Criticisms of Communist Party Rule - Left-wing Criticism

Left-wing Criticism

See also: Anti-Stalinist left

Communist countries, states, areas and local communities have been based on the rule of parties proclaiming a basis in Marxism-Leninism, an ideology which is not supported by all Marxists and leftists. Many communists disagree with many the actions undertaken by ruling Communist parties during the 20th century.

Elements of the left opposed to Bolshevik plans before they were put into practice included the revisionist Marxists, such as Eduard Bernstein, who denied the necessity of a revolution. Anarchists (who had differed from Marx and his followers since the split in the First International), many of the Socialist-Revolutionaries, and the Marxist Mensheviks supported the overthrow of the Tsar, but vigorously opposed the seizure of power by Lenin and the Bolsheviks.

Criticisms of Communist rule from the left continued after the creation of the Soviet state. The anarchist Nestor Makhno led an insurrection against the Bolsheviks during the Russian Civil War and the Socialist-Revolutionary Fanya Kaplan tried to assassinate Lenin. Bertrand Russell visited Russia in 1920, and regarded the Bolsheviks as intelligent, but clueless and planless. In her books about Soviet Russia after the revolution, My Disillusionment in Russia and My Further Disillusionment in Russia, Emma Goldman condemned the suppression of the Kronstadt rebellion as a 'massacre.' Eventually, also the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries broke with the Bolsheviks.

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