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Cuadernos de Pasado y Presente #42
Lenin as Philosopher
First published in 1938 by a leader of the Council Communism movement, Anton Pannekoek's Lenin as Philospher offers a classic left-wing interpretation and critique of Lenin's philosophical accomplishment and its relationship to the development of Leninism as perhaps the dominant political theory of the twentieth century. Providing a detailed discussion of the philosophical background to the Machist controversy which occasioned Lenin's Materialism and Empirio criticism, Pannekoek's study still stands as one of the most forceful and politically astute discussions of the topic available. Published here for the first time in an annotated and scholarly edition, this masterpiece of Marxist criticism is accompanied by a lengthy new introduction expanding and assessing Pannekoek's discussion and arguing for the continuing relevance of Lenin's thought for Marxism in the new millennium.
177 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1938
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About the author
Anton Pannekoek
88 books56 followersDutch astronomer and marxist theorist.
He was one of the main theorists of council communism. As a recognized Marxist theorist, Pannekoek was one of the founders of the council communist tendency and a main figure in the radical left in the Netherlands and Germany.
In his scientific work, Pannekoek started studying the distribution of stars through the Milky Way, as well as the structure of our galaxy. Later he became interested in the nature and evolution of stars. Because of these studies, he is considered to be the founder of astrophysics as a separate discipline in the Netherlands.
The Astronomical Institute Anton Pannekoek at the University of Amsterdam, of which he had been a director, still carries his name.
He was one of the main theorists of council communism. As a recognized Marxist theorist, Pannekoek was one of the founders of the council communist tendency and a main figure in the radical left in the Netherlands and Germany.
In his scientific work, Pannekoek started studying the distribution of stars through the Milky Way, as well as the structure of our galaxy. Later he became interested in the nature and evolution of stars. Because of these studies, he is considered to be the founder of astrophysics as a separate discipline in the Netherlands.
The Astronomical Institute Anton Pannekoek at the University of Amsterdam, of which he had been a director, still carries his name.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
February 11, 2025
This book will help you realise that Lenin's philosophical work serves only as an obstacle for the working class in its struggle for emancipation. It becomes even clearer as you read this book that Leninism, along with the philosophy behind Lenin's own work "Materialism and Empirio-Criticism", leads only to a new form of subjugation rather than true liberation. Leninism distorts Marxism to justify the rule of a bureaucratic class rather than empowering the workers.
Pannekoek writes:
Thus the fighting working class basing itself upon Marxism, will find Lenin’s philosophical work a stumbling-block in its way, as the theory of a class that tries to perpetuate its serfdom.
It is essential for the workers to understand that their ideas are not independently existing truths but generalisations of former experiences and necessities; that human mind always has the tendency to assign to such ideas an unlimited validity, as absolutely good or bad, venerated or hated, and thus makes the people slaves to superstition; but that by understanding limits and conditions, superstition is vanquished and thought is made free.
And, conversely, what is recognised as the lasting interest, as the essential basis of the fight for his class, must be unerringly kept in mind as the brilliant guiding star in all action. This – besides its use as explanation of daily experience and class struggle – is the significance of Marxian philosophy, the doctrine of the connection of world and mind, as conceived by Marx, Engels, and Dietzgen; this gives strength to the working class to accomplish its great task of self-liberation. Lenin’s book on the other hand, tries to impose upon the readers, the author’s belief in the reality of abstractions. So it cannot be helpful in any way for the workers’ task.
The Russian economic system under Lenin is state capitalism, there called state-socialism or even communism, with production directed by a state bureaucracy under the leadership of the communist party. The state officials, forming the new ruling class, have the disposal over the product, hence over the surplus-value, whereas the workers receive wages only, thus forming an exploited class.
Pannekoek writes:
Thus the fighting working class basing itself upon Marxism, will find Lenin’s philosophical work a stumbling-block in its way, as the theory of a class that tries to perpetuate its serfdom.
It is essential for the workers to understand that their ideas are not independently existing truths but generalisations of former experiences and necessities; that human mind always has the tendency to assign to such ideas an unlimited validity, as absolutely good or bad, venerated or hated, and thus makes the people slaves to superstition; but that by understanding limits and conditions, superstition is vanquished and thought is made free.
