Lenin, Hegel, and Western Marxism

Kevin B. Anderson is Distinguished Professor of Sociology, with affiliations to Political Science and Feminist Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is the author or editor of eleven books, including Marx at the Margins.

“Anderson shows that Lenin, despite his critical attitude toward nationalism, had been the first major political theorist to grasp the significance of national liberation movements.”—Terry Eagleton, author of Criticism and Ideology“This book brings to life a new and unexpected Lenin, poles apart from both wooden 'Marxist-Leninism' and dismissive Western scholarship”—Michael Löwy, author of Ecosocialism“With impressive argumentation and wide-ranging scholarship, Anderson presents us with a Lenin that no one seriously interested in current debates over the relevance of Marxist theory to socialist practice can afford to miss.”—Bertell Ollman, author of Dialectical Investigations“An important contribution to grasping the conceptual roots of Marxist theory and practice.”—Tom Rockmore, author of Hegel's Circular Epistomology“Today Lenin looks like he did little more than prepare the way for Stalin. You will find the opposite view in this novel study ... I recommend the book to anyone seriously interested in Russia and revolution.”—George Uri Fischer, author of The Soviet System and Modern Society

• Table of ContentsAcknowledgmentsA Note on Sources and AbbreviationsIntroduction to the New English Edition1 Lenin in the Present Moment2 Lenin and Hegel Today3 Lenin and Hegel 1914-22, Some Key Examples4 Lenin and the Hegelian Marxist Tradition5 Was Lenin Really a Hegelian Marxist after 1914?6 Dialectics and Lenin's Theoretical Works after 1914: Did He Really Reorganise His Thinking?7 The Antinomies of State and Revolution8 Which, If Any, Lenin for Today?9 ReferencesIntroduction to the First EditionPart 1 Lenin on Hegel and Dialectics1 The Crisis of World Marxism in 1914 and Lenin's Plunge into Hegel1 The Significance of the Turn to Hegel2 Marxism and Hegel before 19143 Lenin and Hegel before 19144 The 1914 Encyclopedia Article 'Karl Marx'2 Lenin on Hegel's Concepts of Being and Essence1 Lenin Begins to Read Hegel2 On 'The Doctrine of Being'3 On 'The Doctrine of Essence'3 The Subjective Logic: The Core of Lenin's 1914 Hegel Studies1 The Notion in General: The 'Self-Conscious Subject'2 The Syllogism and the Relation of Hegel to Marxism3 Teleology: Lenin Discovers a Concept of Practice and Labor in Hegel4 The Idea in General: 'The Very Best Exposition of Dialectics'5 The Idea of Life: A 'Brilliant' Addition to the Logic6 The Idea of Cognition: A Turning Point in Lenin's Abstract7 The Idea of the True as the Theoretical Idea and Hegel's Critique of Kant's Relativism and Focus on Phenomena8 Analytic and Synthetic Cognition9 The Idea of the Good and the Practical Idea10 The Practical Idea and Lenin's Omission of the Theoretical Idea11 The Absolute Idea: The Ambivalent Climax of Lenin's Reading of Hegel4 Lenin's Discussions of the Dialectic, 1915-23: An Ambivalent, Secretive Hegelianism1 Interlude: Writings on the War and Revolutionary Defeatism, 1914-152 Notes on Other Works by Hegel, 1915: Intelligent Idealism versus Vulgar Materialism3 'On the Question of Dialectics': Lenin Critiques Engels4 Lenin's Public Writings on Dialectics, 1915-23: Hegelian Marxism and Philosophical AmbivalencePart 2 Lenin on the Dialectics of Revolution, 1914-235 Imperialism and New Forms of Subjectivity: National Liberation Movements1 Economics and Dialectics in the Analysis of Imperialism2 Notebooks on Imperialism3 Marxism and the National Question to 19144 Lenin on the Dialectics of National Liberation, 1916-175 Continuation of the Debates over National Liberation after the Revolution6 State and Revolution: Subjectivity, Grassroots Democracy, and the Critique of Bureaucracy1 State and Revolution2 The New Vision of Revolution: Letters, Speeches, and Pamphlets, 1917-183 An Ambivalent Critique of Bureaucracy, 1919-23Part 3 Lenin, Hegel, and Western Marxism7 From the 1920s to 1953: Lukacs, Lefebvre, and the Johnson-Forest Tendency1 Lenin and Hegel in the Soviet Union in the 1920s2 Lenin and Hegel in Central Europe: Korsch, Lukacs, and Bloch3 France in the 1930s: Lefebvre and Guterman4 France, 1944-535 The United States, 1941-53: From Marcuse to the Johnson-Forest Tendency8 From 1954 to Today: Lefebvre, Colletti, Althusser, and Dunayevskaya1 France in the 1950s: Lefebvre and Garaudy2 The United States in the 1950s and 1960s: The Impact of Dunayevskaya's Marxism and Freedom3 Italy in the 1950s and 1960s: The Critique of Lucio Colletti4 Western Marxism in Postwar Germany: Iring Fetscher5 France in the 1960s and 1970s: Althusser, Garaudy, and Beyond6 The United States in the 1970s and 1980s: Dunayevskaya's Critiques of LeninConclusion: Lenin's Paradoxical LegacyBibliographyIndex