.840 to truly see the situation for what it was.

00:30:27.060 But with the help of the Leninists, 0.79

00:30:29.080 those at the bottom would rule,

00:30:30.960 but only after being taught what to think

00:30:33.640 by their intellectual superiors.

00:30:35.700 Leninism was specifically designed for Russian conditions 0.92

00:30:43.780 at the beginning of the 20th century,

00:30:46.360 a country that was still largely pre-industrial

00:30:48.880 with a traditional government, powerful church, and a rural populace.

00:30:54.160 While the revolutionary fervor of the last century

00:30:56.820 had reached the Russian steppes,

00:30:58.880 the demands being made were fuzzy

00:31:00.600 and the groups disorganized.

00:31:02.720 The specific situation and triggers for Western revolutions

00:31:06.440 weren't present in the Russian landscape

00:31:08.420 and demands for workers' rights were easily sated

00:31:11.380 or easily ignored.

00:31:14.300 A new theory of revolution was needed 0.93

00:31:16.920 which would incorporate an ignorant populace,

00:31:19.920 capitalist investment from far-off lands, 0.87

00:31:22.260 and a culture accustomed to top-down control.

00:31:25.700 It also needed to offer a long-term vision,

00:31:28.280 a raison d'être for the revolutionaries.

00:31:32.720 It needed a myth to power it,

00:31:35.060 and that myth was

00:31:36.100 the dictatorship of the proletariat.

00:31:41.180 As a methodology

00:31:42.660 Leninism was not just one ideology amongst many.

00:31:47.880 There were a plethora of socialist groups,

00:31:50.100 democratic groups, workers' groups,

00:31:52.380 all trying to overthrow the Tsar.

00:31:54.500 But Leninism was the only one

00:31:56.900 which also plotted to overthrow the other groups.

00:32:00.200 The methodology of Leninism was to create

00:32:03.620 a strong vanguard for the party,

00:32:06.240 an inner core of intellectuals,

00:32:08.220 who would then proceed to educate 0.97

00:32:09.760 and indoctrinate the ignorant peasants 0.94

00:32:11.880 into becoming a Borg-like army 0.99

00:32:13.860 who marched in lockstep

00:32:15.500 as part of the dictatorship of the proletariat.

00:32:18.580 Part 4

00:32:21.840 The Objections of Leon Trotsky

00:32:25.240 Now let's consider the other major school

00:32:28.720 of Marxist philosophy which arose during this time,

00:32:31.840 Trotskyism.

00:32:33.560 Leon Trotsky first became involved

00:32:35.300 in radical politics during his teenage years,

00:32:37.960 distributing leaflets advocating populism

00:32:40.180 and workers' rights.

00:32:41.280 On January 1st, 1898,

00:32:44.640 at the age of 18,

00:32:46.200 he, along with over 200 fellow union members,

00:32:49.000 were arrested.

00:32:50.320 He spent the next two years awaiting trial,

00:32:52.620 and it was during this time

00:32:53.740 that he first became familiar with Lenin's work

00:32:56.040 and converted to full-blown Marxism.

00:32:59.860 Though he initially supported the Russian Mensheviks,

00:33:03.200 that's the Social Democrats,

00:33:05.120 the People's Party, remember,

00:33:06.420 he decided to join the Bolsheviks

00:33:08.980 immediately prior to the revolution of 1917,

00:33:12.180 and would become an important figure

00:33:13.740 within the new Russian government.

00:33:16.440 As a contemporary of Lenin,

00:33:18.320 he developed his theories in the same milieu.

00:33:21.420 Revolution in a largely feudal society

00:33:23.740 with a foreign capitalist class,

00:33:26.540 but a small and yet significant group

00:33:28.900 of industrial workers,

00:33:30.900 of proletariats,

00:33:32.420 who could be mobilized against the status quo

00:33:35.240 and for the new government.

00:33:38.480 While Lenin's vision was focused

00:33:40.200 internally and downward,

00:33:42.980 how do we turn the peasants

00:33:44.100 into a revolutionary party,

00:33:46.620 Trotsky's vision was focused upward and outward.

00:33:51.380 According to Trotsky,

00:33:52.400 the industrial workers were the key.

00:33:54.580 They were the ones who could allow Russia 1.00

00:33:56.400 to skip over the capitalist stage

00:33:58.200 in classical Marxist theory.

00:34:00.300 And so he developed the idea

00:34:01.800 of permanent revolution.

00:34:03.720 While the workers might not have the same numbers

00:34:07.040 as in countries to the West,

00:34:08.940 nor the same sort of immediate targets

00:34:10.880 as their Western counterparts,

00:34:12.720 since many of the factory owners

00:34:14.380 lived outside of Russia,

00:34:16.880 his experience as a socialist organizer

00:34:19.180 showed him that there was still

00:34:20.760 a lot they could accomplish.

00:34:22.680 They also weren't sparsely distributed

00:34:25.020 across the countryside

00:34:25.960 like the peasants were.

00:34:27.000 For Trotsky,

00:34:29.480 permanent revolution

00:34:30.460 meant an organized,

00:34:32.500 gradual movement

00:34:33.580 to remove all vestiges

00:34:35.640 of capitalism from his society.

