Talk:Leninism

Psuedoscience

The characterization of Marxism-Leninism as a Pseudoscience is based on the self-characterization of Marxism-Leninism as a science: for example, "The open abandonment by the Soviet revisionists of the scientific Marxist-Leninist concept of socialism comes out clearly, also, when they proclaim the development of the productive forces as the only decisive factor of its construction." and "The frontal attack of Soviet revisionism on the fundamental questions of Marxism-Leninism could not leave the theory and practice of scientific socialism untouched." [1] Fred Bauder 05:52, Feb 22, 2004 (UTC)

What is your point? Revisionists are, by definition, not Marxist-Leninists. Their abandonment of Leninist precepts is no indictment of Leninism.

It would be inappropriate to speak of Leninism as a pseudoscience in this article. Shorne 08:10, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Designating Marxism, Leninism or Marxism-Leninism as a psuedoscience depends on its proponents calling it science or scientific socialism. The nineteenth century definition of science was quite different from a modern definition. Marx believed he had demonstrated certain dynamics which he considered to have scientifically proved. Freud's work is similar, despite a lack of scientific rigor, certain conclusion are drawn which Freud considered proven. It is appropriate to note that some advocates and practitioners of Leninism consider it to have a scientific foundation and that others consider such thought pseudoscience. Fred Bauder 16:03, Sep 30, 2004 (UTC)

If you are prepared to present both sides of the dispute honestly, go ahead. Merely asserting that some people consider it a pseudoscience, however, is not helpful. We all know that some people are strongly opposed to Leninism. Shorne 17:00, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Mistake with Picture

i fixed the mistake with the picture by removing the tag "thumb". you can thank me in my talk page - Bagel7

Article Evaluation

I chose to evaluate the article "Leninism" due to the relevance it has to the current, in-class materials. I found that the article does a very good job of being unbiased, and they counter most feelings of perceived predilection towards Leninist thought by providing a "criticisms" section at the end of the article. Another small problem that I noticed was that a significant majority of the listed sources are not linked through the article. In a more positive light; the structure of the article itself is sound and focused, with the historical back round and logical sections that properly demonstrate the different facets of this complicated topic.

Dominick BattistoneDbattis3 (talk) 01:50, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

A reply

Thank you, one tries.

Regards

Chas. Caltrop (talk) 16:12, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

Lukacs

I have removed this from the lead:

Leninism was composed for revolutionary praxis and originally was neither a rigorously proper philosophy nor a discrete political theory. After the Russian Revolution and in History and Class Consciousness: Studies in Marxist Dialectics (1923), György Lukács developed and organised Lenin's pragmatic revolutionary practices and ideology into the formal philosophy of vanguard-party revolution (Leninism). As a political-science term, "Leninism" entered common usage in 1922 after infirmity ended Lenin's participation in governing the Russian Communist Party.

The articles on History and Class Consciousness and Lukacs himself hardly mention Leninism. Claims like this need citations. And this is a large claim. It seems to be written by a fan of Lukacs. However, the book was repudiated by the Communist movement and by Lukacs himself. Also, since there is now nothing about Lukacs in the body, it is wrong to mention him in the lead. I have also removed the photo of Lukacs for the same reason. The last sentence in the excerpt is factually wrong and unnecessary.--Jack Upland (talk) 03:11, 3 March 2019 (UTC)

Query for Editor Jack Upland

Greetings, Colleague:

Might I trouble you to re-view the content of the Leninism article? I have completed a clean-up whereby I removed anti-Communist easter eggs and off-topic false statements piggy-backed onto sources that do not substantiate such anti-communist vandalism. Let me know, if you might, because I sense a looming edit-war.

Regards,

Chas. Caltrop (talk) 16:17, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

• I think the language used is often awkward — particularly in the lead — and needs some copy-editing. I think there are too many dates in brackets.
• There are not enough citations. Many of the sentences seem to be an editor's opinion.
• I think it would be good to have more about Lenin since Leninism is named after him.
• The "Criticism" section only gives left-wing criticism.
• The "Legacy" section is inadequate. "Leninism" was the guiding philosophy for the Communist Parties, which governed a third of the world's population in the 1970s.
• There is insufficient attention given to Stalinism, which was a dominant ideology. Trotskyism never was.--Jack Upland (talk) 08:05, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

Quotes

Since Chas. Caltrop is asking about a review above, and since I stumbled across it the other day: I think that some of the direct quotes by Lenin in the text should be put in context - or at least some sections should really not simply end in a "Lenin said" and a quote. (as is the case in the sections Imperialism and Democratic centralism) They should definitely be there, but the reader should not just be left with them. I'll see if I can get to it as well, once I find some RSs. --Mvbaron (talk) 17:36, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

I agree.--Jack Upland (talk) 08:46, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

Inspired/Inspiring

In Germany, Marxist social democracy was the political perspective of the Social Democratic Party of Germany, inspired by Russian Marxists, such as Lenin.

I changed "inspired" to "inspiring", but this was reverted. Are we really saying that the SPD was inspired by Lenin?--Jack Upland (talk) 08:46, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

That's very interesting. I had a look at the reference for this statement - it referenced the whole book (which isn't particularly helpful tbh), but from what I gather, Lih argues for a, pun intended, dialectical point of view: (i) the SPD is a 'vanguard' party properly speaking and (ii) discourse about the SPD and it's organization and goals influenced Lenin as well. Reference to point (i):

As we set about the task of rediscovering Lenin's actual outlook, the terms 'party of a new type' and 'vanguard party' are actually helpful - but only if they are applied to the SPD as well as the Bolsheviks. The SPD was a vanguard party, first because it defined its own mission as 'filling up' the proletariat with the awareness and skills needed to fulfil its own world-historical mission, and second because the SPD developed an innovative panoply of methods for spreading enlightenment and 'combination'. The term 'vanguard party' was not used during this period (I do not believe the term can be found in Lenin's writings), but 'vanguard' was, and this is what people meant by it. Any other definition is historically misleading and confusing.

Reference to point (ii):

Lenin's commitment to the SPD model and to the Kautsky merger narrative was not just intellectual. The essential source of data from which he derived his vision was the history of the European worker class from 1848 to the end of the century - particularly, of course, the history of German Social Democracy. ... Lenin's political programme thus became: let us build a party as much like the SPD as possible under underground conditions so that we can overthrow the tsar and become even more like the SPD.

To be honest, I am not sure just how fringe this view is. Lih is very much arguing for a new interpretation of Lenin ('As we set about the task of rediscovering Lenin's actual outlook') and I don't know how much the literature has taken this up... [btw, the full text of the book can be found here: http://ouleft.org/wp-content/uploads/lenin-rediscovered.pdf] --Mvbaron (talk) 09:51, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

so, imo both 'inspiring' and 'inspired' is correct according to the cited source. maybe we can work the information in the above two quotes into the text? thoughts RolandR? --Mvbaron (talk) 10:04, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

Of course "inspiring" is incorrect. The sentence "In Germany, Marxist social democracy was the political perspective of the Social Democratic Party of Germany, inspiring by Russian Marxists, such as Lenin" is grammatically wrong. You may want to write "inspired by", or simply "inspiring", but certainly not "inspiring by". RolandR (talk) 10:23, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

uhm, we know that... but I was rather hoping to have a discussion about content. edit: you're correct to revert the grammatically incorrect sentence. --Mvbaron (talk) 10:29, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

The SPD was founded in 1863. Lenin wasn't born to 1870. There seems to be no source that says Lenin inspired the SPD. If the only objection was grammatical, I will change it to "inspiring" again.--Jack Upland (talk) 19:23, 9 December 2019 (UTC)