This is a slightly edited and expanded version of what I said in my notes, about Ignatiev’s piece as part of the Hamerquist Lenin discussion. I tried to post it as a comment over there but it didn’t work so I’m posting it here.
Ignatiev’s piece is about CLR James and organization. Ignatiev begins by noting that James both rejected the idea of the vanguard party and retained a commitment to organization. What’s that organizations for, though? (more…)
I want to point out two great posts at Gathering Forces, about Lenin. There’s this one and then there’s this other one, the second is in response to Don Hamerquist’s essay. I still don’t feel equipped to assess claims about Lenin’s relative importance compared to other possible thinkers to think with or to to assess claims about Lenin historically, let alone feeling equipped to make my own claims about this. As such, my (for me) very old hesitation about Lenin and the Bolsheviks remains. None the less, whether or not Lenin per se is necessary for or incidental to the particular problems addressed, the problems addressed in these posts are important the posts address them in a serious way.
My primary reaction personally is that a key task right now for those of us who can be called ‘younger’ (at least in an expansive sense of the term, I don’t feel young very often anymore, sadly) is to build up our skills. My hunch is that a lot of us young-ish leftist lack some knowhow that we will need regardless of our theoretical and strategic perspectives (I have a further hunch that this is tied to a breakdown in intergenerational transmission on the left today). I think finding a way to coordinate on this would be valuable in and of itself - because it’d make efforts more powerful - and might lay the groundwork for some common political projects that put those skills to use. I wish I had more concrete ideas than that to say on this.
While I’m tipping my hat to other blog posts re: politics and whatnot, folk should also see these blogs:
http://red-anti-state.blogspot.com/
http://swedishzine.wordpress.com/
http://anarchism.pageabode.com/andrewnflood/
Edit:
DH’s recommendations of Lenin stuff to read, to come back to ASAP (thanks Don!). A lot of other stuff in v24 of the collected workes in particular looks interesting, just based on the titles.
Vol. 23 of the Collected Works contains the “Lecture on the 1905 Revolution” (p. 236-254), presented to a group of young Swiss workers a few weeks before the February, 1917 Revolution. Check it out; particularly the last paragraph. Then read the Letters from Afar and the April Theses in Vols 23 & 24. If possible pick up Sukhanov’s Memoirs of a Revolutionist to read an account of a left Menshevik of the various issues that were confronted. Then look at Badiou’s speech in New York last year; “Is the Word ‘Communism’ Forever Doomed?’ (Kasama) I think you will see where I find the relevance of Lenin in grasping the development of the ‘possibility of possibility’ and understanding that, “…the truth is not purely composed of facts…The truth is also the becoming of the new subject, the new collective subject.” (p.12). As well, on p. 16, note what Badiou presents as the limitations of the ‘second sequence’.
I took a whole mess of notes on Don Hamerquist’s recent essay on Lenin and contemporary radical organization. Then I beat those notes into a slightly less jumbled thing, trying to work out what I think is going on in the piece and what I think of it.
The essay is doing a lot. (more…)
There’s an essay on that topic by Don Hamerquist here. Definitely worth a look, as are the responses. I took notes on a printout of the essay, I’m working on typing them up in the body of this post, when I’m done I need to read over all these notes and see what, if anything, they add up to, then I’d like to bang them into a more concise and coherent reply to at least some parts of the essay. (Don suggested I might do something that “extends Wetzel’s response in relationship to “autonomy for mass organizations”" and asked about my views “on democracy, participation, consciousness, and organization in terms of revolutionary strategy.”)
He’s ambiguous at best, these days. I’d love it if someone who really knew Lenin and the Leninist tradition(s) - preferably someone critical but I’d settle for a smart vanguardist - could interview him and ask. (more…)
Angela has suggested a conversation comparing some of the different threads/versions of refusal passing through some conversations recently. The initial point of departure is Tronti’s Strategy of the Refusal, perhaps it can be something like the Long Sunday symposium on the Critique of Violence of recent memory. (Jodi and I have plans already to read this piece anyway, and some Lenin, in order to keep the ball rolling on the conversations about solidarity. Tronti and Lenin will go well together as at least back in the day Tronti was a Leninist, of sorts, and the Lenin will also compliment the Mao reading that a couple of us have been trying to do. No shortage of ways to spend my time! Too bad there’s the need to work instead. Anyway…) The Tronti’d be quite interesting to do en masse, and not an inappropriate follow on, as Tronti engages with Benjamin, and with Schmitt, in his more recent work. Hopefully Brett will say a few words on that for those of us che non leggiamo Italiano molto bene. Sono molto excited at the idea of all this. E’ bello. Hope others are too.
I’ve been reading Badiou’s Paul book (more…)