00:34:38.000 They would start by claiming the factories,

00:34:40.820 then creating small democracies

00:34:42.800 through local Soviet councils,

00:34:45.120 and so on,

00:34:46.460 building up the new society piece by piece,

00:34:49.060 creating new elements

00:34:50.340 that would eventually translate

00:34:52.000 into becoming the new normal

00:34:53.920 of the regime.

00:34:55.940 The workers' state

00:34:57.080 would be a step

00:34:58.160 en route

00:34:58.860 to liberating the peasants.

00:35:01.560 But to accomplish his goal

00:35:03.060 of permanent revolution,

00:35:04.540 it wasn't enough

00:35:05.200 to just look

00:35:05.880 to the Russian workers.

00:35:07.560 Like Lenin,

00:35:08.520 he noted how capital

00:35:09.600 was being controlled

00:35:10.480 by international capitalists,

00:35:12.560 backed by the ruling elite.

00:35:14.600 But where Lenin focused

00:35:15.960 on educating the Russian peasants,

00:35:18.100 Trotsky saw the need

00:35:19.080 to raise awareness

00:35:20.000 amongst foreign workers.

00:35:21.520 The nascent socialism in Russia

00:35:24.080 simply wouldn't be able

00:35:25.340 to survive

00:35:25.880 against the pressures

00:35:26.700 of a hostile,

00:35:27.980 capitalist world.

00:35:29.640 Thus,

00:35:30.200 the second meaning

00:35:30.960 of permanent revolution.

00:35:33.060 Trotskyism would be

00:35:34.200 permanently moving out

00:35:35.820 from Russia,

00:35:37.160 radicalizing the workers,

00:35:38.660 overthrowing the capitalists,

00:35:40.180 and ensuring freedom

00:35:41.420 and stability

00:35:42.180 in all other lands.

00:35:44.820 So let's recap,

00:35:46.600 breaking Trotskyism down

00:35:47.780 as a theory,

00:35:48.920 as a historical context,

00:35:50.420 and as a methodology.

00:35:51.520 As a theory,

00:35:54.180 Trotskyism is a counter-argument

00:35:56.040 to Leninism.

00:35:58.000 The latter wanted

00:35:58.720 to build Russia 0.65

00:35:59.480 from the ground up

00:36:00.940 by using the peasantry

00:36:02.360 to create the new Soviet man.

00:36:05.020 Trotsky argues

00:36:05.940 that the workers

00:36:06.820 should be used

00:36:07.380 to create a workers' state

00:36:08.740 as one step

00:36:09.900 in an ongoing process

00:36:11.120 to eventually liberate

00:36:12.420 the peasants.

00:36:14.040 Furthermore,

00:36:15.020 this workers' revolt

00:36:15.880 needs to be spread out

00:36:16.980 internationally

00:36:17.840 to ensure the security

00:36:19.180 of the revolt at home,

00:36:20.520 allowing foreign capitalists

00:36:22.400 to stay in power

00:36:23.300 would ultimately

00:36:24.440 endanger the Soviets, 0.99

00:36:26.680 that is,

00:36:27.440 the workers' councils,

00:36:29.260 in Russia.

00:36:31.800 As a historical context,

00:36:34.960 Trotsky's theories

00:36:35.800 came out of the same context

00:36:37.200 as Lenin's,

00:36:38.180 but unlike his contemporary,

00:36:40.040 Trotsky had a blue-collar history

00:36:41.580 as a socialist

00:36:42.540 and a union organizer.

00:36:44.800 Lenin was an educated man.

00:36:46.460 He'd attended

00:36:47.560 Kazan Imperial University

00:36:49.480 and after getting expelled,

00:36:51.160 he focused on getting

00:36:51.820 a law degree.

00:36:53.000 He spent many of his

00:36:53.780 formative years

00:36:54.600 in Europe

00:36:55.180 writing political theories.

00:36:57.220 Trotsky, meanwhile,

00:36:58.440 was the fifth child

00:36:59.480 of well-to-do farmers,

00:37:01.020 living 15 miles

00:37:02.020 from the nearest post office,

00:37:03.460 who,

00:37:04.180 upon his own exile,

00:37:05.940 wound up in Siberia, 0.78

00:37:07.660 not the Salons of France.

00:37:10.000 The different backgrounds

00:37:11.480 of these two men

00:37:12.260 explain the different perspectives

00:37:13.800 they brought

00:37:14.400 to speculative Marxist theory.

00:37:17.220 Lenin was an intellectual,

00:37:19.780 while Trotsky 0.64

00:37:20.600 had a working-class,

00:37:22.340 no-nonsense background.

00:37:25.940 As a methodology.

00:37:29.100 It is here we find

00:37:30.140 the greatest difference

00:37:31.060 between Leninism

00:37:32.020 and Trotskyism.

00:37:34.300 Their assessments

00:37:34.960 of the Russian situation

00:37:36.180 were largely the same.

00:37:37.940 The class breakdown,

00:37:39.360 the same fight

00:37:40.000 against international capitalism,

00:37:41.480 the same emphasis

00:37:42.620 on the inner-party vanguard.