And, conversely, what is recognised as the lasting interest, as the essential basis of the fight for his class, must be unerringly kept in mind as the brilliant guiding star in all action. This – besides its use as explanation of daily experience and class struggle – is the significance of Marxian philosophy, the doctrine of the connection of world and mind, as conceived by Marx, Engels, and Dietzgen; this gives strength to the working class to accomplish its great task of self-liberation. Lenin’s book on the other hand, tries to impose upon the readers, the author’s belief in the reality of abstractions. So it cannot be helpful in any way for the workers’ task.
The Russian economic system under Lenin is state capitalism, there called state-socialism or even communism, with production directed by a state bureaucracy under the leadership of the communist party. The state officials, forming the new ruling class, have the disposal over the product, hence over the surplus-value, whereas the workers receive wages only, thus forming an exploited class.
January 4, 2022
This edition of the book has a helpful introduction by Richey that definitely comes from 2003, when interest in Lenin was still tainted by post-cold war feels, and thus Richey seems to overly defend Lenin against biases that most people interested in this topic would no longer have. Pannekoek's writing in 1938 seems to take Marxist-Leninist interpretations of Lenin (as well as some Trotskyist Leninist) readings to task, and, Pannekoek almost relies on the genetic fallacy of class origins for many of the arguments. However, for the most of the book, Pannekoek does rightly hit on many of the 1908 misunderstandings of natural science maintained in dialectical materialism and, honestly, does correctly call that Lenin's project would ultimately lead to a bourgeois state (by 1992 at the absolute latest).
However, Lenin's minimalist epistemology is limited by notions of science based on pre-19th century assumptions of materialism: eternalism, non-representational materialism, denial of perceptional relativity and thus denial of a lot of modern physics that has been experimentally confirmed. While many Leninists who view philosophy as a humanities exercise to manifest politics, Pannekoek is correct that this actually betrays as earlier notion of both social and political science that one which would emerge from Soviet experiment itself (namely, the applied social science of cybernetics). Lenin's eliminationism may get one out of metaphysical cul-de-sacs, but it is also based on denying elements of the material world that political and philosophical thinkers who want to revive Lenin's project post-2008. Lenin's insight, however, should not be totally disregards even if one sees his condemnation of Alexander Bogdanov through a condemnation of Mach as politically as well as philosophically motivated. Something that not just Pannekoek but also even Buhkarin would seem to see as somewhat short-sighted of Lenin.
What is interesting, however, is Pannekoek not noticing where Lenin agreed with him. For example, "The struggle of the proletariat is not simply a struggle with the bourgeoisie over the state power as object, but a struggle against state power . . . the content of this revolution is the destruction of the instruments of power of the state and their dislodgement [Auflösung] with the aid of the instruments of power of the proletariat . . . The struggle ceases only when, as the end result of it, the state organization is completely destroyed." This position was a position Lenin had explicitly endorsed against Kautsky even citing Pannekoek himself in State and Revolution in 1917. There was a disagreement to the nature of the party and perhaps an overcorrection on the Councilists due to the ultimate fade, not just to the USSR, but also the SPD.
Pannekoek may overstate his case, but history has shown him to be more right than many contemporary Marxists are comfortable with even if one doesn't fully endorse the councilist position.
However, Lenin's minimalist epistemology is limited by notions of science based on pre-19th century assumptions of materialism: eternalism, non-representational materialism, denial of perceptional relativity and thus denial of a lot of modern physics that has been experimentally confirmed. While many Leninists who view philosophy as a humanities exercise to manifest politics, Pannekoek is correct that this actually betrays as earlier notion of both social and political science that one which would emerge from Soviet experiment itself (namely, the applied social science of cybernetics). Lenin's eliminationism may get one out of metaphysical cul-de-sacs, but it is also based on denying elements of the material world that political and philosophical thinkers who want to revive Lenin's project post-2008. Lenin's insight, however, should not be totally disregards even if one sees his condemnation of Alexander Bogdanov through a condemnation of Mach as politically as well as philosophically motivated. Something that not just Pannekoek but also even Buhkarin would seem to see as somewhat short-sighted of Lenin.
