Lenin’s Marxism*by Wolfgang Küttlertranslated by Loren Balhorn

Beginning in the early 1980s, Georges Labica worked towards a >renewal of Leninism<

against the dogma of Leninism that ruled in state socialism (1986, 123). He emphasized a

strand of thought in the Leninian tradition that avoids claims to a model character

seeking to raise >the empirical evidence of an exceptional historical situation to that of a

generality<, but instead seeks to serve as the foundation >of a political praxis<, which

works towards the realisation of a >communist revolution […] in conjunctures of a

necessarily extraordinary nature< (ibid.). He calls this type of renewing critique, which

works towards a constructive turn in the engagement with Lenin’s legacy, the >work of

the particular< (116). It requires historical concretization as well as critical evaluation of

Lenin’s >interventions< and their consequences for the further development of Marxism

(117).

The >warm stream, hopeful for change< (Mayer 1995, 300) that managed to survive,

against all odds, from Lenin to Gorbachev can nevertheless hardly conceal the fact that

Marxism >was in rapid retreat< (Hobsbawm 2011, 385) long before the emergence of

the >post-communist<, or rather >post-Soviet< situation (Haug 1993). This retreat could

also be observed in how >Soviet orthodoxy precluded any real Marxist analysis of what

had happened and was happening in Soviet society< (Hobsbawm 2011, 386). While

Marx’s analysis and critique of capitalism has retained its validity, reception of Lenin has

become even more overshadowed by Stalinism and its victims since 1989/91. Wolfgang

Ruge understands the tragedy of Lenin in that >he achieved a great amount, but what he

achieved did not correspond to that which he intended whatsoever<, and that his goal,

ultimately >overrun< by history, cost >millions of human lives< (2010, 398).

Nevertheless, the more Lenin is evaluated in light of the failure of Soviet state socialism

since 1989/91, including by Marxists and leftists, the more urgent a historical-critical

reconstruction of his views becomes.

This contribution first addresses the meaning of Lenin in terms of difference and

continuity with Marx on one hand, and in terms of the official Marxism-Leninism (ML)

canonised by Stalin on the other. Proceeding from the end of this epoch, the further

question of the general tendencies of development constituting the context in which

Lenin’s work and historical impact stand at the beginning of the 21st century, an epoch

characterised by conditions of global capitalism resting on the foundation of high-tech

forces of production, will also be addressed.