Wednesday, January 22, 2020

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.

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