What is interesting, however, is Pannekoek not noticing where Lenin agreed with him. For example, "The struggle of the proletariat is not simply a struggle with the bourgeoisie over the state power as object, but a struggle against state power . . . the content of this revolution is the destruction of the instruments of power of the state and their dislodgement [Auflösung] with the aid of the instruments of power of the proletariat . . . The struggle ceases only when, as the end result of it, the state organization is completely destroyed." This position was a position Lenin had explicitly endorsed against Kautsky even citing Pannekoek himself in State and Revolution in 1917. There was a disagreement to the nature of the party and perhaps an overcorrection on the Councilists due to the ultimate fade, not just to the USSR, but also the SPD.
Pannekoek may overstate his case, but history has shown him to be more right than many contemporary Marxists are comfortable with even if one doesn't fully endorse the councilist position.
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November 6, 2020Pannekoek's book is heavily marked by the time of its writing in late 1930s. His criticism of Lenin is predicated on viewing the Soviet Union, where the Stalinist show trials were in action, as essentially part of Lenin's legacy. While his critique of Lenin was devised earlier, it is actually part of Council Communism critique of party Communism. However, his criticism of Lenin "as philosopher" is curiously narrow in terms of philosophical thinking as well as literal reference. Apart from his useful comments on Lenin's background, pointing out the backwardness of Russian society in the early 20th century, still a Tsarist absolute state, and Lenin's and Plekhanov's need to theoretically combat religion, not bourgeoisie, Pannekoek's critique too much relies on identifying Lenin of 1908 with his complete philosophical position. This identification is false. However, before digging further into Lenin, some true merits of Pannekoek are to be mentioned. I quote Kevin B. Anderson's book "Lenin, Hegel, and Western Marxism":
In his 1912 dispute with Kautsky over revolutionary tactics, Pannekoek attacks the latter for referring to unorganized (nonunionized) workers as "motley masses." Pannekoek argues that what is most important is not formal membership in a union or a party but rather "the spirit of organization," the sense of being bound together in the quest for a "new humanity" (59). He writes further that "irrespective of all assaults upon the external forms of association, the masses in which this spirit dwells will always regroup themselves in new organizations" (57). Pannekoek also attacks Kautsky for wanting socialists merely to take over the state: "The struggle of the proletariat is not simply a struggle with the bourgeoisie over the state power as object, but a struggle against state power . . . the content of this revolution is the destruction of the instruments of power of the state and their dislodgement [Auflösung] with the aid of the instruments of power of the proletariat . . . The struggle ceases only when, as the end result of it, the state organization is completely destroyed." (p.152)
As Anderson notes, Lenin was influenced by Pannekoek and I think any contemporary leftist thinker should be too. That said, the Lenin of Pannekoek's book is a caricature, and no justice to him is done if Pannekoek's vindictive accusations are to be taken for truth. In setting things at more even footing, Lance Byron Richey's introduction is quite useful.
Curiously, written in 2003, Richey's introduction already seems to come from a different era. Last fifteen or so years have shown a growing interest in Lenin as an undercurrent influence to "philosophy of event" and "new materialism" through the post-Maoist French militant philosophy (Althusser, Badiou, Balibar, Rancière). Reference to Lenin is continually made by Zizek, of course, but he is also a name that Brassier, Coombs, and Bosteels come back to. Excluding the more scholarly work of Anderson, who is interested in the 1914-1915 Hegelian writings of Lenin and his influence on the dialectical thought of Western Marxism, the recent point has been more on the Lenin as political strategist and tactic.
Lenin's political shrewdness at the helm of the Bosheviks, before, during and after the October revolution, his political mastermind in revolutionising history - these are the very characteristics that 80s and 90s Thatcherite unpolitical academia so abhorred and projected to all of Marxism. In the 21st century this is the Lenin that has come back at least as an intellectual figure, if not organisational principle. The political movements of the left have been more anarchist in general tendency after the fall of the Berlin wall, I presume. The pamphlet "What is to be done?" has been key to the new materialists, and there is a connection from it to Lenin's 1908 writings, the object of Pannekoek's critique.
