reviews Neil Harding's new book Leninism, published by Macmillan. LENIN'S FIRST response was disbelief-che press imust have made i up. But the train soon became apparent. The leadership of socialist parties throughout Europe had voted for war credits.
Harding sees this as the defining moment of "Leninism". The treachery of social democracy in 1914 led Lenin to throw himself into the most important and politically formative period of his intellectual life.
From 1914 he dedicated himself to the study of philosophyparticularly the place of Hegel in Marx's thought-and the reworking of a number of basic Marxist categories.
He combined a dialectical philosophy with an analysis of the dissolution of capitalism and the end of a political epoch. Ine distinctiveness of Leninism was born in the libraries of Switzerland.
This response to the collapse of the Second "socialist" International Harding finds peculiar. He argues that it is responsible for Leninism's subsequent harshness and intolerance, showing "a deeply doctrinaire and scholastic disposition to the world"-unlike the sensibly pragmatic Bernstein, for exampie Harding's Lenin was also displayed in his Isaac Deutscher prize winning Lenin's Political Thought.
He argues that Lenin was much more than a skilful political schemer or opportunist politician with a nose for power he was a vik faithful and orthodox disciple of Marx who built upon the doctrinaire thinking of his mentor. If you want to find the culprit for the sins of Leninism, look to Marx.
Harding is no friend of Lenin. But he has been important in asserting the intellectual strength of Leninism as a coherent ideol- Alone ogy.
This enables him to explain well how the slogans of "all power to the soviets", "bread, peace and land", "freedom to the nationalities" all arose from a sophisticated analysis of the Lenin's "doctrinaire" worldview gave him a unique standpoint, one which was to facilitate the revolution and transform the twentieth century. Socialist Outlook welcomes letters. Post them to Feedback, PO Box 1109, London N4 2UU.
HTTP://www.gn.apc.org/labournet/so Lenin reviews the troops in 19/9 Arriving from the famous for example, sealed train from Germany, Lenin's proclamation of his April Theses shocked his BolsheNo significant audience. leader of the organisation gave ence. support. Pravda disclaimed the contents, printing them as a personal position. How could Lenin ternational doctrine, be so far from his party?
inter the same year Lenin Committee.
The demanded the organisation insurrection. His position coula not have been more distinctive, and question of where state power should reside-with the bourgeois provi- graphical sional government or the ¡deninoical discourse' workers and peasants-could not have been more pivotal.
Harding allows us to understand how this came about Lenin's writings on imperialism, that is not socialist. Russia.
were not particu- intellectual relationship with larly original. But he was able to Trotsky. The author makes much translate the analysis into a politi- of the April Theses, but fails to cal strategy with clear siogans, note how they represented a shift goals and a defined target audi- toward Trotsky's long-held position of permanent revolution. The internationalisation of Harding's focus on ideology capitalism made socialism an in- leads him to underestimate the with rele- material roots of Stalinism in the vance for those beyond the backwardness of Russian society advanced capitalist countries. and the consequent growth of the Understanding national exploita- bureaucracy. This is why he can tion made socialist revolution in- say that Lenin was "complicit in Lenin was able to translate analysis into a of political strategy, with clear slogans, goals failure of its official leadership. land and worldwide. ing into right wing hands. fight for their rights. ies across the country. _ all that made Stalin and Stalinism' It is impossible to accept Harding's portrayal of Leninism as the true orhard-won public services, the working class in Britain faces a real crisis - an avoidable crisis created by the historic Socialist Outlook exists to build a new type of working class leadership, based on the class struggle and revolutionary socialism. The capitalist class, driven by its own crisis, and politically united by its need to maximise profits at the expense of the workers, has had determined, vanguard leadership by a brutal Tory high command. The Tory strategy has been to shackle the unions, and to fragment and weaken the resistance, allowing them to pick off isolated sections one at a time. In response, most TUC and Labour leaders haye embraced the politics of "new realism", effec. tively total surrender, while ditching any pretense of bring a socialist alternative. Every retreat encouraged the forsive against jobs, wages, conditions and union lights.
iew realism is the latest form of refornism, seeking only improved conditions within capitalism. We reject refor. mism, not because we are against reforms, but because we know that full employment, decent living standards, i clean environment, peace and democracy can never be achieved under capitalism. Nor, as we argued long before the collapse of Stalinism, could these demands ever be achieved under the bureaucratically deformed workers states and degenerated USSR, whose regimes survived only by repressing the working class. We are a marxist cur. rent, based not on the brutish totalitarian parodies of state marxism nor on the tame, toothless version of "marxism" beloved by armchair academics, but on the revolutionary tradition of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky.
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found himself in a minority of one on a scandalised Central