Lenin Rediscovered, or Lenin Redisguised?

Abstract

Lars T. Lih, Rediscovered: What Is to Be Done? in Context (with a new translation of Lenin's What Is to Be Done?). 867 pp. Leiden: Brill, 2006. ISBN 9004131205. $174.00. This book is about entire chapters of Russian history. The problems it raises are subject to academic and political debate. An exhaustive review would be impossible because of its length, yet a short review would be useless. By deciding to discuss its main theses, I have chosen an intermediate course. Structure, Thesis, and Objectives of Rediscovered According to its author, Lenin Rediscovered [is] first serious academic study of Lenin's basic outlook based on a wide range of primary sources (both Russian and German). (1) The book is divided into three parts. The first comprises three sections: contents of Erfurtianism (so called after town where Social Democratic Party of Germany [SPD] adopted its new program in 1891); ideas of Russian Social Democrats who opposed Lenin; and problems associated with What Is to Be Done? (henceforth WITBD). The second is a detailed commentary on WITBD, and third and final offers a new translation of The book's central theses are that was a perfect Erfurtian, that Marx and SPD were his only maitres a penser, and that his relationship with Russian revolutionary past was purely emotional. According to Rediscovered, it has been impossible for us to understand through textbook interpretation--that is, one provided by or almost academic historians and politically engaged authors (14). Rediscovered rejects all central propositions of textbook (20). The elements of this rejection are as follows. First, the keynote of Lenin's outlook was not worry but exhilaration about workers; according to textbook interpretation, by contrast, claimed that workers could acquire a socialist consciousness only with aid of Social Democratic Second, the formulations about 'spontaneity' are not heart of WITBD. Third, did not reject Western model of a Social-Democratic party. Fourth, Lenin did not revert to populist in any way. Finally, [did] not advocate hyper-centralism or an elite conspiratorial party restricted to professional revolutionaries from intelligentsia. 21st-Century Historians and Early 20th-Century Actors Starting from premise that even expert readers have misread [WITBD] and therefore misunderstood Lenin, Rediscovered sets out literally [to] rediscover a who is close to complete opposite of of textbooks (5). Rediscover--for the present study is a of a of interpretation that stretches back to time of its publication (28). If academic research is undertaken today as part of a tradition supposedly founded and nurtured by participants in revolutionary movement, can this help affecting research itself? Does this not jeopardize distance that must be kept between analyst and his object? Rediscovered shows consequences of this basic choice. Sometimes courageously, it takes sides in debates of time.2 In itself, there is nothing wrong with empathy shown to some of protagonists; after all, who are historians who can claim, cross their hearts, to harbor no feelings for heroes of their stories? Empathy can, however, interfere with interpreting sources. The account of conflict among Rosa Luxemburg, Mensheviks, and (206-7, 491ff.) is an example: Every page of her attack on pounds away on accusation that wants an all-powerful Central Committee to do thinking for Party as a whole. She never gives least documentation for this description of Lenin's views. She does not even mention WITBD (491). What sorts of debates are we studying here? …