Abstract

Lenin’s thesis in What is to be done ? (1902) concerning the a priori exteriority to the working class of the socialist consciousness is today regarded as scandalous, even though recent historiographical research by Lars T. Lih has demonstrated that the source of such a negative judgement is to be sought in the subsequent (1904) biased accusations leveled by the Mensheviks, Lenin’s opponents at the time within Russian Social Democracy. This prejudice has significantly restricted any examination of the philosophical substance of the Leninist thesis, in particular regarding its coherence and its theoretical development within the Marxist perspective. Lenin actually manages to propose a solution to the aporia on ideology found in Marx and Engel’s German Ideology (1846), coming down on the side of the materialist thesis of the non-innocence of ideology and its trans-class dimension.

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