00:37:45.100 But their one point

00:37:45.880 of contention,

00:37:47.100 workers versus peasants,

00:37:49.340 led to wildly

00:37:50.240 divergent methodologies.

00:37:52.900 Lenin won

00:37:53.380 the largest mass of society

00:37:54.680 to take charge

00:37:55.460 of the revolution.

00:37:56.940 He proposed

00:37:57.460 a bottom-up approach

00:37:59.580 to utopia.

00:38:01.600 Trotsky wanted 0.84

00:38:02.600 to focus on those

00:38:03.460 who had some power already

00:38:05.280 and organizations

00:38:06.780 which could make

00:38:07.880 a meaningful change.

00:38:09.320 In Russia,

00:38:10.920 this was

00:38:11.580 the Workers' Councils.

00:38:14.300 Trotskyism

00:38:15.000 can be described

00:38:16.120 as a top-down

00:38:18.000 form of communism.

00:38:21.740 Part 5

00:38:22.980 The Aftermath

00:38:24.980 Lenin died in 1924

00:38:28.660 at the age of 53

00:38:29.880 due to a stroke.

00:38:31.880 Shortly thereafter,

00:38:33.360 Trotsky was exiled,

00:38:35.680 eventually winding up

00:38:36.480 in Mexico

00:38:36.960 where he was assassinated

00:38:38.200 in 1940

00:38:39.080 by a Soviet agent

00:38:40.460 dying

00:38:41.260 at the age of 60.

00:38:44.020 Stalin took over 0.94

00:38:44.980 the party

00:38:45.420 in 1922

00:38:46.600 and claimed

00:38:47.620 his own Marxist theory

00:38:48.700 as the natural

00:38:49.460 inheritor

00:38:50.160 of Lenin,

00:38:51.140 whose body

00:38:51.560 was preserved

00:38:52.140 as one of the

00:38:52.680 founding fathers

00:38:53.380 of Russian communism.

00:38:55.420 The principles

00:38:56.220 he championed,

00:38:57.660 state terror,

00:38:58.900 socialism in one state,

00:39:00.580 collectivization,

00:39:01.960 and rapid

00:39:02.420 industrialization,

00:39:04.420 these are what

00:39:05.440 we think of today

00:39:06.320 as communism.

00:39:08.020 They are also

00:39:08.800 why modern-day Marxists

00:39:10.600 are wont to point out

00:39:11.720 that true Marxism

00:39:13.000 has never been tried.

00:39:15.620 In retrospect,

00:39:17.520 Leninism and Trotskyism

00:39:19.100 come across as pipe dreams.

00:39:21.040 Optimistic fantasies

00:39:22.120 put forth by true believers,

00:39:24.260 which are very effective

00:39:25.240 at overthrowing the state,

00:39:27.060 but incapable

00:39:27.760 of creating a stable order.

00:39:30.720 Trotsky organizes the top,

00:39:33.160 turning them

00:39:33.780 against the status quo.

00:39:35.440 While Lenin

00:39:36.420 goes to the bottom,

00:39:38.240 and turns them

00:39:39.080 against the status quo

00:39:40.500 as well.

00:39:42.140 By attacking things

00:39:43.020 from both sides,

00:39:44.540 the old order

00:39:45.420 is destroyed,

00:39:47.200 but without any new order

00:39:48.500 to replace it,

00:39:50.060 just empty promises

00:39:51.540 of utopia.

00:39:54.220 In combination,

00:39:55.860 their philosophies

00:39:56.600 are extremely effective

00:39:58.200 at destabilizing society,

00:40:00.580 and they pave the way

00:40:02.000 for a tyrant

00:40:03.280 like Stalin, 0.52

00:40:04.300 a realist

00:40:05.940 like Stalin.

00:40:07.820 The two of them

00:40:08.920 managed to create

00:40:09.780 a vacuum in power,

00:40:12.040 and it should be

00:40:13.020 no surprise

00:40:14.080 that a man

00:40:15.180 with no ethics,

00:40:16.760 morals,

00:40:17.500 or beliefs

00:40:18.520 decided to occupy it.

00:40:20.740 Thank you for listening

00:40:31.460 to this episode

00:40:32.360 of In-Depth Analysis.

00:40:34.520 A special thanks

00:40:35.440 to everybody

00:40:36.600 that's backing me

00:40:37.480 on Patreon

00:40:38.060 so that I can put the work

00:40:39.360 into doing videos like this.

00:40:41.400 Next time,

00:40:42.340 we'll be considering

00:40:43.180 how these Marxist

00:40:44.720 philosophies

00:40:45.840 have gone on

00:40:46.960 to influence

00:40:47.760 American politics,

00:40:49.640 particularly

00:40:50.260 neoconservatism.

00:40:52.760 Please like this video,

00:40:54.580 share it on social media,

00:40:56.260 and if you enjoy my work,

00:40:57.940 please consider supporting me

00:40:59.160 on Patreon.

Leo D.M.J. Aurini - October 23, 2016

Trotsky and Lenin： Early Marxist Philosophers [In Depth Analysis Ep. 3]

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