Translator of the book, Lance Byron Richey suggests that Lenin's fierce critique of Bogdanov's Machism and Lunacharsky's spiritualism is not interesting only in terms of history of ideas, but might have contemporary philosophical relevance. This it his case. What seems in "Materialism and Empirio-criticism" as Lenin's relapse into naive realism might is predicated on revolutionary intent not to be bogged down by philosophical disputes or hair-splitting with no real effect. In fact Lenin is adamant in his quest to liquidate false problematics and keep the party intellectuals on the right path. Siding with Marx and Engels against empiricist tradition (positivism, Machism, etc.), Lenin argues that our knowledge is “reproduction” or “photograph” of the external world, or that “our sensation, our consciousness is only an image of the external world". (Richey, p.44)
The point behind Lenin's minimal epistemology is its design to weed out all effects of representations, or introducing contingent signs between objective reality and consciousness. This has surprising connection to what Quentin Meillassoux has critiqued as different forms of "correlationism", or the post-Kantian situation where all talk of "arche-fossil", of a non-knowable object becomes an embarrassment for intellectual knowledge. Lenin in fact has an argument that has the same form and intent, in his book. The argument is the following: if natural history tells us of times, when there was no life on Earth, can we say that there were real events, and natural phenomena, without anyone's experiencing them? Lenin's answer is: of course these events without beholder were real, because human being is part of nature, and not the other way around. Instead of entering into other standard discussions of epistemology (e.g. how do we know that what we see is we think we see?), Lenin refuses to take these questions seriously. For him the most important thing is not philosophical rigour, but political capability. The revolution must be seen as an objective goal, and there must be no mistaking its signs. Thus any contingency or randomness between reality and its representations is not be allowed.
I will probably pursue this line of thought in more detail somewhere else, but despite its philosophical shortcomings and rather tiresome ire towards philosophical adversaries, I think Lenin's 1908 book on materialism should be studied in the 20th century as an example of how to actually make philosophy politically relevant, instead of silencing politics through philosophy. Paradoxically, Pannekoek's polemics against Lenin might be a good place to start with this project, especially when put in context by Richey's introduction. In conclusion, I would side with Mayakovsky, who writes in 1924, after Lenin's death, in the avant-garde art journal LEF: "Lenin is still our contemporary".
In his 1912 dispute with Kautsky over revolutionary tactics, Pannekoek attacks the latter for referring to unorganized (nonunionized) workers as "motley masses." Pannekoek argues that what is most important is not formal membership in a union or a party but rather "the spirit of organization," the sense of being bound together in the quest for a "new humanity" (59). He writes further that "irrespective of all assaults upon the external forms of association, the masses in which this spirit dwells will always regroup themselves in new organizations" (57). Pannekoek also attacks Kautsky for wanting socialists merely to take over the state: "The struggle of the proletariat is not simply a struggle with the bourgeoisie over the state power as object, but a struggle against state power . . . the content of this revolution is the destruction of the instruments of power of the state and their dislodgement [Auflösung] with the aid of the instruments of power of the proletariat . . . The struggle ceases only when, as the end result of it, the state organization is completely destroyed." (p.152)
As Anderson notes, Lenin was influenced by Pannekoek and I think any contemporary leftist thinker should be too. That said, the Lenin of Pannekoek's book is a caricature, and no justice to him is done if Pannekoek's vindictive accusations are to be taken for truth. In setting things at more even footing, Lance Byron Richey's introduction is quite useful.
Curiously, written in 2003, Richey's introduction already seems to come from a different era. Last fifteen or so years have shown a growing interest in Lenin as an undercurrent influence to "philosophy of event" and "new materialism" through the post-Maoist French militant philosophy (Althusser, Badiou, Balibar, Rancière). Reference to Lenin is continually made by Zizek, of course, but he is also a name that Brassier, Coombs, and Bosteels come back to. Excluding the more scholarly work of Anderson, who is interested in the 1914-1915 Hegelian writings of Lenin and his influence on the dialectical thought of Western Marxism, the recent point has been more on the Lenin as political strategist and tactic.
Lenin's political shrewdness at the helm of the Bosheviks, before, during and after the October revolution, his political mastermind in revolutionising history - these are the very characteristics that 80s and 90s Thatcherite unpolitical academia so abhorred and projected to all of Marxism. In the 21st century this is the Lenin that has come back at least as an intellectual figure, if not organisational principle. The political movements of the left have been more anarchist in general tendency after the fall of the Berlin wall, I presume. The pamphlet "What is to be done?" has been key to the new materialists, and there is a connection from it to Lenin's 1908 writings, the object of Pannekoek's critique.
