Well, this certainly explains why you have such a bastardized understanding of Marxism-Leninism. You certainly didn't get it from actually reading theory. Some Youtuber told you this nonsense, right?
Why do you think that has anything to do with Marxism-Lenism?
Why do I think Stalin's book Foundations of Leninism has anything to do with the Marxism-Leninism term coined by Stalin? Do you hear yourself?
Lmao. So just to make this absolutely clear, in your worldview:
Lenin was an evil crazy revolutionary who only advocated participation in bourgeois elections for the purpose of guiding people towards revolutionary activity
Stalin, a moderate reformist, invented an entirely new ideology called Marxism-Leninism that had absolutely nothing to with either Marx or Lenin despite fighting side-by-side with Lenin during the revolution and extensively citing both of them.
"Stalin, the moderate reformist" is a new one for me so I feel like I gotta take a step back and clarify that that's actually what you're claiming here.
Edit:
Reforminsm and revolutionism. What is the difference between revolutionary tactics and reformist tactics?
Some think that Leninism is opposed to reforms, opposed to compromises and to agreements in general. This is absolutely wrong. Bolsheviks know as well as anybody else that in a certain sense "every little helps," that under certain conditions reforms in general, and compromises and agreements in particular, are necessary and useful.
"To carry on a war for the overthrow of the international bourgeoisie," says Lenin, "a war which is a hundred times more difficult, protracted, and complicated than the most stubborn of ordinary wars between states, and to refuse beforehand to manoeuvre, to utilise the conflict of interests (even though temporary) among one's enemies, to reject agreements and compromises with possible (even though temporary, unstable, vacillating and conditional) allies--is not this ridiculous in the extreme? Is it not as though, when making a difficult ascent of an unexplored and hitherto inaccessible mountain, we were to refuse beforehand ever to move in zigzags, ever to retrace our steps, ever to abandon the course once selected and to try others?" (see Vol. XXV, p. 210).
Obviously, therefore, it is not a matter of reforms or of compromises and agreements, but of the use people make of reforms and agreements.
To a reformist, reforms are everything, while revolutionary work is something incidental, something just to talk about, mere eyewash. That is why, with reformist tactics under the conditions of bourgeois rule, reforms are inevitability transformed into an instrument for strengthening that rule, an instrument for disintegrating the revolution.
To a revolutionary, on the contrary, the main thing is revolutionary work and not reforms; to him reforms are a by-product of the revolution. That is why, with revolutionary tactics under the conditions of bourgeois rule, reforms are naturally transformed into an instrument for strengthening the revolution, into a strongpoint for the further development of the revolutionary movement.
The revolutionary will accept a reform in order to use it as an aid in combining legal work with illegal work to intensify, under its cover, the illegal work for the revolutionary preparation of the masses for the overthrow of the bourgeoisie.
That is the essence of making revolutionary use of reforms and agreements under the conditions of imperialism.
Oh hey, Stalin cites Lenin in his book titled Foundations of Leninism and argues for the exact same position I just showed Lenin expressed! What are the odds!
Dear God, where did you even pick up these brainworms?
Yes, I'm well aware that Stalin coined the term "Marxism-Leninism." That doesn't in any way mean that Lenin "had nothing to do with" the ideology, since his writings formed the basis of it.
But let me get this straight: is your argument then that Stalin would've "voted blue no matter who?"
God, the "actually, Lenin would have voted blue no matter who" takes are the most compelling evidence of "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing" I've ever seen.
Lenin supported participation in bourgeois electoralism in a communist party, while also being extremely, constantly critical of social democratic reformists. The Democrats having one good election is not going to cause "the proletariat to seize power and establish a one-party communist state" unless you've been watching too much OAN.
You must not sink to the level of the masses, to the level of the backward strata of the class. That is incontestable. You must tell them the bitter truth. You are in duty bound to call their bourgeois-democratic and parliamentary prejudices what they are—prejudices.
Whilst you lack the strength to do away with bourgeois parliaments and every other type of reactionary institution, you must work within them because it is there that you will still find workers who are duped by the priests and stultified by the conditions of rural life; otherwise you risk turning into nothing but windbags.
The conclusion which follows from this is absolutely incontrovertible: it has been proved that, far from causing harm to the revolutionary proletariat, participation in a bourgeois-democratic parliament, even a few weeks before the victory of a Soviet republic and even after such a victory, actually helps that proletariat to prove to the backward masses why such parliaments deserve to be done away with; it facilitates their successful dissolution, and helps to make bourgeois parliamentarianism “politically obsolete”.
Lenin's reason for participating in bourgeois electoralism was specifically to reach people who believed it was an adequate solution in order to persuade them to engage in mass action and outright revolution. This "Lenin was a reformist, actually" line is complete and total nonsense.
