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Lenin: um estudo sobre a unidade de seu pensamento
Quando escreveu essa obra, György Lukács considerava que uma exposição digna da totalidade da obra e história de Lenin ainda carecia de material suficientemente completo para sua realização e deveria ser situada no mínimo no contexto histórico dos trinta ou quarenta anos anteriores. Sem tal pretensão, sua obra Lenin: um estudo sobre a unidade de seu pensamento aponta em linhas gerais a relação entre a teoria e a práxis do líder revolucionário a partir do sentimento de que tal unidade ainda não estava clara o suficiente, nem mesmo na consciência de muitos comunistas. Escrito em 1924, logo após a morte de Lenin – e publicado pela Boitempo –, o livro é fruto do fascínio do filósofo húngaro pela personalidade dessa figura histórica.
O professor de Teoria Política da Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Carlos Nelson Coutinho, situa a importância de Lenin para Lukács, frequentemente citado como um exemplo de “como um ator político revolucionário deve articular teoria e práxis, mas também como deve construir uma personalidade capaz de superar o ascetismo sem perder de vista a fidelidade aos princípios”.
Lenin: um estudo sobre a unidade de seu pensamento encontra-se em plena sintonia com História e consciência de classe e com a primeira fase do Lukács marxista, mas também contribui de forma significativa para o resgate de um marco na história do movimento comunista: a expectativa da “atualidade da revolução”. O processo revolucionário vitorioso na Rússia em 1917 criou uma atmosfera de entusiasmo pela extensão do comunismo ao Ocidente, que seria revisada com cautela por Lenin, no fim de sua vida, diante da necessidade de elaborar uma nova estratégia revolucionária para o Ocidente.
O livro é considerado por Miguel Vedda, professor da Universidade de Buenos Aires e autor da apresentação, como um dos produtos mais significativos da obra do jovem Lukács e um ponto de transição importante para sua filosofia madura. “O filósofo húngaro construiu, nesta obra de juventude, uma imagem sui generis do líder bolchevique, na qual se destaca toda uma série de aspectos que pouco condizem com a versão que logo haveria de divulgar o stalinismo.”
Segundo Coutinho, Lukács apresenta, com clareza e competência, algumas das principais conquistas teóricas do líder bolchevique, como a teoria do partido revolucionário e a definição da etapa imperialista do capitalismo. “Este pequeno livro nos dá mais uma ocasião para confirmar a enorme significação teórica de Lenin para o marxismo, o que nem sempre é hoje devidamente reconhecido.”
Trecho do livro
“O realismo de Lenin, sua realpolitik, é, portanto, a liquidação decisiva de todo e qualquer utopismo, a realização concreta do conteúdo do programa de Marx: uma teoria que se tornou prática, uma teoria da práxis. Lenin fez com o problema do socialismo o mesmo que fez com o problema do Estado: arrancou-o de seu isolamento metafísico, de seu aburguesamento, e introduziu-o no contexto geral dos problemas da luta de classes. Ele provou na prática, na vida concreta do processo histórico, as geniais indicações que Marx dera na Crítica do Programa de Gotha e em outros escritos, conferindo-lhes mais concreção e abrangência na realidade histórica do que fora possível na época de Marx, mesmo para um gênio como ele.
Os problemas do socialismo são, assim, os problemas da estrutura econômica e das relações de classe no momento em que o proletariado toma o poder estatal. Eles surgem imediatamente das condições em que o proletariado instaura sua ditadura e, por isso, só podem ser compreendidos e solucionados a partir desses problemas; no entanto, eles contêm – pelas mesmas razões – algo fundamentalmente novo em relação a essas condições e a todas as condições anteriores. Se é verdade que todos os seus elementos têm origem no passado, seu nexo com a manutenção e o fortalecimento do domínio do proletariado gera problemas que não podiam estar presentes em Marx nem em outras teorias surgidas antes e só podem ser apreendidos e solucionados a partir dessas condições essencialmente novas.”
O professor de Teoria Política da Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Carlos Nelson Coutinho, situa a importância de Lenin para Lukács, frequentemente citado como um exemplo de “como um ator político revolucionário deve articular teoria e práxis, mas também como deve construir uma personalidade capaz de superar o ascetismo sem perder de vista a fidelidade aos princípios”.
Lenin: um estudo sobre a unidade de seu pensamento encontra-se em plena sintonia com História e consciência de classe e com a primeira fase do Lukács marxista, mas também contribui de forma significativa para o resgate de um marco na história do movimento comunista: a expectativa da “atualidade da revolução”. O processo revolucionário vitorioso na Rússia em 1917 criou uma atmosfera de entusiasmo pela extensão do comunismo ao Ocidente, que seria revisada com cautela por Lenin, no fim de sua vida, diante da necessidade de elaborar uma nova estratégia revolucionária para o Ocidente.
O livro é considerado por Miguel Vedda, professor da Universidade de Buenos Aires e autor da apresentação, como um dos produtos mais significativos da obra do jovem Lukács e um ponto de transição importante para sua filosofia madura. “O filósofo húngaro construiu, nesta obra de juventude, uma imagem sui generis do líder bolchevique, na qual se destaca toda uma série de aspectos que pouco condizem com a versão que logo haveria de divulgar o stalinismo.”
Segundo Coutinho, Lukács apresenta, com clareza e competência, algumas das principais conquistas teóricas do líder bolchevique, como a teoria do partido revolucionário e a definição da etapa imperialista do capitalismo. “Este pequeno livro nos dá mais uma ocasião para confirmar a enorme significação teórica de Lenin para o marxismo, o que nem sempre é hoje devidamente reconhecido.”
Trecho do livro
“O realismo de Lenin, sua realpolitik, é, portanto, a liquidação decisiva de todo e qualquer utopismo, a realização concreta do conteúdo do programa de Marx: uma teoria que se tornou prática, uma teoria da práxis. Lenin fez com o problema do socialismo o mesmo que fez com o problema do Estado: arrancou-o de seu isolamento metafísico, de seu aburguesamento, e introduziu-o no contexto geral dos problemas da luta de classes. Ele provou na prática, na vida concreta do processo histórico, as geniais indicações que Marx dera na Crítica do Programa de Gotha e em outros escritos, conferindo-lhes mais concreção e abrangência na realidade histórica do que fora possível na época de Marx, mesmo para um gênio como ele.
Os problemas do socialismo são, assim, os problemas da estrutura econômica e das relações de classe no momento em que o proletariado toma o poder estatal. Eles surgem imediatamente das condições em que o proletariado instaura sua ditadura e, por isso, só podem ser compreendidos e solucionados a partir desses problemas; no entanto, eles contêm – pelas mesmas razões – algo fundamentalmente novo em relação a essas condições e a todas as condições anteriores. Se é verdade que todos os seus elementos têm origem no passado, seu nexo com a manutenção e o fortalecimento do domínio do proletariado gera problemas que não podiam estar presentes em Marx nem em outras teorias surgidas antes e só podem ser apreendidos e solucionados a partir dessas condições essencialmente novas.”