Translator of the book, Lance Byron Richey suggests that Lenin's fierce critique of Bogdanov's Machism and Lunacharsky's spiritualism is not interesting only in terms of history of ideas, but might have contemporary philosophical relevance. This it his case. What seems in "Materialism and Empirio-criticism" as Lenin's relapse into naive realism might is predicated on revolutionary intent not to be bogged down by philosophical disputes or hair-splitting with no real effect. In fact Lenin is adamant in his quest to liquidate false problematics and keep the party intellectuals on the right path. Siding with Marx and Engels against empiricist tradition (positivism, Machism, etc.), Lenin argues that our knowledge is “reproduction” or “photograph” of the external world, or that “our sensation, our consciousness is only an image of the external world". (Richey, p.44)
The point behind Lenin's minimal epistemology is its design to weed out all effects of representations, or introducing contingent signs between objective reality and consciousness. This has surprising connection to what Quentin Meillassoux has critiqued as different forms of "correlationism", or the post-Kantian situation where all talk of "arche-fossil", of a non-knowable object becomes an embarrassment for intellectual knowledge. Lenin in fact has an argument that has the same form and intent, in his book. The argument is the following: if natural history tells us of times, when there was no life on Earth, can we say that there were real events, and natural phenomena, without anyone's experiencing them? Lenin's answer is: of course these events without beholder were real, because human being is part of nature, and not the other way around. Instead of entering into other standard discussions of epistemology (e.g. how do we know that what we see is we think we see?), Lenin refuses to take these questions seriously. For him the most important thing is not philosophical rigour, but political capability. The revolution must be seen as an objective goal, and there must be no mistaking its signs. Thus any contingency or randomness between reality and its representations is not be allowed.
I will probably pursue this line of thought in more detail somewhere else, but despite its philosophical shortcomings and rather tiresome ire towards philosophical adversaries, I think Lenin's 1908 book on materialism should be studied in the 20th century as an example of how to actually make philosophy politically relevant, instead of silencing politics through philosophy. Paradoxically, Pannekoek's polemics against Lenin might be a good place to start with this project, especially when put in context by Richey's introduction. In conclusion, I would side with Mayakovsky, who writes in 1924, after Lenin's death, in the avant-garde art journal LEF: "Lenin is still our contemporary".
June 23, 2018
"the alleged Marxism of Lenin and the Bolshevik party is nothing but a legend. Lenin never knew real Marxism."
Its not a very flattering appraisal, but the argument is solid.
Its not a very flattering appraisal, but the argument is solid.
November 15, 2025
Lenin’s 1906 philosophical treatise “Materialism and Empiro-criticism” was one of the first Marxist works I ever read, and the first to alert me to a rather pompous anti-intellectual trend within that current, that often describes itself as “Marxist-Leninist” but is equally present under “Trotskyist”, “Maoist”, or even “Anarchist” or “Intersectional” auspices. Thankfully at that point I had read enough Marx, and subsequently read widely enough to know that this pompous trend was neither foundational nor all encompassing amongst those within the Marxist canon. Yet this was an attitude I came up against again and again within the Marxist milieu: the view that fundamental questions of metaphysics, ontology and epistemology were so obvious that anyone who was not a “materialist” (and for these sorts, even to attempt to define the term is an admittance of defeat) in all three of these questions was not only wrong, but so idiotic and childish that even to engage in a debate was pointless. As a mildly autistic teenager, the injunction to not define terms or work from first principles was anathema to me, and the experience has coloured my feelings towards official British Communism (by which I mean Trotskyism, we are not continentals) ever since. As those who march under the banner of “reason in revolt” it seems hypocritical to avoid or dismiss as undeserving of our attention any alternative views. We should be able to firstly refute them, and secondly be able to explain where these views come from and how such illogical views (if we can show them to be that is) can find such wide dissemination within our society.
What balm for the soul then, is “Lenin as Philosopher" by Anton Pannekoek. A short book that acts as: a summary of the Marxist conception of materialism from first principles and in distinction to other schools of thought, a critique of Lenin's deficient work on this subject, and an analysis of the philosophical linkages between Lenin's conception of materialism and the state capitalism of the Soviet Union. Here we have not only a clear statement of Marxist materialism against idealism, but also an explanation of how and why those deficient, “Leninist” conceptions of materialism exist.
