By Lewis Maghanga

Leninism is Marxism in the era of imperialism and Proletarian revolution. More precisely, it is the theory and tactics of the proletarian revolution in general and the theory and tactics of the dictatorship of the proletariat in particular. (Stalin, 1924)

With the understanding of this definition of Leninism, it becomes easy to see the relevance of Lenin’s thoughts and ideas in our organising today.

The immediate tasks of revolutionary activists today, in the midst of the massive global economic crisis, the ongoing life-threatening COVID-19 pandemic, the worsening standards of living and the growing inequality due to neoliberalism revolve around the unification of our popular struggles into an international campaign against the capitalist system and the forging of an international revolutionary vanguard to spearhead the working-class struggle for a better society. 

If, as has become even more apparent now under the current economic and political conditions, the majority of the people of the world are waging a serious struggle against neoliberalism and neo-colonialism, and if revolutionary organisers see the need to direct this struggle towards the establishment of a new Socialist society, then truly this is still the era of imperialism and proletarian revolution. Naturally, therefore, Lenin’s writings offer a vital guide as to the tactics to employ and positions to take in the course of our organising.

The book Lenin150 (Samizdat) is both educative as it is inspiring. It is educative as through the reflections of the various authors on Lenin we get to understand certain aspects of his ideas and tactics. Most importantly, the authors have tried to highlight the relevance of Lenin’s ideas on our situation today. It is inspiring as it exposes the connection that exists between revolutionary intellectuals and organisers all across the world who, through their reflections on the theories and ideas of Lenin, demonstrate their understanding of the need to work for a better society. 

As mentioned by Trotsky in his ‘V.I Lenin – On His Fiftieth Birthday (1920)’, a necessary quality possessed by Lenin, which helps judge the right moments for action and the pressing issue at hand, is intuition: ‘the ability to judge events correctly on the wing, to separate the essential and important from the husks and incidentals, to fill in mentally the missing parts of the picture, to draw to conclusion the thoughts of others and above all those of the enemy, to connect all this into a unified whole and to deal a blow the moment that the “formula” for this blow comes to mind. This is the intuition for action. In one of its aspects it merges with what we call shrewdness.’ One truly sees the importance of this quality in not only helping to shape the Bolshevik Party, as evidenced in the push for a disciplined vanguard in 1903, but in also making the revolution itself, as seen in the call for the insurrection of October 1917.

Alain Badiou, in emphasizing the important role played by Lenin in giving meaning to the word ‘politics’, highlights Lenin’s genius as a political organiser, particularly upon his return to Russia from exile after the February 1917 Revolution. The contents of his April Theses ‘was like a handbook, in the Russian context, of political possibility: ‘politics’ in the second sense – the truly modern sense – of the word.’ Lenin’s April Theses, highlighting the proposed points of action for the Bolsheviks after the February Revolution, helped illuminate the way forward and, importantly, helped the Bolshevik Party create an intimate connection with the workers and peasants through putting their interests at the core. Without this way forward, it would be difficult to imagine an October Socialist Revolution lead by the vanguard of the workers and peasants in Russia. 

In his reflection titled ‘Learning from Lenin – and Doing it Differently’, Michael Brie highlights eight direct challenges to the European Left. He urges the European Left to ‘learn from Lenin in order to bring about – in a new way – radical, transformational and emancipatory social change.’ 

Sandoval Cordero proposes two ways of intervention as regards our ideological engagement; ‘“Unthinking” Marx and Lenin by understanding them as critical projects under construction, and thinking Marxism-Leninism “in reverse”, which entails having a radically different perspective of them.’  Utilising Lenin as a “nucleus of desire” that allows us to (re-)think organisation and strategy in order to intervene in concrete political situations, Sandoval highlights the following contributions made by Lenin as part of this nucleus;

  • Political contingency, involving always looking at politics in the direction of the Communist horizon;
  • Political analysis, involving developing intellectual capacity in the heat of socio-political struggle. Here, we understand that without theoretical practice one cannot influence political practice and vice versa;
  • Time and political conjuncture, involving understanding and taking advantage of the times in politics, in accordance with the existing power relations; and
  • Organisation and militancy.

