Can a Leninist party succeed without a Lenin?
The Monroe News  Last week we briefly explored the success of the first Leninist Party in history  the Bolsheviks in Russia. This week I wish to examine the prospects of our very own Leninist party, contemporary Democrats. The elements are all there. A utopian vision of justice, equality, fairness and/or climate and environmental nirvana to be achieved if only the radical left can acquire and permanently hold on to power. As was true in Russia, the upper, educated classes have become disaffected with wealth and prosperity and the attending degeneration. The old faith  in God and country  has largely faded. A new faith is aborning, to be achieved by the woke neo-Marxists seizing power to compel their vision on the recalcitrant or un-anointed, not to mention those benefiting from oppressing others. White, heterosexual males are among the chief culprits, and those who think like them of whatever color or gender. Matters were cruising along, with the certainty of Hillary Clinton extending President Barack Obamas reign of pen and telephone. The revolution from above was within sight; then came Donald Trump. He stood astride the grand march of neo-Marxist, postmodernist, racialist, post-Constitutionalist and anti-Western leftist politics and shouted, STOP.  Under Trump things got better  better always being the bane of revolutionaries. Growth up, unemployment down, wars winding down, peace in the Middle East winding up, ISIS crushed, and so forth and so on. Russia under the tsars was getting better too, then came disaster in the form of WWI, badly managed by Nicholas. Disaster this time arrived with COVID-19. Whether or not any president would have done better  or worse  than President Trump is irrelevant. Society was turned upside down and who knows when, if ever, life will return to anything like normal. In addition, Trump was his own worst enemy in choice of language, picking unnecessary fights, thus causing some of the otherwise conservative electorate to clutch their pearls and fail to support him. My daddy would have called it cutting off your nose to spite your face. So, just as the stars lined up for the Bolsheviks a century ago, so they have lined up for the Democrats this time. The Bolsheviks could have easily lost their grip on power, but Lenin, with a sure and steely hand, saw to it that crisis by crisis power was maintained, and Russia embarked on an unbroken autocracy lasting for three quarters of a century. Without Lenin, it is highly unlikely that the Bolshevik revolution could have survived. Now the revolution of the left has come to us. With the electoral reforms the Democrats are proposing, it is highly unlikely another Republican could ever be elected president, or a GOP Congress, or Senate. If the Democrats plan to pack the Supreme Court succeeds, the independence of the judiciary will be a thing of the past. Already the revolution is in charge of education, much of business and industry, and spreading its tentacles ever more widely. The Leninist agenda is well along. Only one fly remains in the ointment. Just as the opposition to the Bolsheviks posed a grave threat, so conservatism, Christianity and libertarianism arent dead yet either. Congress could easily flip in 2022. So could the presidency in 2024, unless the Dems have cemented their control. Their problem is, they have no Lenin. Lenin not only provided the decisive and unflinching leadership necessary, he also provided the personality that could be looked to by the masses. Many decades later, when I was in the old Soviet Union, huge pictures and grand statues of Lenin were everywhere. President Trump very nearly filled that niche for the counter-revolution. One never knows what will happen next, of course. Politics is full of surprises. But I just dont see anyone in the Democratic constellation providing that bright and guiding star, striding boldly into the better future and, without that, the revolution may still falter. Charles Milliken is a professor emeritus after 22 years of teaching economics and related subjects at Siena Heights University. He can be reached at milliken.charles@gmail.com.