The first thing to note in this book is that for Marx, materialism is not a question of speculation but of activity. We come to know the existence of objects external to ourselves and any laws that seem to govern them through our practical activity or labour, a process which is necessarily social and historical. With the development of human capability thus our ideas about the universe and its ordering are subject to change and reassessment. This is what distinguishes Marxist materialism from the “middle-class materialism” of the age of reason. According to Pannekoek, they saw thought as subject to the laws of nature as any other object and therefore the relationship between matter and thought as one way and static. And this was equally true for the human sciences as well. Therfore middle class materialist tended to technocratic visions of human government like the Saint-simonians or Fabians. Hence middle class materialism’s eclipse as an explanatory world view at the time of capitalism's triumph and decadence. The natural laws which were supposed to rule human society and which were analogous to the scientific laws that ruled the stars and the body, those of political economy, no longer seemed to hold true. Increasing wealth coexisted with increasing misery and social conflict. The ruling class therefore jettisoned the entire superstructure and retreated to irrationalism and mysticism.
Pannekoek maps this distinction between middle class materialism, where the laws of nature are static unchanging things to be discovered, and dialectical materialism, where the laws are the product of human labour seeking understanding of a dynamic universal manifold, onto the distinction between Leninism and Marxism. This is both audacious and plausible. His contention is that just as Lenin and the Bolsheviks, in their Russian context where the social conflict was as much against absolutism and religion as capitalism had to resort to the bourgeois methods of another era to fight Tsarism, they also regressed to pre-critical bourgeois ways of thinking about the epistemic relationship between humans and nature. For Pannekoek the principal way this expressed itself was in the form of Bolshevik party dictatorship. Just as middle class materialism had claimed it could discover the inherent and preexisting rules of nature, the Party dictatorship could hold the truths of revolution itself without having to consider the labour of how these truths are discovered and reformulated dynamically. One can see clearly Pannekoek's counterposition then of party dictatorship and council communism, with one representing the middle class materialist view of the world and the other the dialectical materialist one.
The only problem with this argument I can see is that it does not investigate thoroughly enough the state of economic development of Russia in order to prove that the situation in Russia really was as backward as he claims it is. This seems especially important as Lenin's first important work set to prove exactly this, that Russia was already thoroughly capitalist. And that therefore this work would likely have something to impart to Lenin's later philosophical works, given the assumption of strong correspondence between the economic and political and philosophical inherent in this book. Pannekoek only spends a few paragraphs talking about this (p95-6) and here he mentions how a similar situation existed in other countries exploited as colonies such as China and that the Bolshevik party used middle class materialism as its underlying philosophy and proletarian evolutionism as its “doctrine of class fight”. The underlying philosophy ultimately won out and became the ideology of the new Russian ruling class. Panneokoek's impetus for writing this book is the attempt to re-export this ideology back to Europe in the form of Marxism-leninism. He correctly saw this as a cynical attempt by the Russian ruling class to forge links with intellectuals and Social Democrats in Western Europe in “popular fronts”. Still to this day we are expected in the left to look back on the days of the popular front as a heroic period when it was in fact another staging point on the long decline in working class power from its post WW1 peak. Pannekoek was crying out in the wilderness when he wrote Lenin and Philosophy. We still live in that same wilderness.
What balm for the soul then, is “Lenin as Philosopher" by Anton Pannekoek. A short book that acts as: a summary of the Marxist conception of materialism from first principles and in distinction to other schools of thought, a critique of Lenin's deficient work on this subject, and an analysis of the philosophical linkages between Lenin's conception of materialism and the state capitalism of the Soviet Union. Here we have not only a clear statement of Marxist materialism against idealism, but also an explanation of how and why those deficient, “Leninist” conceptions of materialism exist.
