V.I. Lenin’s Theory of Socialist Revolution

David Lane

doi:10.1177/0896920520958451

Abstract

Lenin transposed Marx’s analysis of capitalism from the advanced capitalist economies to the dependent colonial countries. He combined political economy, geopolitics, political organisation and a sociology of social structure to form an innovative revolutionary praxis. The expansion of Western capitalism shifted the social and political contradictions to countries moving from feudalism to capitalism. Lenin was correct in his appraisal of the social forces in support of a bourgeois revolution. But he provided an over-optimistic prediction for the disintegration of monopoly capitalism and only a partial analysis of the working classes in the advanced capitalist countries. His political approach requires a redefinition of countervailing forces and class alliances and a shift of focus from the semi-periphery to the ‘strongest links’ in the capitalist chain. A ‘return to Lenin’ is not to adopt his policies but a prompt to reinvent a socialist sociological vision derived from the expectations of the Enlightenment and Marx’s analysis of capitalism.

Highlights

One hundred and fifty years ago, on 22 April 1870 in Simbirsk, Russia, Vladimir Il’ich Ulyanov was born
A formative event in Lenin’s life was the execution by hanging of his brother for plotting the assassination of the Tsar in 1887. Lenin himself followed his brother’s example of opposition to the autocracy: he was expelled from Kazan University for dissident activity and later, in 1897, exiled for three years to Shushenskoe in Siberia
Was a leading Marxist theorist of monopoly capitalism and is best known for tactical leadership of the successful Bolshevik insurrection against the Provisional government in October 1917. He became the head of the government of Soviet Russia and later the Soviet Union (Chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars) until he died in 1924. This paper examines his understanding of the development of capitalism and the ways in which he adapted a Marxist position to legitimate a socialist revolution in Russia

Summary

Introduction

One hundred and fifty years ago, on 22 April 1870 in Simbirsk, Russia, Vladimir Il’ich Ulyanov (universally known as Lenin) was born. For conventional Marxism, the socialist revolution would arise out of the most developed forms of capitalism where the economic contradictions and the exploitation of the working class would be greatest.

Results

Conclusion