Thomas Rudhof-Seibert, in his ‘Eleven Theses on Lenin in the Corona Era’, emphasises the need for Leftists to turn once more towards Lenin’s ‘What is to be done?’ (Lenin, Collected Works Vol. 5, 1977). Taking into account the revolutionary situation that the corona era has presented to us, it is indeed imperative that Leftist organisers today acquaint themselves with the contents of Lenin’s pamphlet. This is less about concrete instructions than about what one could call the spirit of Leninist thought and action: the resolve to engage with history in the purest sense of the word, namely with the possibility of a revolutionary rapture of fundamental and thereby world-historical significance.

Thomas Rudhof-Seibert highlights three conflicting modes of thought and action with regard to revolution as described by Lenin in ‘What is to be Done?’;

  • Truly revolutionary, “social democratic” thought and action, which according to current language usage, based on the schism of the Second and the foundation of the Third International, is called Communist;
  • The simultaneously “economistic” and “opportunistic” limitation of revolutionary activity to a purely trade-unionist sphere and rationale, which in today’s language is called social democratic or socialist thought and action;
  • The abstract negation of economism through “revolutionary” thought and action, which perpetually imagines itself on the “eve of the revolution”, wants to bring on the dawn via force (“terrorism”) and thereby also falls prey to opportunism; we refer to this today rather as anarchism, in the sense of an existentially driven voluntarism.

In order to draw a distinction between the aforementioned three ways of action, it is important that one grasps the fundamental priorities as regards workers’ organising and that one remains scientific in our pursuit of emancipatory change. According to Thomas Rughof-Seibert, social democracy, anarchism and communism signify the structural differences in all emancipatory action and thereby form the three elementary answers to the question, “what is to be done?” As Lenin would expound, what revolutionaries need is a vanguard organisation to spearhead the struggle of the working class. 

In viewing the fundamental contribution of Lenin to the proletarian movement as the theorising of tactics for the proletarian revolution, one cannot but look into the ‘weakest link’ concept in the ‘chain of global Capitalism’. Here, Wang Hui identifies the ‘weakest links’ as points within the capitalist system that come to being as a result of imperialism, which is the highest stage of capitalism.  ‘Thus, there exist in the imperialist epoch two kinds of ‘weakest link’. One is that which Lenin described in these terms: “uneven economic and political development is an absolute law of capitalism. Hence, the victory of socialism is possible first in several or even in one capitalist country alone.” The other consists of the cracks and fissures created by the situation of uneven economic and political development within a country, as well as the contradictions between the agents of imperialism among the oppressed people.’ This concept cannot be more relevant today, precisely due to the nature of neo-colonialism, which is the last stage of imperialism, and which creates a sharpening of the contradictions between the countries at the core and those at the periphery, as well as the nature of neoliberalism, which sharpens the stark inequality between the haves and the have nots in all the countries of the world.

‘The “weakest link” not only marks the weak points in the ruling order, but also indicates the possibility of rapturing that system. Thus, the “weakest link” cannot exist of its own accord but relies on the formation of a revolutionary force. The revolutionary forces of the twentieth century did not exist in isolation within a single state or territory, but were national, class, strata and territorial movements which possessed deep international linkages with each other. In other words, without revolutionary forces and a revolutionary theory committed to rapturing with the ruling order, the “weakest links” would simply not exist; without being able to conceptualise the “weakest links” of the capitalist world-system and the “weakest links” of national state power together, it is difficult to form revolutionary strategy and tactics.’

Thus, one is able to grasp the importance of the revolutionary vanguard party in not only raising members of the working class to the level of revolutionaries, but in also helping create the “weakest link” within the present ruling order. 

Hence, an understanding of the theory and tactics of the proletarian revolution also involves an understanding of the important role played by the vanguard organisation in spearheading our push towards revolutionary change. 

Hence, in order to properly honour Lenin on the 150th anniversary of his birth, revolutionaries and all individuals pushing for emancipatory change must commit to working within revolutionary vanguard organisations and to linking these organisations as we seek to attain the world-wide socialist revolution.  

References

Lenin, V. I. (1977). Collected Works Vol. 5. Moscow: Progress Publishers.

Stalin, J. (1924). Foundations of Leninism. Moscow: Progress Publishers.

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