128 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1970
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About the author
György Lukács
447 books401 followersGyörgy Lukács was a Hungarian Marxist philosopher, aesthetician, literary historian and critic. He is a founder of the tradition of Western Marxism, an interpretive tradition that departed from the Marxist ideological orthodoxy of the Soviet Union. He developed the theory of reification, and contributed to Marxist theory with developments of Karl Marx's theory of class consciousness. He was also a philosopher of Leninism. He ideologically developed and organised Lenin's pragmatic revolutionary practices into the formal philosophy of vanguard-party revolution.
His literary criticism was influential in thinking about realism and about the novel as a literary genre. He served briefly as Hungary's Minister of Culture as part of the government of the short-lived Hungarian Soviet Republic.
His literary criticism was influential in thinking about realism and about the novel as a literary genre. He served briefly as Hungary's Minister of Culture as part of the government of the short-lived Hungarian Soviet Republic.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 59 reviews
April 28, 2021
I really enjoyed this short, reasonably accessible (if you can forgive the slightly dated 1920s Marxist prose - everything is *concrete*) text.
Brilliant introduction to Leninist dialectics as a mode of thought, as opposed to a set of prescriptions. There's nothing in here about how you to organise your party or how to sell your newspaper, but lot's about how to engage analytically with your circumstances and translate that analysis into practical action.
Would recommend.
Brilliant introduction to Leninist dialectics as a mode of thought, as opposed to a set of prescriptions. There's nothing in here about how you to organise your party or how to sell your newspaper, but lot's about how to engage analytically with your circumstances and translate that analysis into practical action.
Would recommend.
September 29, 2025
Written in part as an elegy upon Lenin's decease, and in part as insurance against author's own impending liquidation--for his magnum opus, History and Class Consciousness, had been "condemned by Soviet authorities in 1924 at the fifth World Congress of the Comintern" (Jay, Marxism & Totality, at 103)--this book is a funny little thing.
Jay avers that even Lukacs' enemies recognized the HCC as "the first book in which philosophical Marxism ceases to be a cosmological romance and thus a surrogate 'religion' for the lower classes" (loc. cit. at 102). According to Kolakowski, no friend of marxism, the HCC "criticized Engels' idea of the dialectic of nature" and "disputed the theory of 'reflection' which Lenin had declared to be the essence of Marxist epistemology" (Kolakowski, Main Currents of Marxism: The Breakdown, at 260). In jolly commie land, that means your ass.
It is unlikely that this slim volume can be properly understood without reference to the HCC; I'm not going to make that reading here--it's too hard. But one should rest assured that all of the generic hegelocommietalk herein actually signifies something.
In this context, Lukacs publishes this study of Lenin. It begins poorly with a bizarre declaration that "historical materialism is the theory of the proletarian revolution" (9). Um, yeah? We can measure "the stature of a proletarian thinker" with reference to "the extent to which he is able accurately to detect beneath the appearances of bourgeois society those tendencies towards proletarian revolution which work themselves in and through it to their effective being and distinct consciousness" (id.). In what can only be considered a very limited or backhanded compliment, Lukacs submits that "by these criteria Lenin is the greatest thinker to have been produced by the revolutionary working-class movement since Marx" (id.). The remainder of the book works through standard marxist categories of analysis in evidencing this thesis.
The key concern is that the "actuality of the revolution" is the "core of Lenin's thought" (11). This means that theory is transformed into praxis by the dialectical revolutionist. So, against the Mensheviks and Bernstein/Kautsky types, Lenin did not accept that the backward Russian empire was unsuitable for socialism for lack of successful bourgeois revolution in economics or politics; rather, "the bourgeoisie had ceased to be a revolutionary class" having allied with the "old ruling powers," a "compromise which springs from mutual fear of a greater evil and not a class alliance based on common interests" (20). This sleight of mind allows the bolsheviks to seize the state, despite the prior dispositions of marxist theory to the contrary.
Lenin is presented as inferior to Hilferding in economics and to Luxemburg on the issue of imperialism--but Lenin trumps because of "his concrete articulation of the economic theory of imperialism with every political problem of the present epoch" (41). In the penultimate chapter, Lenin is presented as a compromiser, practitioner of realpolitik, contrary to the posturing of Herr Pipes in his sophomoric histories.
The 1967 coda backs off the primary text in some ways, suggesting that Lenin's theory of imperialism is invalid after all (91). Some odd references to Shakespeare in the postscript, and a surreal fundamentalist bit about "human salvation" early in the primary essay (11).
Jay presents this volume as one in which "virtually all residues of his ultra-leftist sectarianism were purged from the argument" (loc. cit. at 120). Kolakowski, for his part, correctly summarizes this text as using "the notion of Totalitat to describe the core of Lenin's doctrine," but then goes way off the rails into disingenuous fantasy by suggesting Lukacs' position is that Lenin "discerned the revolutionary trend of the age independently of particular facts and events, or rather in the facts themselves, and united all current issues" (loc. cit. at 267).
Anyway, recommended for western marxists and rabid but bored anti-communists.
Jay avers that even Lukacs' enemies recognized the HCC as "the first book in which philosophical Marxism ceases to be a cosmological romance and thus a surrogate 'religion' for the lower classes" (loc. cit. at 102). According to Kolakowski, no friend of marxism, the HCC "criticized Engels' idea of the dialectic of nature" and "disputed the theory of 'reflection' which Lenin had declared to be the essence of Marxist epistemology" (Kolakowski, Main Currents of Marxism: The Breakdown, at 260). In jolly commie land, that means your ass.
It is unlikely that this slim volume can be properly understood without reference to the HCC; I'm not going to make that reading here--it's too hard. But one should rest assured that all of the generic hegelocommietalk herein actually signifies something.
In this context, Lukacs publishes this study of Lenin. It begins poorly with a bizarre declaration that "historical materialism is the theory of the proletarian revolution" (9). Um, yeah? We can measure "the stature of a proletarian thinker" with reference to "the extent to which he is able accurately to detect beneath the appearances of bourgeois society those tendencies towards proletarian revolution which work themselves in and through it to their effective being and distinct consciousness" (id.). In what can only be considered a very limited or backhanded compliment, Lukacs submits that "by these criteria Lenin is the greatest thinker to have been produced by the revolutionary working-class movement since Marx" (id.). The remainder of the book works through standard marxist categories of analysis in evidencing this thesis.
The key concern is that the "actuality of the revolution" is the "core of Lenin's thought" (11). This means that theory is transformed into praxis by the dialectical revolutionist. So, against the Mensheviks and Bernstein/Kautsky types, Lenin did not accept that the backward Russian empire was unsuitable for socialism for lack of successful bourgeois revolution in economics or politics; rather, "the bourgeoisie had ceased to be a revolutionary class" having allied with the "old ruling powers," a "compromise which springs from mutual fear of a greater evil and not a class alliance based on common interests" (20). This sleight of mind allows the bolsheviks to seize the state, despite the prior dispositions of marxist theory to the contrary.
Lenin is presented as inferior to Hilferding in economics and to Luxemburg on the issue of imperialism--but Lenin trumps because of "his concrete articulation of the economic theory of imperialism with every political problem of the present epoch" (41). In the penultimate chapter, Lenin is presented as a compromiser, practitioner of realpolitik, contrary to the posturing of Herr Pipes in his sophomoric histories.
The 1967 coda backs off the primary text in some ways, suggesting that Lenin's theory of imperialism is invalid after all (91). Some odd references to Shakespeare in the postscript, and a surreal fundamentalist bit about "human salvation" early in the primary essay (11).
Jay presents this volume as one in which "virtually all residues of his ultra-leftist sectarianism were purged from the argument" (loc. cit. at 120). Kolakowski, for his part, correctly summarizes this text as using "the notion of Totalitat to describe the core of Lenin's doctrine," but then goes way off the rails into disingenuous fantasy by suggesting Lukacs' position is that Lenin "discerned the revolutionary trend of the age independently of particular facts and events, or rather in the facts themselves, and united all current issues" (loc. cit. at 267).
Anyway, recommended for western marxists and rabid but bored anti-communists.
July 10, 2025
Lukács zeichnet Lenins Erweiterungen der Marx‘schen Theorie nach, unter anderem hinsichtlich einer Kritik am Opportunismus und mit dem Aufruf, heute für den Sozialismus zu kämpfen. Grundlegend geht es dabei darum, den Staat als Waffe zu nutzen: Klar wird beschrieben, dass die Demokratie der Bourgeoisie die Herrschaft sichert und nur das Proletariat als herrschende Klasse eine Verständigung zwischen den Schichten ermöglicht. So werde in einer revolutionären Gesellschaft der Staat zur Waffe des Klassenkampfes.
May 9, 2019
Lucacs says some interesting things about connection of ideas Rosa Luxemburg and Lenin in real politik. Vladimir Ilyich was not utopist but realist. He wanted to build socialism in hard reality. Lucacs gives him respect for it.
November 11, 2024
Extraordinario libro que de manera sucinta expone los principales aportes teóricos y políticos del dirigente bolchevique Lenin. No como una lógica biográfica o parecida, sino que con la importancia de su actualidad, incluso hoy, de las ideas que el revolucionario ruso impregno en el marxismo durante el siglo XX.
Desde la concepción de partido, pasando por la lógica de la conciencia de clases, el imperialismo, la importancia de la militancia “profesional” hasta la vigencia de las ideas de una lucha de clases inevitable como parte del acervo leninista para enfrentar la organización proletaria en busca del horizonte socialista.
Este intelectual húngaro, que por una cuestión de sobrevivencia tuvo un coqueteo constante con el stalinismo, nunca dejo de ser un aporte teórico para entender los procesos revolucionarios que ocurrieron, los que ocurrían y los que están por venir, como cuestión inevitable de la decadencia del modelo capitalista como forma de organización de la humanidad.
Una gran lectura que puede ser introductoria, de repaso o incluso de profundización sobre la teoría marxista, el estudio de Lenin sobre el mismo y las conclusiones (y prácticas por sobre todo) que de ello derivo la revolución Rusa de 1917 y las lecciones que lega para el resto de quienes comulgamos con estas ideas.
Si quieres hacerte tú propia idea, acá lo encuentras.
Desde la concepción de partido, pasando por la lógica de la conciencia de clases, el imperialismo, la importancia de la militancia “profesional” hasta la vigencia de las ideas de una lucha de clases inevitable como parte del acervo leninista para enfrentar la organización proletaria en busca del horizonte socialista.
Este intelectual húngaro, que por una cuestión de sobrevivencia tuvo un coqueteo constante con el stalinismo, nunca dejo de ser un aporte teórico para entender los procesos revolucionarios que ocurrieron, los que ocurrían y los que están por venir, como cuestión inevitable de la decadencia del modelo capitalista como forma de organización de la humanidad.
Una gran lectura que puede ser introductoria, de repaso o incluso de profundización sobre la teoría marxista, el estudio de Lenin sobre el mismo y las conclusiones (y prácticas por sobre todo) que de ello derivo la revolución Rusa de 1917 y las lecciones que lega para el resto de quienes comulgamos con estas ideas.
Si quieres hacerte tú propia idea, acá lo encuentras.
May 4, 2017
After the Soviet state arose and before Stalin's iron heel came down this fleeting snapshot captured a true Marxist revolution. Lukacs's polemic is at once too good to dismiss and too hostile to its own ideas to redeem. Such contradictory moments within the same work make up a dialectic whose relevance to socialism just may be more important than the book itself. But how so can a book negate its own content?
The reading gives a trenchant, brilliant explanation of the ideas that, exactly 100 years ago, guided the Russian Revolution. The theme exalts Lenin's genius, with Lukacs telling the story of how one man breathed life and fire into a socialist uprising. But this theme comes back to haunt his exposition. The portrait he hangs in the pantheon of Marxist thinkers offers viewers a subjective guarantee of objective theoretical advances. In the postscript, written decades later, the true flaw of the earlier presentation battens upon the unwary like vampires at sunset.
Lukacs identifies ideas too closely with persons. A more precise title might say, "Lenin: A Study on the Synthesis of his Thought." The admiring writer lauds Lenin for certain ideas better associated with Trotsky. The "unity" in the title is actually Lenin's program. But in these pages a reader could be forgiven for imagining the revolution to be the work of a single superhero. Without Lenin the uprising could not have succeeded. On the other hand, he didn't cook it up out of thin air.
All's the worse then, when after decades in Stalinist parties and concentration camps, this writer pens a postscript in which he repudiates both Marx and Lenin over eleven sloppy pages. The earlier logic of argumentation gives way to gauzy impressionism. Here Lukacs turns Lenin into a grandfatherly caricature, the somewhat doting and batty darling of the post-Stalinist kindergarten.
At the heart of the postscript lies the notion that there was no alternative to Stalin. Here the author's quest for superheroes backfires. His point hinges on the relevance of counterfactuals, the "what-if" here pertaining to the Left Opposition. Because they so completely vanish as the negative pole in his appraisal of Stalin, Lukacs's assertion of the inapplicablility of counterfactuals to the study of history takes on the aura of a factual determination. The author's earlier none-other-than-Lenin now implies none-other-than-Stalin.
Such studied amnesia turns those final pages into a sleight of hand. But the blindness runs deeper. The author treats the whole interwar period as a blank space yielding no historical facts. Lukacs informs us that Lenin's theory of imperialism has been disproven. After World War I, he writes, no other worldwide imperialist wars predicted by Lenin occurred -- again with the amnesia. The non-historical, post-Marx world of Hungary in 1967 becomes the repository of a spotless future free of the past.
The author writes off Lenin as a dead horse. It reminds me of a masking of Lenin's original work by Penguin Classics in The State and Revolution. Heigh-ho! Today's pundits get so bent out of shape about socialism. But if the horse is dead, my how they do keep beating on it.
For the rest of us, readers can judge from the juxtaposition of the author's contrasting worldviews the potency of the respective ideas. There lies the value to the study of Marxism of this unique and engaging discourse.
.
The reading gives a trenchant, brilliant explanation of the ideas that, exactly 100 years ago, guided the Russian Revolution. The theme exalts Lenin's genius, with Lukacs telling the story of how one man breathed life and fire into a socialist uprising. But this theme comes back to haunt his exposition. The portrait he hangs in the pantheon of Marxist thinkers offers viewers a subjective guarantee of objective theoretical advances. In the postscript, written decades later, the true flaw of the earlier presentation battens upon the unwary like vampires at sunset.