The first thing to note in this book is that for Marx, materialism is not a question of speculation but of activity. We come to know the existence of objects external to ourselves and any laws that seem to govern them through our practical activity or labour, a process which is necessarily social and historical. With the development of human capability thus our ideas about the universe and its ordering are subject to change and reassessment. This is what distinguishes Marxist materialism from the “middle-class materialism” of the age of reason. According to Pannekoek, they saw thought as subject to the laws of nature as any other object and therefore the relationship between matter and thought as one way and static. And this was equally true for the human sciences as well. Therfore middle class materialist tended to technocratic visions of human government like the Saint-simonians or Fabians. Hence middle class materialism’s eclipse as an explanatory world view at the time of capitalism's triumph and decadence. The natural laws which were supposed to rule human society and which were analogous to the scientific laws that ruled the stars and the body, those of political economy, no longer seemed to hold true. Increasing wealth coexisted with increasing misery and social conflict. The ruling class therefore jettisoned the entire superstructure and retreated to irrationalism and mysticism.
Pannekoek maps this distinction between middle class materialism, where the laws of nature are static unchanging things to be discovered, and dialectical materialism, where the laws are the product of human labour seeking understanding of a dynamic universal manifold, onto the distinction between Leninism and Marxism. This is both audacious and plausible. His contention is that just as Lenin and the Bolsheviks, in their Russian context where the social conflict was as much against absolutism and religion as capitalism had to resort to the bourgeois methods of another era to fight Tsarism, they also regressed to pre-critical bourgeois ways of thinking about the epistemic relationship between humans and nature. For Pannekoek the principal way this expressed itself was in the form of Bolshevik party dictatorship. Just as middle class materialism had claimed it could discover the inherent and preexisting rules of nature, the Party dictatorship could hold the truths of revolution itself without having to consider the labour of how these truths are discovered and reformulated dynamically. One can see clearly Pannekoek's counterposition then of party dictatorship and council communism, with one representing the middle class materialist view of the world and the other the dialectical materialist one.
The only problem with this argument I can see is that it does not investigate thoroughly enough the state of economic development of Russia in order to prove that the situation in Russia really was as backward as he claims it is. This seems especially important as Lenin's first important work set to prove exactly this, that Russia was already thoroughly capitalist. And that therefore this work would likely have something to impart to Lenin's later philosophical works, given the assumption of strong correspondence between the economic and political and philosophical inherent in this book. Pannekoek only spends a few paragraphs talking about this (p95-6) and here he mentions how a similar situation existed in other countries exploited as colonies such as China and that the Bolshevik party used middle class materialism as its underlying philosophy and proletarian evolutionism as its “doctrine of class fight”. The underlying philosophy ultimately won out and became the ideology of the new Russian ruling class. Panneokoek's impetus for writing this book is the attempt to re-export this ideology back to Europe in the form of Marxism-leninism. He correctly saw this as a cynical attempt by the Russian ruling class to forge links with intellectuals and Social Democrats in Western Europe in “popular fronts”. Still to this day we are expected in the left to look back on the days of the popular front as a heroic period when it was in fact another staging point on the long decline in working class power from its post WW1 peak. Pannekoek was crying out in the wilderness when he wrote Lenin and Philosophy. We still live in that same wilderness.
January 13, 2026
Being already somewhat familiar with Hegel, Dietzgen, Marx and Engels really helped put Lenin's philosophy into perspective.
The book is after all a critique on Lenin's philosophy and covers it well enough imo (even though I haven't read Lenin's work directly), hence the high rating.
It is quite clear that this philosophy deviates from Marxism in a strange way, one that will only prove itself an obstacle to the working class. To quote: "Thus the fighting working class, basing itself upon Marxism, will find Lenin’s philosophical work a stumbling-block in its way, as the theory of a class that tries to perpetuate its serfdom."
The book is after all a critique on Lenin's philosophy and covers it well enough imo (even though I haven't read Lenin's work directly), hence the high rating.
It is quite clear that this philosophy deviates from Marxism in a strange way, one that will only prove itself an obstacle to the working class. To quote: "Thus the fighting working class, basing itself upon Marxism, will find Lenin’s philosophical work a stumbling-block in its way, as the theory of a class that tries to perpetuate its serfdom."
July 10, 2020
hiçbir şeyi beğenmeyen sol.. leftcom.
November 28, 2023
An interesting author. The book is everything but a praise to Lenin. Nonetheless, the examination of the materialistic theories of his time is clear and well delineated.
December 3, 2024
No Dr Pancake! Don't commit to ultra-left deviation based off the obvious terribleness of Materialism and Empirio-Criticism - noooooooo!
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews