As late capitalism continues to sow dragon’s teeth, Lenin says hello
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, known to history as Vladimir Lenin, was one man who never hesitated when the opportunity arose to shake up the world.
This he did after capitalism had sown dragon’s teeth across a European continent that had been plunged into a catastrophic war, involving millions of predominately working class men being fed into a veritable meat grinder by their respective ruling classes — this in service to the maintenance and growth of their wealth and privileges at home with the putative expansion of colonies abroad.
The world we live has been presented to us, as Lenin’s was to him, as the best of all possible worlds. Reform in such a scenario involves, per Lenin,“servility to the bourgeoisie covered by a cloak of sentimental democratic and social democratic phrases and fatuous wishes.”
Lenin saw the world from the Archimedean point of Russian semi-feudalism and underdevelopment. He and his fellow Bolsheviks understood Russia as the weakest link in the chain of a global capitalist order that was near breaking point by 1917. The war had deepened a crisis of belief in the existing system and order to the point where Europe was ripe for a process that would start in Russia as a precursor to Europe-wide revolution.
Lenin:
You say that civilization is necessary for the building of socialism. Very good. But could we not first create such prerequisites of civilisation in our country by the expulsion of the landowners and Russian capitalists, and then start moving towards socialism?
Upon reading and pondering the above passage, perhaps the key point is that capitalism itself is the antithesis of civilization, even in advanced countries, given the sheer weight of suffering and despair it is responsible for in the lives of millions. It is also the case that socialism anywhere is a threat to capitalism everywhere, which is why so much energy and resources have been expended by the agents of capital in every epoch to discredit it as a viable alternative.
In Lenin’s time, the revolutionary process he and his followers envisaged across Europe did not materialize. That it did not was a tribute to the power of nationalism and patriotism in dominating the consciousness of those for whom both in truth stand as the antithesis of human emancipation. In other words, when push came to shove the idea of class solidarity across national borders succumbed to national particularism and patriotism within national borders. This proved manna from heaven for beleaguered ruling classes at the time.
Today we are living through a similar crisis of capitalism, one exacerbated by the war in Ukraine, and as in Lenin’s time ‘politics as normal’ is not capable of meeting this moment. What is distinctly lacking, however, is a revolutionary impulse or current capable of mounting a meaningful counter-hegemonic challenge to the status quo.
At a time when the works of Marx have never been more relevant in understanding the period we are living through and why — and the example of Lenin when it comes to unleashing the radical within — too many of those suffering under the weight of this juggernaut of ruin have been led down the rabbit hole marked ‘conspiracy theory’, with their preferred mode of resistance Facebook and Twitter (X) posts. They, we, have been conditioned to believe no meaningful or transformative change is possible. That any such talk is fantasy. That Marxism represents an attack against civilization rather than an attack against barbarism. And that the likes of Lenin are deserving not of serious study but calumniation.
As these words are being written statues of the man are being removed across Ukraine and the Baltic States at the same time as history is being rewritten and revised. Labor union leaders such as the RMT’s Mick Lynch in the UK are being asked by mainstream news anchors if they are Marxists for daring to lead industrial action to maintain the wages, jobs and conditions of their members at a time when wages are historically low and profits historically high.
The demonization of socialism, never mind communism, has attained the status of an industry in the West. The character assassination of Jeremy Corbyn is a case in point, despite the fact that the former Labour leader is and has always been more Fabian than Bolshevik in political and ideological orientation.
Here’s French Marxist theorist, Alan Badiou, from 2008 in the midst of the financial and banking crash then:
That failure of the [communist] Idea leaves us with no choice, given the complex of the capitalist organization and the state parliamentary system. We have to consent to it for lack of choice. And that is why we now have to save the banks rather than confiscate them, hand out billions to the rich and give nothing to the poor, set nationals against workers of foreign origin whenever possible, and, in a word, keep tight controls on all forms of poverty in order to ensure the survival of the powerful.
The problem when it comes to the left is not radicalism it is not enough radicalism.
Lenin:
A revolution is impossible without a revolutionary situation; furthermore, not every revolutionary situation leads to revolution.
When a given state and society is home to a record number of billionaires and a record number of people in poverty, it has entered a ‘revolutionary situation’. The UK and the US, underpinned by the most extreme unbridled capitalist systems, are prime examples.
Lenin and the Bolsheviks dared not only to struggle, they dared to win. In the last analysis the human factor was all. In our time this human factor is glaringly and woefully absent. However that doesn’t mean that it won’t emerge somewhere down the line.
It has to.
End.
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