[dragonwriter]

> Leninism had a lot of adherents because it had actually worked on multiple occasions

Leninism, like traditional western capitalism, “worked” at displacing a pre-capitalist elite with a new elite and industrializing pre-industrial societies, and largely in the process replicated the key problems associated with western capitalism identified in works like Marx’s Capital, which is why post-Leninist Marxist critics of Leninism often call that system a “state capitalism”.

Leninism didn't however, “work” at solving any problem for which the Left didn't have a clear, well-established working solution before Lenin, and I don't think the Left (outside of the Leninist part, which just ignores the problem and pretends that Leninism is perfect) yet has a theory of how to move on from a Leninist society that doesn't run through capitalist democracy on the route to anything else. Leninism is an unproductive dead-end for the Left.

[anigbrowl]

Most of this I agree with. What I'm not clear on is what you consider to be the promising developments on the left in contrast to Leninism. Put a different way, Leninism may well have been a dead end but at least it proved capable of effecting drastic change. Trade unionism and other organizational models don't seem to have fared that well and keep getting co-opted to capitalist ends, at best resulting in a sort of labor aristocracy (itself a contested term).

I'm not a Bolshevik but I am a proponent of industrial unionism if that helps.

[dragonwriter]

> Trade unionism and other organizational models don't seem to have fared that well and keep getting co-opted to capitalist ends,

Trade unionism and related models on the left have been incredibly successful, without radical seizure of power, in effecting change within advanced democratic capitalist societies; Leninism has had no success either in seizing power or effecting change without seizing power in advanced capitalist societies (except as part of a coalition with trade unionists and others.)

It's true that trade unionism and related models have had trouble firmly institutionalizing changes, and that the progress they've made has suffered reversed and is under constant threat, and that fundamentally upending the capitalist heirarchy remains out of reach of those models.

Which is why it's good that Leninism—as a complete failure at doing anything capitalism doesn't already adequately do—is falling out of favor in the radical Left, because for a long time it was the only theoretical model with any mindshare outside of moderate models, and if there is going to be a successful radical model (whether successful in its radical form or providing new ideas that can transform the moderate Left), it's not going to emerge with Leninism getting all the mindshare.

[anigbrowl]

I'm having a hard time conceiving of a radical alternative, and it's not because I was previously invested in a Leninist model. But if you run across any (even in theory) I'd be delighted to hear about them.