The September 2010 issue of Historical Materialism includes a
symposium on Lars Lih’s “Lenin Reconsidered”, a mammoth book that
includes his own new translation of “What is to be Done” (Chto
Delat in Russian)—the object of his research. Put simply, Lih
argues that this seminal text is not a harbinger of a party of a
“new type” but rather Lenin’s call for building a party in Czarist
Russia that is modeled on the German Social Democracy. Not only
did I come to this conclusion long before reading anything Lih has
written (I confess to having read only partial selections of
“Lenin Reconsidered”), I have quoted this selection from WITBD
frequently to support this claim:
Why is there not a single political event in Germany that does
not add to the authority and prestige of Social-Democracy? Because
Social-Democracy is always found to be in advance of all others in
furnishing the most revolutionary appraisal of every given event
and in championing every protest against tyranny. It does not lull
itself with arguments that the economic struggle brings the
workers to realise that they have no political rights and that the
concrete conditions unavoidably impel the working-class movement
on to the path of revolution. It intervenes in every sphere and in
every question of social and political life; in the matter of
Wilhelm’s refusal to endorse a bourgeois progressist as city mayor
(our Economists have not yet managed to educate. the Germans to
the understanding that such an act is, in fact, a compromise with
liberalism!); in the matter of the law against “obscene”
publications and pictures; in the matter of governmental influence
on the election of professors, etc., etc. Everywhere the
Social-Democrats are found in the forefront, rousing political
discontent among all classes, rousing the sluggards, stimulating
the laggards, and providing a wealth of material for the
development of the political consciousness and the political
activity of the proletariat.
I especially love the business about “obscene” publications and
government interference in the election of professors. That’s a
Lenin who would appreciate what we are up against today, with
neo-Czarists like Glenn Beck and Daniel Pipes on the scene.
full:
http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2011/03/04/historical-materialism-symposium-on-lars-lihs-lenin-reconsidered/
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