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David Laibman wrote about this alleged quote in *Science & Society*: There is a quote from Lenin, floating around in cyberspace. From memory: “There are decades when nothing happens. Then there are weeks when decades happen.” It’s an important point. Over long stretches of time, experience accumulates and foundations are laid, in a slow process that makes it seem as though change is not happening at all. Then, in an explosive and historically brief moment, this underlying evolution is concentrated in rapid transformations. The only problem: the quote is, to all appearances, false! (I won’t say “a hoax,” because I don’t think that is known.) A precise source for it has not been found. Let me be clear. Compared to other points on the political spectrum (especially the far right), the left has been a model of scholarship as regards quotations and attributions. Still, we should hold ourselves to the highest possible standard in this regard. It is not always possible to check every source for every item, but that should be the goal. In the meantime, I came across this intriguing passage in the Marx–Engels correspondence (Marx to Engels, April 9, 1863): "How soon the English workers will free themselves from their apparent bourgeois infection, one must wait to see. . . . Only your small-minded German philistine who measures world history by the ell and by what he happens to think are “interesting news items,” could regard 20 years as more than a day where major developments of this kind are concerned, though these may be again succeeded by days into which 20 years are compressed.” Marx is here telling Engels: we must be patient. But note the invocation of a qualitative conception of time (“days into which 20 years are compressed”), and how similar this is to the thought behind Lenin’s presumed “weeks when decades happen.” (“Editorial Perspectives,” Science & Society*, Vol. 77, No. 3 (July 2013): 286) , _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
