Paul Le Blanc - Unfinished Leninism: The Rise and Return of a Revolutionary Doctrine

Contents

First published by Haymarket Books in 2014

2014 Paul Le Blanc

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Cover design by Rachel Cohen. Text design by Eric Kerl.

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To those, now gone, who taught me about Leninism, to those, very much here, who might make good use of it, and to those yet to come...

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Among those whom I must thank, for various kinds of supportiveness around my engagement with the ideas (and the sharing of their own ideas) reflected in these essays, over the past several years, are: Anthony Arnove, Sebastian Budgen, Tom Bias, Sandra Bloodworth, Roland Boer, Peter Boyle, David Castle, Kunal Chattopadhyay, Luke Cooper, Ted Crawford, Paul DAmato, Neil Davidson, Alexy Gusev, Shaun Harkin, Jonathan Harris, He Ping, Brian Jones, Geoffroy de Laforcade, Li Dianlai, Lars Lih, Michael Lwy, Soma Marik, Kevin Murphy, Manny Ness, Benjamin Opratko, John Rees, John Riddell, Pierre Rousset, Helen Scott, Ahmed Shawki, George Shriver, Ashley Smith, Debbie Smith, Michael Smith, Sharon Smith, Hillel Ticktin, Terry Townsend, Tom Twiss, Nat Weinstein, Suzanne Weiss, Susan Weissman, Wu Xinwei, Xiong Min, Michael Yates, and Dave Zirin. Special thanks for the thoughtful and helpful editorial work by Dao Tran. (Apologies for the incompleteness of this list.)

I have been sustained in many important ways, as I have labored over these writings, by my friend Nancy Ferrari, my sisters Patty and Nora Le Blanc, my sons Gabriel Le Blanc and Jonah McAllister-Erickson, and activist comrades of six continents who are too numerous to name.

These essays have accumulated, mostly over a six-year period, in ways indicated below.

Lenins Return appeared in Working USA: The Journal of Labor and Society 10, no. 3, September 2007.

One for the Encyclopedias was first published in the now defunct Colliers Encyclopedia in 1995, and a refurbished version appeared in the remarkable eight-volume International Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest (Wiley-Blackwell, 2009). A variant is also included in my introduction to the selection of Lenins writings Revolution, Democracy, Socialism , published by Pluto Press in 2008.

Travesties, Statues, and Laughter came out of a panel discussion at Princeton University in 2012, after a performance of Tom Stoppards play Travesties , which includes Lenin as a character. The essay first appeared in International Socialist Review , MayJune 2012.

Still Kicking: Lenin and His Biographers first appeared in International Socialist Review , NovemberDecember 2012. The titles word play refers to Lenins influence as alive and kicking and to the fact that he is recurrently kicked by unfriendly biographers.

Revolutionary Democracy was first published under the title Lenin and Revolutionary Democracy, in Critique: Journal of Socialist Theory 38, no. 4, November 2010. It originated as a paper presented at the Boston Convention of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, November 1215, 2009.

The Great Lenin Debate of 2012 appeared in the online journal Links, International Journal of Socialist Renewal , September 1, 2012; it originated as a presentation given at an educational conference in London of the Communist Party of Great Britain, August 2026, 2012.

Enduring Legacy first appeared online with the title The Enduring Value of Lenins Political Thought at the Europe Solidaire Sans Frontires site on February 8, 2012, in response to a review by Charles Post of Lars Lihs biography Lenin ; a few additional comments are added in light of Posts more recent essay What Is Left of Leninism? New European Left Parties in Historical Perspective, completed and circulated late in 2012 prior to its publication in Socialist Register 2013 .

Luxemburg and Lenin Through Each Others Eyes appears here for the first time, although an abbreviated version was published online in Links, International Journal of Socialist Renewal , January 3, 2012. It was prepared (and presented in the abbreviated form) for an international conference, Lenins Thought in the 21st Century: Interpretation and Its Value, sponsored by the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, as well as the Department of Philosophy, the Institute of Marxist Philosophy, and the Institute of Western Marxist Philosophy at Wuhan University in the Peoples Republic of China, October 2022, 2012.

Caution: Activists Using Lenin is published here for the first time. It was presented at an educational conference of the Communist Party of Great Britain in London, August 2026, 2012. It first appeared online as a video on October 16, 2013, under the title Building a Revolutionary Party in the USA, on the website of the Communist Party of Great Britain.

Leninism Is Unfinished first appeared in the online version of the US publication Socialist Worker on February 1, 2013.

Leninism for Dangerous Times was presented at the Dangerous Ideas for Dangerous Times conference in London and appeared online at Counterfire , June 2, 2013, http://www.counterfire .org/index.php/theory/37-theory/16477-leninism-for-dangerous-times. The additional piece appended to this first appeared June 23, 2013, on the website of the International Socialist Network at http://internationalsocialistnetwork.org/index.php/ideas-and-arguments /organisation/152-paul-le-blanc-moving-forward-to-build-a-mass -socialist-movement.

Organizing for Twenty-First Century Socialism was initially composed for a seminar of the same name, which took place during June 89, 2013, organized in Sydney, Australia, by Socialist Alliance. It appeared online in Links, International Journal of Socialist Renewal , June 12, 2013, http://links.org.au/node/3394.

I have taken the liberty, in this volume, of introducing minor changes in some of these essays.

INTRODUCTION

As of this writing in 2013, there have been increasingly intense stirrings of discontent in the face of the deepening problems of global capitalism, an extended upsurge of protest and insurgency, and yet a sense of disappointment and frustration as the problems of global capitalism persist. One can find as synonyms for the word doctrine either dogma or guidelines and the rising tide of young activists today, having little appetite for dogma, are increasingly seeking guidelines for their efforts.

Conservative and neoliberal policies, social-liberal and social-democratic reformism, Islamic and Christian fundamentalism, the individualist dissidence of libertarians and anarchists, and ideologies less defined have all failed to eliminate the problemsso the discontent persists, spreads, and deepens. This is the case in the United States and elsewhere in the Americas. It is the case throughout Europe. It is the case from South Africa to Egypt and throughout the Middle East. It is the case in India and in China. There is a needa marketfor ideas that address this reality. This has caused, as I have been arguing for the past few years, a significant uptick, a renewal among scholars and intellectuals and activists, of interest in and studies of the ideas and the long-ago activities of Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanovknown to the world as Leninand of his early twentieth-century comrades.

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