Unfinished Leninism (EPUB) von Paul Le Blanc

A stimulating collection of essays on the revolutionary socialist Vladimir Lenin that survey fierce controversies over his life and ideas.

Introduction

1. Lenin’s Return - introduces Lenin as someone whose relevance for our own time is becoming evident

2. One for the Encyclopedias - offers a succinct account of his life

3. Travesties, Statues and Laughter - focuses more on his personality

4. Still Kicking: Lenin and His Biographers - how biographers of our century have dealt with him

5. Revolutionary Democracy - offers a sustained look at what I believe is the revolutionary-democratic thrust of his thinking and of what he attempted – contrasted to the horrific dictatorship that congealed after his death under Joseph Stalin

6. The Great Lenin Debate of 2012 - focuses on recent controversies (in which I was a participant) about how Lenin did and did not go about trying to build a revolutionary party – and it also has something to say about the art and craft of writing history

7. Enduring Legacy - takes up some differences with a prominent U.S. Marxist analyst, Charles Post, on how (and how not) to understand “Leninism”

8. Luxemburg and Lenin Through Each Other’s Eyes – explores relationship, common ground, and differences between Luxemburg and Lenin

9. Caution: Activists Using Lenin - suggests how Lenin’s approach might be useful to activists in the United States in the early twenty-first century

10. Leninism is Unfinished - discusses the open and necessarily unfinished nature of Leninism – reflecting the nature of social reality itself

11. The History and Future of Leninism – distinguishes between accurate and inaccurate depictions of the theory and practice of Lenin and his comrades, indicating how this can be utilized and further developed in the twenty-first century.