Lukacs identifies ideas too closely with persons. A more precise title might say, "Lenin: A Study on the Synthesis of his Thought." The admiring writer lauds Lenin for certain ideas better associated with Trotsky. The "unity" in the title is actually Lenin's program. But in these pages a reader could be forgiven for imagining the revolution to be the work of a single superhero. Without Lenin the uprising could not have succeeded. On the other hand, he didn't cook it up out of thin air.
All's the worse then, when after decades in Stalinist parties and concentration camps, this writer pens a postscript in which he repudiates both Marx and Lenin over eleven sloppy pages. The earlier logic of argumentation gives way to gauzy impressionism. Here Lukacs turns Lenin into a grandfatherly caricature, the somewhat doting and batty darling of the post-Stalinist kindergarten.
At the heart of the postscript lies the notion that there was no alternative to Stalin. Here the author's quest for superheroes backfires. His point hinges on the relevance of counterfactuals, the "what-if" here pertaining to the Left Opposition. Because they so completely vanish as the negative pole in his appraisal of Stalin, Lukacs's assertion of the inapplicablility of counterfactuals to the study of history takes on the aura of a factual determination. The author's earlier none-other-than-Lenin now implies none-other-than-Stalin.
Such studied amnesia turns those final pages into a sleight of hand. But the blindness runs deeper. The author treats the whole interwar period as a blank space yielding no historical facts. Lukacs informs us that Lenin's theory of imperialism has been disproven. After World War I, he writes, no other worldwide imperialist wars predicted by Lenin occurred -- again with the amnesia. The non-historical, post-Marx world of Hungary in 1967 becomes the repository of a spotless future free of the past.
The author writes off Lenin as a dead horse. It reminds me of a masking of Lenin's original work by Penguin Classics in The State and Revolution. Heigh-ho! Today's pundits get so bent out of shape about socialism. But if the horse is dead, my how they do keep beating on it.
For the rest of us, readers can judge from the juxtaposition of the author's contrasting worldviews the potency of the respective ideas. There lies the value to the study of Marxism of this unique and engaging discourse.
.
January 8, 2025
در باب اهمیت لنین، نگرش و فهم درست او از زمانه و کاربست دیالکتیک روشن لنینیستی نه تقلید و چپروی کودکانه
June 10, 2024
*proper review pending because this was fantastic*
January 6, 2022
While reading this work, I constantly found myself asking, "Who is this work really written for?" It is not because it is a bad work, but it is certainly odd. It is a relatively basic "rundown" of Lenin's thought, but employs somewhat "philosophical" language to make it unable to be an introductory text of sorts. In his 1967 Postscript, Lukacs seems to agree, saying that the work had no firm "foundation." The historical context is important: the debates raging after Lenin's death as well as the factional conflicts to "define" Leninism.
The work itself is fairly simple and I think well-written. Lukacs identifies six or so main "characteristics" of Leninism that make Lenin's thought a new development in the history of Marxism. The "actuality of revolution," the "proletariat as the leading class" in alliance with the peasantry, the vanguard party as the "tangible embodiment of proletarian class-consciousness" and "instrument of class struggle," Lenin's analysis of imperialism in connection with the national question, the state "as a weapon" of proletarian class struggle," and Lenin's "revolutionary realpolitik (i.e. the elimination of utopianism for realistic and concrete analysis).
Additionally, Lukacs' analysis of five main features of Revisionism is interesting: the elimination of historical materialism for an attempted non-class sociology, the condemnation of the dialectic, mechanistic thinking, an unchanging capitalism, and a concessionary realpolitik in line with bourgeois politics.
The 1967 Postscript is somewhat odd: he inserts critique of Stalin where it doesn't necessarily belong. Obviously as an anti-"Stalinist," this insertion by Lukacs is not necessarily surprising, but it seemed more forced than anything. He then attempts to give "an idea of Lenin as a human type," which is an admirable description of Lenin as well as Lukacs' personal observation of him at the 1921 Comintern Congress.
The work itself is fairly simple and I think well-written. Lukacs identifies six or so main "characteristics" of Leninism that make Lenin's thought a new development in the history of Marxism. The "actuality of revolution," the "proletariat as the leading class" in alliance with the peasantry, the vanguard party as the "tangible embodiment of proletarian class-consciousness" and "instrument of class struggle," Lenin's analysis of imperialism in connection with the national question, the state "as a weapon" of proletarian class struggle," and Lenin's "revolutionary realpolitik (i.e. the elimination of utopianism for realistic and concrete analysis).
Additionally, Lukacs' analysis of five main features of Revisionism is interesting: the elimination of historical materialism for an attempted non-class sociology, the condemnation of the dialectic, mechanistic thinking, an unchanging capitalism, and a concessionary realpolitik in line with bourgeois politics.
The 1967 Postscript is somewhat odd: he inserts critique of Stalin where it doesn't necessarily belong. Obviously as an anti-"Stalinist," this insertion by Lukacs is not necessarily surprising, but it seemed more forced than anything. He then attempts to give "an idea of Lenin as a human type," which is an admirable description of Lenin as well as Lukacs' personal observation of him at the 1921 Comintern Congress.
January 3, 2023
Marking this one as read and writing something to help me remember that I've read it, but I don't feel qualified at this point to make a comprehensive judgment about the book. I lack a firm enough understanding of the actual historical events and the competing historiographies of the USSR to critically evaluating Lukacs' own interpretations and assessments of events and party leadership.
However, I found Lukacs' discussion of the role of the dialectical entanglement of imperial war (i.e. the senseless expansionist violence of WWI) and revolution in Lenin's thought to be fascinating. I feel like there's a semi-analogous relationship (or might be in the near-future, as material conditions deteriorate) between coming climate collapse and revolution now. At this point we have little reason to believe that this formation of the neoliberal "democratic" state has the capacity to divert global social collapse in the coming decades. Under current conditions the neoliberal state seems to still have the capacity to fight off any kind of immanent left-wing attack from within its own institutions, but it has no ability to act on the scale and with the agility necessary to avoid the coming collapse.
If this is true, we, as citizens of neoliberal nations, appear to be in a position of direct antagonism with our own countries--if we allow them to persist, effectively preventing any kind of change necessary to avoid complete social collapse in the near future, we are allowing them to kill the future of our children's children. Like the conscripted workers sent to die on the frontlines of WWI, we are in a position where a revolutionary attack on the state would be an act of self-defense, not aggression. They have limited our options to us and our future or them and their continued, violent inaction.
It's unclear whether or not the starkness of this choice will ever be comprehensible on a wide enough scale to motivate revolutionary struggle against the states that have trapped us in the hot car of climate change. But it's hard to see a way out that doesn't end in either the mass starvation and death of billions of regular people across the globe or a direct and forceful confrontation with the institutions that allow a tiny group of ruling elites to dominate our lives. I think our greatest hope at this point is the inevitable moments of destabilization that are already baked into the climate change timeline that we are locked into, and the opportunities that these moments will present us to possibly avert complete disaster.
However, I found Lukacs' discussion of the role of the dialectical entanglement of imperial war (i.e. the senseless expansionist violence of WWI) and revolution in Lenin's thought to be fascinating. I feel like there's a semi-analogous relationship (or might be in the near-future, as material conditions deteriorate) between coming climate collapse and revolution now. At this point we have little reason to believe that this formation of the neoliberal "democratic" state has the capacity to divert global social collapse in the coming decades. Under current conditions the neoliberal state seems to still have the capacity to fight off any kind of immanent left-wing attack from within its own institutions, but it has no ability to act on the scale and with the agility necessary to avoid the coming collapse.
If this is true, we, as citizens of neoliberal nations, appear to be in a position of direct antagonism with our own countries--if we allow them to persist, effectively preventing any kind of change necessary to avoid complete social collapse in the near future, we are allowing them to kill the future of our children's children. Like the conscripted workers sent to die on the frontlines of WWI, we are in a position where a revolutionary attack on the state would be an act of self-defense, not aggression. They have limited our options to us and our future or them and their continued, violent inaction.
It's unclear whether or not the starkness of this choice will ever be comprehensible on a wide enough scale to motivate revolutionary struggle against the states that have trapped us in the hot car of climate change. But it's hard to see a way out that doesn't end in either the mass starvation and death of billions of regular people across the globe or a direct and forceful confrontation with the institutions that allow a tiny group of ruling elites to dominate our lives. I think our greatest hope at this point is the inevitable moments of destabilization that are already baked into the climate change timeline that we are locked into, and the opportunities that these moments will present us to possibly avert complete disaster.
February 8, 2025
Although I'm sure some things are lost on me as I am not of a strong philosophical background, I found this book very enjoyable, thought-provoking, and successful in it's aim: to study Lenin's Marxist theory, and his practice as the correct application of that theory.
Lukacs argues for the consistent, theoretically sound thread across Lenin's political life and theoretical battles. From breaking down the antiquated historical-materialist beliefs of the 2nd International, prevailing ignorance over matters of the state in contemporary Marxist circles, the organisation of the party, the difference between Lenin's dialectical compromise and an opportunist compromise, his policies as leader of the USSR and arguments over its "socialism", and debunking the false dichotomy of Lenin's actions as a preference for pragmatic "realpolitik" over Marxist dogmatism: Lenin is the ultimate disciple of Marx because he, at all times, applied dialectical materialist thought to every problem. Every matter for him never lost sight of the essential goal: advancing class consciousness, preparing the masses for revolution, inching closer to a state of readiness to lead after the masses rise up, and maintaining proletarian state power, building towards socialism.
The purity of his Marxist theory placed him at odds at varying times with many comrades: the old international, the left opportunists, and his own party.
This may seem peculiar to the untrained eye, but it reflects Lenin as a great Marxist not for one singular act or thought, but as the greatest example of understanding and applying revolutionary Marxist analysis to the problems of today, never losing sight of their meaning for the "tomorrow" of the movement.
To be sure, Lukacs does not think Lenin, for example, was the better political economist compared to Rosa Luxemburg. Her analysis of imperialism was unmatched by Lenin's for its original economic theoretical contribution. But Lenin, knowing Marxism is analysis, theory, not dogma, always followed things through to the dialectical conclusion, and applied them to the current and historical political problems and tasks of the movement.
As Lukacs ends before his 1967 postscript, Lenin restored and matured Marxist thought after decades of distortion. He says Lenin should be studied as he himself studied Marx. Dogmatism, empty, expired phrases, are the enemy of the cause.
Lenin succeeded most of all because he was the most rigorous, principled Marxist in the room, by living the phrase: "without revolutionary theory, there can be no revolutionary movement."
Lukacs argues for the consistent, theoretically sound thread across Lenin's political life and theoretical battles. From breaking down the antiquated historical-materialist beliefs of the 2nd International, prevailing ignorance over matters of the state in contemporary Marxist circles, the organisation of the party, the difference between Lenin's dialectical compromise and an opportunist compromise, his policies as leader of the USSR and arguments over its "socialism", and debunking the false dichotomy of Lenin's actions as a preference for pragmatic "realpolitik" over Marxist dogmatism: Lenin is the ultimate disciple of Marx because he, at all times, applied dialectical materialist thought to every problem. Every matter for him never lost sight of the essential goal: advancing class consciousness, preparing the masses for revolution, inching closer to a state of readiness to lead after the masses rise up, and maintaining proletarian state power, building towards socialism.
The purity of his Marxist theory placed him at odds at varying times with many comrades: the old international, the left opportunists, and his own party.
This may seem peculiar to the untrained eye, but it reflects Lenin as a great Marxist not for one singular act or thought, but as the greatest example of understanding and applying revolutionary Marxist analysis to the problems of today, never losing sight of their meaning for the "tomorrow" of the movement.
To be sure, Lukacs does not think Lenin, for example, was the better political economist compared to Rosa Luxemburg. Her analysis of imperialism was unmatched by Lenin's for its original economic theoretical contribution. But Lenin, knowing Marxism is analysis, theory, not dogma, always followed things through to the dialectical conclusion, and applied them to the current and historical political problems and tasks of the movement.
As Lukacs ends before his 1967 postscript, Lenin restored and matured Marxist thought after decades of distortion. He says Lenin should be studied as he himself studied Marx. Dogmatism, empty, expired phrases, are the enemy of the cause.
Lenin succeeded most of all because he was the most rigorous, principled Marxist in the room, by living the phrase: "without revolutionary theory, there can be no revolutionary movement."
May 19, 2023
"Para el marxista Lenin el análisis concreto de la situación concreta no implica la menor contraposición a la teoría pura, sino todo lo contrario: el punto culminante de la auténtica teoría, el punto en el que la teoría ha culminado verdaderamente, el punto en el que -precisamente por eso- se ha transformado en praxis. La última de las tesis de Marx sobre Feuerbach, la tesis según la cual los filósofos ya han interpretado suficientemente el mundo y ha llegado ya la hora de transformarlo, ha encontrado su encarnación más adecuada en la persona y en la obra de Lenin"
April 23, 2021
An interesting assessment of Lenin's thought - his theoretical insights combined with the Realpolitik of revolution & civil war.
Quoting Shakespeare, Lukacs summarizes Lenin's approach: "The readiness is all."
Quoting Shakespeare, Lukacs summarizes Lenin's approach: "The readiness is all."
April 4, 2023
Lukacs is a bit of a fangirl, but I find it tolerable I think. Some slightly annoying Stalinist deviations, but it's ok, since we wouldn't want to actually be faithful to VI Lenin, like Trotsky. That would be gross. Just kidding.
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January 25, 2018This might seem to some like nothing more than a concise explication of the principle themes of Lenin's writings. Indeed, it is that and it functions quite well in that regard. However, it is also much more a work of Lukacsian philosophy than it might at first seem. Whether this makes this short work more or less valuable depends on your opinions regarding Lukacs's brand of Hegelianism.
Throughout the book, Lukacs argues that Lenin's thought distinguishes itself from other Marxists by its focus on the actuality of the revolutionary situation. Lenin's work purges itself of the utopianism and metaphysics that so many thinkers who tackle Marxist dialectics, Lucaks tells us, and "theorizes" about the matters at hand, in the historical situation. This, at first, sounds militantly materialist. Was Lukacs, in fact, an arbiter of Althusserian Maoism, a school of thought that would go on to, indirectly at least, use Lukacs's philosophy as a theoretical punching-bag?
The answer is no. Perhaps Lukacs doesn't want to fully admit it, being a "Marxist materialist" and all, but in fact it is not theory that pierces through to reality for Lucaks, but reality that, because of the interventions of Lenin and his Bolsheviks, reaches the heights of theory. To put it another way, it is not so much that becoming coalesces into being for Lukacs as that being becomes becoming. Material history becomes one with the Idea of the Revolution.
In the afterwards to the text, written in the 1960s, Lukacs bemoans the superhuman image of Lenin constructed by the Stalin regime. But in the same few pages he describes Lenin as a Hegelian superman, in which the individual and collective come together, a thinker in which practice and theory fuse into one.
It is true that Lukacs hated Stalinism, but did not his brand of dialectical messianism not contribute to setting the stage for political absolutism? Lukacs's work reminds me of a philosophical equivalent of the Russian futurist movement which strove to instill a sense of the universal in certain geometric forms. Similarly, Lukacs seeks a philosophical totality through the gyrations of history. We are told that Stalin hated the Soviet avant-garde, yet did not the formalist impulse to deliver all that could be said and known through one image not pave the way for a totalitarian aesthetic in which Stalin's face became that of "the people"?
Throughout the book, Lukacs argues that Lenin's thought distinguishes itself from other Marxists by its focus on the actuality of the revolutionary situation. Lenin's work purges itself of the utopianism and metaphysics that so many thinkers who tackle Marxist dialectics, Lucaks tells us, and "theorizes" about the matters at hand, in the historical situation. This, at first, sounds militantly materialist. Was Lukacs, in fact, an arbiter of Althusserian Maoism, a school of thought that would go on to, indirectly at least, use Lukacs's philosophy as a theoretical punching-bag?
The answer is no. Perhaps Lukacs doesn't want to fully admit it, being a "Marxist materialist" and all, but in fact it is not theory that pierces through to reality for Lucaks, but reality that, because of the interventions of Lenin and his Bolsheviks, reaches the heights of theory. To put it another way, it is not so much that becoming coalesces into being for Lukacs as that being becomes becoming. Material history becomes one with the Idea of the Revolution.
In the afterwards to the text, written in the 1960s, Lukacs bemoans the superhuman image of Lenin constructed by the Stalin regime. But in the same few pages he describes Lenin as a Hegelian superman, in which the individual and collective come together, a thinker in which practice and theory fuse into one.
It is true that Lukacs hated Stalinism, but did not his brand of dialectical messianism not contribute to setting the stage for political absolutism? Lukacs's work reminds me of a philosophical equivalent of the Russian futurist movement which strove to instill a sense of the universal in certain geometric forms. Similarly, Lukacs seeks a philosophical totality through the gyrations of history. We are told that Stalin hated the Soviet avant-garde, yet did not the formalist impulse to deliver all that could be said and known through one image not pave the way for a totalitarian aesthetic in which Stalin's face became that of "the people"?
September 28, 2017
Part hagiography, part theoretical coming to terms with the "Gandalf" of the Russian Revolution (or so the imagery Lukacs wishes to paint of his subject). Good enough.
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November 22, 2020lenin
July 5, 2024
'The readiness is all.' Read as a supplement to my S&R reading group, Lukacs makes an important contribution to Lenin's legacy by foregrounding the dialectical nature of the Bolshevik leader's theory and practice. Key concepts which resonated for me include 'the actuality of the revolution', Lukacs' point that Leninism represents a step forward in the Marxist tradition because the Russian Revolution actually practically implemented the dialectical transformation from a bourgeous to a proletarian revolution. In this historical context, Lukacs develops the notion of vanguardism as a form of organization by ideological discipline: 'When the revolution is an actuality, the old problem of whether it can be "made" thus acquires a new meaning.' I take this to mean that as historical or practical forces of revolution develop, programmatic and prescriptive notions of what what revolution should look like or prioritize must be analyzed dialectically within the materiality of a specific situation. Vanguardism is also, then, a dialectical process in which the party's role as preparer renders it 'both producer & product' — one which can only shape so much before it, too, must follow the course of proletarian practice. This strikes me as an essential point for movement from social democratic / proletarian-welfare state towards a post-state dictatorship of the proletariat, and perhaps precisely what feels so unsettling about the notion of party-led electoral proceduralism which is sometimes billed *as* the revolution. So be it, though, because this is a protracted and unpredictable process. Readiness, it seems, is the best principle.
Much of the book can be distilled to what he writes was the greatest Hegelian lesson learned by Marx — 'that the recognition of a fact or tendency as actually existing by no means implies that it out be accepted as a reality constituting a norm for our own actions...there is always a reality more real than isolated facts — namely, the reality of the total process.' This is echoed in Lukacs' arguments about he 'intersecting and opposing forces' which characterize a historical epochal transition, and more intriguingly his complex defense of Lenin as a compromiser. 'For Lenin, comprise is a direct and logical consequence of the actuality of the revolution', he writes, there is no pure revolution. In this sense, he critiques the 'undialectical concept of the majority', noting that the goal of proletarian rule should not be outright class oppression because this is altogether too utopian and mechanical — rather, 'the problems of socialism are...the problems of economic structure and class relations at the moment when the proletariat seizes state power.' In other words, simply pursuing a dictatorship of the proletariat by vaulting every proletarian worker to a position of power has no guarantee of working seamlessly; there will be specific and structural clashes which will need to be worked out through compromise within that actual revolutionary scenario. This naturally speaks to the reality of the total process, for as Lukacs concludes: 'Without orientation towards totality, there can be no historically true practice.'
Much of the book can be distilled to what he writes was the greatest Hegelian lesson learned by Marx — 'that the recognition of a fact or tendency as actually existing by no means implies that it out be accepted as a reality constituting a norm for our own actions...there is always a reality more real than isolated facts — namely, the reality of the total process.' This is echoed in Lukacs' arguments about he 'intersecting and opposing forces' which characterize a historical epochal transition, and more intriguingly his complex defense of Lenin as a compromiser. 'For Lenin, comprise is a direct and logical consequence of the actuality of the revolution', he writes, there is no pure revolution. In this sense, he critiques the 'undialectical concept of the majority', noting that the goal of proletarian rule should not be outright class oppression because this is altogether too utopian and mechanical — rather, 'the problems of socialism are...the problems of economic structure and class relations at the moment when the proletariat seizes state power.' In other words, simply pursuing a dictatorship of the proletariat by vaulting every proletarian worker to a position of power has no guarantee of working seamlessly; there will be specific and structural clashes which will need to be worked out through compromise within that actual revolutionary scenario. This naturally speaks to the reality of the total process, for as Lukacs concludes: 'Without orientation towards totality, there can be no historically true practice.'
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January 18, 2025As someone who has only read The Theory of the Novel by Lukács in the past, and mainly to parse it for any aesthetic judgements—it was a time where I thought it was possible to separate the one from the other—this was a pleasurable read. Maybe because it’s been so many years since I last read Lukács, but I do not remember him as being so approachable, so succinct, and especially, so funny (the way he writes about The Second International in Chapter 5 is a highlight). For such a short work, with clear stated aims, I doubt anyone would be able to gain much from reading it without intimate familiarity with Lenin, Lukács, and Marx, and even Luxemburg—I find Lukács treatment of Luxemburg here mainly superficial in its treatment of her thoughts—but it has so many brilliant pieces of new-ways-of-seeing that it is well worth the read. Shining new light on things within Lenin that some, myself included, may take for granted, not to necessarily reevaluate it or challenge it anew, but to remind and recollect, and to reestablish some of the practical possibilities inherent in historical and dialectical materialism, class consciousness, and proletarian revolutionary thoughts. In this latter sense, it is sometimes as invaluable and inevitable as Paolo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed, which is the seminal pedagogical, political, and revolutionary text for me.
I found Chapter 2 (The Proletariat as the Leading Class) particularly challenging and insightful, so while it's a rather futile exercise to present a handful of quotes by themselves for a work like this, here are a few that I will wrestle with for a while:
“Must Russia too pass through the capitalist hell before finding salvation in socialism? Or could she, because she was unique, because of her still-existent village communes, by-pass this stage and find a path from primitive direct to developed communism?”
&
“It must appear even more necessary to all ‘proletarian’ Marxists who have interpreted Marx mechanistically instead of dialectically; who do not not understand what Marx learnt from Hegel and incorporated in his own theory, free from all mythology and idealism: that the recognition of a fact or tendency as actually existing by no means implied that it must be accepted.”
&
“That is why the crude soldering together of their forces in the name of vague and populist concepts like ‘the people’ was eventually bound to fall apart. However, it is only by joint struggle that they can realize their different aims. Thus the old Narodnik ideas return dialectically transformed in Lenin’s characterization of the Russian revolution. The vague and abstract concept of ‘the people’ had to be rejected, but only so that a revolutionary, discriminating, concept of ‘the people’ — the revolutionary alliance of all the oppressed — could develop from a concrete understanding of the conditions of the proletarian revolution.
Later on: “War is, as Clausewitz defined it, only the continuation of politics.”
I found Chapter 2 (The Proletariat as the Leading Class) particularly challenging and insightful, so while it's a rather futile exercise to present a handful of quotes by themselves for a work like this, here are a few that I will wrestle with for a while:
“Must Russia too pass through the capitalist hell before finding salvation in socialism? Or could she, because she was unique, because of her still-existent village communes, by-pass this stage and find a path from primitive direct to developed communism?”
&
“It must appear even more necessary to all ‘proletarian’ Marxists who have interpreted Marx mechanistically instead of dialectically; who do not not understand what Marx learnt from Hegel and incorporated in his own theory, free from all mythology and idealism: that the recognition of a fact or tendency as actually existing by no means implied that it must be accepted.”
&
“That is why the crude soldering together of their forces in the name of vague and populist concepts like ‘the people’ was eventually bound to fall apart. However, it is only by joint struggle that they can realize their different aims. Thus the old Narodnik ideas return dialectically transformed in Lenin’s characterization of the Russian revolution. The vague and abstract concept of ‘the people’ had to be rejected, but only so that a revolutionary, discriminating, concept of ‘the people’ — the revolutionary alliance of all the oppressed — could develop from a concrete understanding of the conditions of the proletarian revolution.
Later on: “War is, as Clausewitz defined it, only the continuation of politics.”
November 23, 2021
Thesis: Lenin's genius came from his ability to apply Hegelian dialectics and its Marxist extension to any concrete situation within the revolutionary struggle for proletarian (and all oppressed classes) emancipation. He was the first of all the revolutionary theorists (including Marx himself) to successfully apply the 70 years of conceptual work to the situation at hand and achieve the first proletarian revolution - pretty good.
I have to agree with some of the contemporary communists of today and say that if we were to see a serious attempt at emancipation from Capital again, we need to take seriously all previous attempts from the 20th century. Lenin's masterful understanding of the situation and what was necessary after the proletariat took power was lost after his death; in order to avoid the horrible fate of Lenin's revolution, we must ensure our next movement is prepared to undertake the building of an alternative to Capitalism with or without the leader who sparks the fire in the hearts of the people - the groundwork for what-comes-next must be laid out more thoroughly and I think this entails abandoning all utopian elements of communist thought, this even includes some of Lenin's pre-October work (specifically State and Revolution - not to say much can't be gained from a close reading of this formative book), and instead our expectations must be oriented towards what a proletarian led future looks like and come to terms with the fact that it will not look like peace and heaven on Earth like the Maoists and early-Bolsheviks thought it would. Maybe the proliferation of an alienated bureaucracy is an inevitable consequence of an economic/social revolution and instead of attempting to rethink all emancipatory politics to avoid this bureaucracy, we should start planning for what this bureaucracy - whose main responsibility would be the successful administration of an economy that works for all (except the Bourgeoisie and it's outgrowths of course :D) - could look like and how it could be developed to serve as a better alternative to the monstrous structures and systems that develop around the facilitation of Capital and capitalist society.
I have to agree with some of the contemporary communists of today and say that if we were to see a serious attempt at emancipation from Capital again, we need to take seriously all previous attempts from the 20th century. Lenin's masterful understanding of the situation and what was necessary after the proletariat took power was lost after his death; in order to avoid the horrible fate of Lenin's revolution, we must ensure our next movement is prepared to undertake the building of an alternative to Capitalism with or without the leader who sparks the fire in the hearts of the people - the groundwork for what-comes-next must be laid out more thoroughly and I think this entails abandoning all utopian elements of communist thought, this even includes some of Lenin's pre-October work (specifically State and Revolution - not to say much can't be gained from a close reading of this formative book), and instead our expectations must be oriented towards what a proletarian led future looks like and come to terms with the fact that it will not look like peace and heaven on Earth like the Maoists and early-Bolsheviks thought it would. Maybe the proliferation of an alienated bureaucracy is an inevitable consequence of an economic/social revolution and instead of attempting to rethink all emancipatory politics to avoid this bureaucracy, we should start planning for what this bureaucracy - whose main responsibility would be the successful administration of an economy that works for all (except the Bourgeoisie and it's outgrowths of course :D) - could look like and how it could be developed to serve as a better alternative to the monstrous structures and systems that develop around the facilitation of Capital and capitalist society.
November 23, 2022
Publicado em 1925, logo após a morte de Lênin, o livro de Lukács — como reconhecido pelo autor — não é uma investigação sobre as categorias fundamentais do pensamento leniniano, mas antes, uma tentativa de desvelar o seu procedimento como forma de elucidar suas principais contribuições teóricas e políticas, contrapondo o legado de Lênin tanto a seus interlocutores no contexto da Segunda Internacional — em sua incapacidade de ligar a prática cotidiana com a teoria revolucionária, característica comum aos desvios à esquerda e à direita — quanto, de forma implícita, à fetichização de suas categorias que tomava forma no seio da Internacional Comunista.
É nesse sentido que está a principal contribuição de Lukács, ao demonstrar como a articulação dialética entre Universalidade, totalidade e singularidade subjacente ao pensamento teórico e político de Lênin é o que fundamenta sua praxis enquanto teoria verdadeiramente realizada. Vemos essa realização, por exemplo, nas remissões aos debates sobre: a relação entre organização, consciência e luta; as implicações políticas do imperialismo tanto internamente à classe trabalhadora, quanto na relação entre países no debate sobre a guerra e as lutas de libertação nacional; na mútua relação entre as condições objetivas e subjetivas do processo revolucionário; no papel do partido, dos conselhos e do uso do Estado como instrumento de construção para as bases reais para o socialismo etc. Por esse motivo, o livro de Lukács é um poderoso auxílio a uma leitura não enrijecida do pensamento de Lênin.
Quanto à edição da Boitempo, seu principal defeito é a falta de notas que digam quais os textos citados pelo autor, explicada talvez pelo momento editorial, que precede a atual minúcia que hoje se vê nos livros da editora.
É nesse sentido que está a principal contribuição de Lukács, ao demonstrar como a articulação dialética entre Universalidade, totalidade e singularidade subjacente ao pensamento teórico e político de Lênin é o que fundamenta sua praxis enquanto teoria verdadeiramente realizada. Vemos essa realização, por exemplo, nas remissões aos debates sobre: a relação entre organização, consciência e luta; as implicações políticas do imperialismo tanto internamente à classe trabalhadora, quanto na relação entre países no debate sobre a guerra e as lutas de libertação nacional; na mútua relação entre as condições objetivas e subjetivas do processo revolucionário; no papel do partido, dos conselhos e do uso do Estado como instrumento de construção para as bases reais para o socialismo etc. Por esse motivo, o livro de Lukács é um poderoso auxílio a uma leitura não enrijecida do pensamento de Lênin.
Quanto à edição da Boitempo, seu principal defeito é a falta de notas que digam quais os textos citados pelo autor, explicada talvez pelo momento editorial, que precede a atual minúcia que hoje se vê nos livros da editora.
November 4, 2023
Written shortly after Lenin's death in 1924, this short book does a lot of work. Summarizing Lenin's legacy in a way which seems to be a kind of signpost on a path where it could move forward, this book is a somewhat tragic historical document which details a road not taken.
It also gave me a wider appreciation of another historical document, Lenin's The State and Revolution, which is a great work on Marx's theorizing on the state, but it's also troubling because of what followed—another road not taken.
It is widely known that Marx reread Hegel's Science of Logic as he wrote Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Volume 1, but it seems less well known that Lenin too reread Hegel's Logic as he moved towards 1917, the point where he proved himself the true inheritor of Marx's method in his era.
It also gave me a wider appreciation of another historical document, Lenin's The State and Revolution, which is a great work on Marx's theorizing on the state, but it's also troubling because of what followed—another road not taken.
It is widely known that Marx reread Hegel's Science of Logic as he wrote Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Volume 1, but it seems less well known that Lenin too reread Hegel's Logic as he moved towards 1917, the point where he proved himself the true inheritor of Marx's method in his era.
October 13, 2024
Written after Lenin's death, this short study enumerates the Marxist-Leninist position of Lenin as the theoretical and practical successor of Marx and Engles.
Although somewhat hagiographic, Lukàcs does hope that readers "establish a critical distance" to some aspects of the work (1967 postscript). This is something that is utterly necessary in the modern world where we know the ultimate failure of Lenin, Stalin, and the Soviet de-Stalinisation project.
So why read the book?
Lukàcs establishes certain bases for Lenin's theoretical practice that are useful and insightful. To Lukàcs, Lenin is not his policies, but his overall unified way of thought. His ability to place the everyday experience into an overall ideological framework. This created an expert politician who compromised in order to maximise the effect of the "next possible step towards the realisation of Marxist theory [the proleterian revolution]". He was the first 'professional revolutionary'. Both those words carry immense meaning. Skill and practice towards a definite and knowable goal.
Lenin is therefore an exemplar of "purely praxis-orientated thought" in that he had "consistent application of the Marxist dialectic to the ever-changing, perpetually new phenomena of an immense period of transition."
Thus while Lenin's policies, and state, may have ultimately failed, his method remains interesting.
Although somewhat hagiographic, Lukàcs does hope that readers "establish a critical distance" to some aspects of the work (1967 postscript). This is something that is utterly necessary in the modern world where we know the ultimate failure of Lenin, Stalin, and the Soviet de-Stalinisation project.
So why read the book?
Lukàcs establishes certain bases for Lenin's theoretical practice that are useful and insightful. To Lukàcs, Lenin is not his policies, but his overall unified way of thought. His ability to place the everyday experience into an overall ideological framework. This created an expert politician who compromised in order to maximise the effect of the "next possible step towards the realisation of Marxist theory [the proleterian revolution]". He was the first 'professional revolutionary'. Both those words carry immense meaning. Skill and practice towards a definite and knowable goal.
Lenin is therefore an exemplar of "purely praxis-orientated thought" in that he had "consistent application of the Marxist dialectic to the ever-changing, perpetually new phenomena of an immense period of transition."
Thus while Lenin's policies, and state, may have ultimately failed, his method remains interesting.
March 10, 2023
This short book was written by a leading Marxist historian 99 years ago, shortly after Lenin's death. In that respect it must be one of the earliest attempts to cement the subject's posthumous legacy. Since it is short and available for free online, I would recommend reading the Foreword, Contents, and 1967 Postscript to get a better impression of the book than any review could give. I would just add that the book's short length belies its density, and it assumes a working familiarity with Marxist theory and the life and times of Lenin.
September 13, 2017
Extremely sympathetic and brief assessment of Lenin's thought presented as exhibiting a coherence both from work to work, but as the well deserved decedent of Marx and Engels. Lukács presents Lenin as redemming the dialectic of Marx from poor interpretations (think Bernstein 'Evolutionary Socalisim') and moving the dialectic forward. Good introductory text that summarizes each work and is worth reading before diving into primary source material.
December 18, 2023
basically een samenvatting van de standaard leninistische visie op concepten zoals staat, partij, revolutie. er zijn een paar interessante passages zoals Lukács' poging om een invulling te geven aan het (meestal nogal connotatieve) begrip 'revisionisme'. al bij al niet wereldschokkend. je merkt dat L het schreef als een boeketje bloemen om het goed te maken met de comintern nadat Zinoviev en co zijn 'Geschichte und Klassenbewusstsein' hadden afgekraakt
April 4, 2024
Guter Versuch, das wesentlich Neue und Besondere an Lenins Denken zu erfassen. Nicht eben wenige Stellen, die größere Einsichten parat halten. Aber Lukács glättet auch Probleme in Lenins Denken, betont eine Systematik, die es derart nicht gab, zieht eine Trennlinie zwischen Lenin und der klassischen Sozialdemokratie, die in dieser Schärfe nicht bestanden hat, sondern erst rückblickend erkannt werden kann, usw.
December 27, 2017
A short but urgent book, and quite enjoyable as a result, although most claims are remarkably sweeping. Nevertheless, many of these do stand up to scrutiny and are animated by the energy of the time in which they were written; as a consequence, the 1967 postscript is a bit drab by comparison.
April 18, 2020
Valid attempt to gather the elements that formed Lenin's framework that updated Marxism during his time, and immediately after the Bolsheviks victory . Unfortunately it falls short, with tangled language (perhaps it's the translation) that makes one long for this book's subject's clarity and straightforwardness.
May 4, 2020
I found this quite useful as a summary of Lenin's theories of imperialism, the role of the vanguard party, and the nature of the workers' state. It's just an introduction and doesn't go into huge amounts of detail.
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