Review: Lenin’s Political Thought Vol. 2 by Neil Harding


Shane Tomashot
Harding Book Review
Lenin’s Political Thought Vol. 2—Neil Harding

            Neil Harding’s goal, in his book Lenin’s Political Thought, Volume 2: Theory and Practice in the Socialist Revolution, is to challenge and ultimately dismiss the notion that Lenin was simply a power hungry, calculating politician who used Marxism as only a pretext to dictatorial rule.  Harding’s well documented study is almost apologetic for Lenin’s failures, blaming circumstance and the convoluted theorizing of Marx and Engels on Lenin’s shortcomings.  In the end, however, Harding does effectively defend his thesis and accomplishes his goal of giving the reader a better understanding of Lenin’s writings so we may see Lenin as a theory driven leader whose political maneuverings were theory driven, rather than a power seeking venture under the guise of communism.
            Harding contends that Lenin is more regarded by historians as a genius organizer and political actor than as a theorist of Marxism.  This contention is turned on its head by Harding, who deems Lenin “an extraordinarily doctrinaire politician,” perhaps the most doctrinaire of the twentieth century (p. 3).  A doctrinaire politician, in Harding’s estimation (although it is not directly defined in the book) is one who makes decisions based on data, careful analysis and theorizing.  Lenin, like Marx, believed that “if reality is out of line with theory, so much the worse for reality.”  Lenin was, in effect, driven by analytical theory.
            The Great War had a major impact on Lenin’s theoretical beliefs.  His writings on the war, according to Harding’s argument, give clear evidence that Lenin was indeed dedicated to theory.  Lenin believed the war was simply a manifestation of corrupt capitalism/imperialism (nearly one in the same to Lenin) in its final stages.  All nations, according to Lenin, were “sleeping on a volcano” of socialist magma ready to ignite into socialist revolution (p. 36).  The war itself was “bourgeois chauvinism under the guise of patriotism” as the controllers of wealth (banks, corrupt politicians, etc.) tried to bury emerging class conflicts and struggles with so called patriotic duty (p. 18).  Lenin saw a fundamental imbalance between the agricultural and machine industry sectors of production, which was, in Marxist thought, a certain sign of pending social crisis. 
            Lenin’s book, Imperialism the Highest Stage of Capitalism, not only captured his theoretical approach, but also served as a call to action.  Written in 1916, it claimed that Europe and Russia were ripe for a Marxist revolution.  His masterwork sought to convince fence sitting Marxists to commit to revolution.   Lenin was convinced, after thorough research and analysis, that capitalism had reached its apogee and had become parasitic.  Lenin believed that “socialism is now gazing at us from all the windows of modern capitalism” (p. 75).  In this opinion, Harding indicates, Lenin stood alone among fellow Marxists.
            After February of 1917, if Lenin were the calculating, power-seeking politician or dictator some historians paint him, he would have joined with the Bolsheviks “in the horse trading that was going on” in order to gain majority power in the Provisional Government, Harding contends (p. 83).  Lenin did not believe in party politics per se, as he even had disdain for the Labour Party of Britain.  Even though it had a proletariat connotation, the party “was irredeemable bourgeois in its politics” (p. 242).  The individual leaders of the party and the theories underlying their actions were most important to Lenin. 
Circumventing party politics, Lenin immersed himself in Marxist theory, academically studying “Marx and Engels on the question of state.”  Lenin debated questions such as: what is to become of the state?  How would the masses exercise their power?  Would there be a transitional period?  Lenin also had fundamental disagreements with fellow Marxist Bukharin, who was more of an anarchist. 
            Harding becomes apologetic for Lenin at this juncture.  Harding concludes that because Engels and Marx vacillated on their definition of state, they “bequeathed” the “problem of state” upon Lenin.  Harding goes out of his way to blame Lenin’s failures not on his own theorizing or timing, but, rather, upon the flaws inherent in the writings and theorizing of Engels and Marx.  Harding states that Lenin’s slogans of anarchy in late 1917 were not “opportunistic” as some historians have claimed, but actually a part of his theoretical writings based upon Marxism.
            Harding believes that Lenin’s ideas make sense only if we view them in relation to his economic ideas.  Harding does a fine job here of providing evidence to this thesis.  Leninist theory, Harding contends, is based upon Lenin’s deep thoughts and analysis of the economic substructure of society, the levels of development of the country’s productive forces and the corresponding level of development of the social classes.  Lenin’s first great work, The development of Capitalism in Russia, written in 1899, reveals his deep and inclusive knowledge of capitalism, economics and society. 
            To understand Leninist thought, Harding states, one must distinguish between theory and practice.  Lenin’s tactical alterations and organizational form were based upon his examination of capitalism.  He saw capitalism in phases, wherein each phase required its own Marxist reaction.  Moreover, each phase had to be completed while at the same time exhibiting aspects (or symptoms, perhaps) of the next stage.  Hence, a knowledgeable Marxist had “to see the future in the present” since each stage required its own set of objectives, organizational form and struggles (p. 312).  Lenin’s call for revolution occurred only after his own careful analysis of the banking system and its economic grip on society, his reading of Marx’s account of the Paris Commune, and the creation of the soviets following the February Revolution. 
            Harding states that Lenin did not seek power.  Rather, he called upon the Russian people to “take their” land, factories and power.  Furthermore, Lenin called for the disillusion of  the state into soviets and communes.  At this point, however, as he later admitted, he made his greatest error.  Lenin did not call for a transitory phase.
            Finally, Harding also points out the fundamental flaws in Lenin’s approach.  Lenin overestimated the timing of when the imperialist powers were actually ripe for Marxist revolution.  This was a key flaw, as true Marxism required worldwide communist revolution.  Lenin also did not realize the abundance of aid necessary to put Russia on a path to socialism.  Harding claims that Lenin fell into a trap warned by Engels: “we do not know the real socio-economic gaps that exist nor whether they are widening or closing” (p. 321).  Lenin’s dictatorship of the proletariat was a reaction to these flaws.  Although it was meant to be only temporary, the bureaucracy created consumed Lenin’s hopes for pure socialism.
            Harding accomplishes his mission of exonerating Lenin from the dictatorial and cunning politician prism of which he is often cast by historians, at least for the period prior to 1918.  Harding provides an abundance of evidence showing Lenin as a true Marxist and deep thinker whose actions were based on theory and analysis rather than cunning avarice.  At the same time, Harding becomes an apologist for Lenin, blaming Lenin’s failures on his Marxist contemporaries and ancestors.  We do not see direct criticism of Lenin until late in the book on the topic of the Kronstadt Rebellion.  One could argue that perhaps Lenin is to blame for choosing a flawed economic and social theory.  Moreover, perhaps Lenin, despite his decades of deep analysis and theorizing, was eventually consumed by the allure of power as so many leaders of the past.   

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