What is to be Done?: Leninism, Anti-Leninist Marxism and the Question of Revolution Today

by Werner Bonefeld, Sergio Tischler (Editor)

This title was first published in 2002. On the eve of the first centenary of Lenin’s, What is to be Done?, this book provides a critical assessment of the theory and practice of revolution at the start of the new millennium. The volume shows the pertinence of revolution in our post-socialist world and provides a focus for critical social inquiry, revealing the significance of the theory of revolution and its practical meaning. By identifying the weaknesses of orthodox accounts into social and political change, it offers a timely reassessment of the left-communist critique of Leninism and shows its contemporary relevance. Against the background of the globalization of capital, anti-capitalism has to dream revolution. The book shows the practical and theoretical meaning of this the society of the free and equal.

384 pages, Hardcover

Published September 30, 2018

Reviews

[Nathan Fisher · Rating 2 out of 5]

My guy Simon Clarke has a neat little contribution here, but overall this doesn't hold up. Charming and timely fascination with the anti-globalization movement, which clearly seemed at the time to vindicate some of the more recherché PoMo ramblers. I'm not at all pearl-clutching about criticisms of Leninism — and certainly not of WITBD — but the the latter really stands in all too easily for the former here, considering the man's political career spanned several decades and his CW is dozens of volumes. Nor is it convincing — as convenient as it would be for political philosophers — to chalk up the tragic vicissitudes of the 'Leninist' historical sequence to a faulty set of epistemological first principles. No Marxist has ever yet lost an argument by accusing his opponent of being insufficiently dialectical, and there's quite a repertoire of that gambit on display here.