Yeh, a fascinating review. The review by Paul LeBlanc mentioned by ibilly99 in post 9126 is also interesting, but does make the point about Lars' book that ;
"One limitation of the book is that is stops in 1905. A related, and quite serious, limitation is that it doesn't really deal with the question of why a revolutionary like Lenin and an organization such as the Bolshevik party, so committed to democracy, should carry out a revolution which really did result in a terrible dictatorship -- and which under Stalin (who claimed to be doing it all "under the banner of Lenin") certainly became one of the worst dictatorships in the history of the world".
My "problem with Lenin" isn't actually that I think he was a sinister authoritarian all along. So I can probably buy into most of the , up to 1905, stuff by Lars vis a vis "what is to be Done, etc" . My problem with Lenin is that he took a disastrous world historically significant gamble in October 1917, supposedly (some argue) AFTER he had finally twigged (because of the devastating betrayal of German Social Democracy, particularly its Marxist luminaries like Kautsky, in supporting their ruling class and voting for war in 1914) that German Social Democracy wasn't revolutionery after all, and , with Trotsky, persuaded the Bolshevik Party to carry out what was essentially an adventurist politico/military coup . This carried the aims of the revolution waaaaay beyond the orthodox Marxist (and of course Menshevik) "Bourgeois Democratic" limits that the economic/social backwardness of Russia presupposed in orthodox Marxist Theory. He did this, partly because the total chaos in the Russian Empire simply provided an opportunity to do so, but ostensively because it could be argued to be a premature, but useful contributory part of the Europe-wide socialist revolution then very much on the cards. However if Lenin had already "seen through" the non-revolutionery posturing of German Social Democracy by 1917 (as others argue) , how could he justify this huge break with Marxist orthodoxy in seizing power for a tiny working class in a backward peasant-filled country , if there was no realistic prospect of the German working class soon coming to the rescue ? If Lenin in fact still had big illusions in German Social Democracy's ability to deliver a socialist revolution in 1917, then actually his understanding of German Social Democracy was crap - but at least his huge revolutionery gamble was more justifiable . Though with the benefit of nearly 100 years of 20/20 hindsight it surely is now clear that the gamble not only failed, but may have , because of the rise of Stalinism as a result of the unsustainability of socialist working class democracy in an isolated Soviet Union, condemned Humanity forever to a rejection of Socialism.
By either interpretation of Lenin's understanding of the potential of German Social Democracy by 1917, the critical point, I think, is that Lenin, far from being the font of all political/tactical wisdom, stands condemned as either an incompetent and naive political analyst, or as an extraordinary political gambler, or both . He certainly doesn't come across as the all-seeing sage, finger on the pulse of history, whilst all around him twist and turn in confusion. The continuing obsession with Lenin and "Leninism" today is rooted , I think, in the still powerful weight of the Stalinist message , then also adopted by Trotskyism in all essentials, that Lenin's amazing non-orthodox-Marxist power grab gamble "PAID OFF", and created a Socialist State ( even if "deformed") in the overthrown Czarist Empire. End of argument... IT WORKED, QED. Of course it didn't - it created a very short-lived , unstable, "workers and peasants " state, totally dominated by the Communist Party bureaucracy - very quickly overthrown by a hitherto unthought of new oppressive social form - "Stalinism". The gamble completely FAILED. In hindsight the much sneered at Menshevik warning that to hold power in an isolated backward Russia a socialist party would have eventually to rule by "Jacobin Terror" , has proved to be only too true. I'm not suggesting this was inevitable - the German , and other European,socialist revolutionery wave of 1918 to the mid 20's could just possibly have succeeded - but given what we now know about the treachery of Social Democracy , unlikely.
I think we all really need to just stop interpreting and reinterpreting Lenin ad infinitum. Stop identifying ourselves as "Leninists" or "non-Leninists". There has now been a full bourgeois capitalist restoration in the USSR - soon to follow in China. Let the man and his mouldering corpse be buried. He was a flawed but sincere revolutionery. His (and Trotsky's) sincere, understandable, but with 100 years of hindsight, mistaken, 1917 political gamble failed, with huge disastrous consequences for world history. We need to use the revolutionery socialist tradition, the disastrous mistakes, and the writings of past revolutioneries in a much more open-minded, rather than "scriptural reverential" way, move on, and try to use the brains in our heads to chart the way forward now, on the basis of OUR understanding of the problems and challenges ahead.
