French expression,
Gentlemen, we can neither ignore the history of the past nor
create the future. I would like to warn you against the mistake that causes
people to advance the hands of their clocks, thinking that thereby they are
hastening the passage of time. My influence on the events I took advantage of
is usually exaggerated, but it would never occur to anyone to demand that I
should make history. I could not do that even in conjunction with you, although
together, we could resist the whole world. We cannot make history; we must wait
while it is being made. We will not make fruit ripen more quickly by subjecting
it to the heat of a lamp, and if we pluck the fruit before it is ripe, we will
only prevent its growth and spoil it.
Otto Von Bismark
“During the lifetime of great revolutionaries, the
oppressing classes constantly hounded them, received their theories with the
most savage malice, the most furious hatred and the most unscrupulous campaigns
of lies and slander. After their death, attempts are made to convert them into
harmless icons, to canonise them, so to say, and to hallow their names to a
certain extent for the “consolation” of the oppressed classes and with the
object of duping the latter, while at the same time robbing the revolutionary
theory of its substance, blunting its revolutionary edge and vulgarising it.”
― Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, The State and Revolution
It has been one hundred years since the death of Vladimir
Lenin. I had intended to mark the occasion with a review of one of his books. Therefore,
I must apologise to my readership that I chose instead to review a book by such
a political scoundrel and political opportunist of the worst sort.
Ali was born into a prominent family in Lahore. His uncle
was the chief of Pakistan’s military intelligence. While studying at Oxford, he
joined the International Marxist Group in 1968. The hallmark of the IMG was the
British section of the Pabloite movement, a group specialising in political
provocation.
Ali is Verso’s go-to man on anything connected with Lenin.
This says more about Verso’s politics than it does about Ali. Given Ali's close
association with Stalinism, he should not be allowed anywhere near Vladimir Lenin.
Ali supported Gorbachev and Perestroika in the Soviet Union in the late 1980s.
He believed Perestroika was a great advance for socialism.
He even dedicated his book Revolution From Above: Where Is the Soviet Union
Going?, published in 1988, to Boris Yeltsin, who later presided over capitalist
restoration in the USSR. He said of Yeltsin that his “political courage has
made him an important symbol throughout the country and that “The scale of
Gorbachev’s operation is, in fact, reminiscent of the efforts of an American
president of the nineteenth century: Abraham Lincoln.”
The Dilemmas of Lenin contains no new research and a very limited
insight into the mind and actions of Lenin. Ali is correct in saying that the
Russian Revolution would not have happened without the brain of Lenin, as Ali
points out in his introduction, “ First things first. Without Lenin, there
would have been no socialist revolution in 1917. Of this much, we can be
certain. Fresh studies of the events have only hardened this opinion. The
faction and later the Party that he painstakingly created from 1903 onward was
not up to the task of fomenting revolution during the crucial months between
February and October 1917, the freest period ever in Russian history. A large
majority of its leadership, before Lenin’s return, was prepared to compromise
on many key issues. The lesson is that even a political party – specifically
trained and educated to produce a revolution – can stumble, falter and fall at
the critical moment.”[1]
Ali deals at length with the “Lenin cult” and the attempt
by the Stalinists to turn Lenin into a harmless liberal icon. Lenin believed
this would happen to all the leaders of the Bolshevik party, writing, “During
the lifetime of great revolutionaries, the oppressing classes constantly
hounded them, received their theories with the most savage malice, the most
furious hatred and the most unscrupulous campaigns of lies and slander. After
their death, attempts are made to convert them into harmless icons, to canonise
them, so to say, and to hallow their names to a certain extent for the
“consolation” of the oppressed classes and with the object of duping the
latter, while at the same time robbing the revolutionary theory of its
substance, blunting its revolutionary edge and vulgarising it.”[2]
While Ali deals with the early attack on Lenin’s
revolutionary edge, his failure to examine more modern-day attempts to bury
Lenin under many dead dogs is unforgivable and hard to understand. However,
when one starts to investigate Ali’s political trajectory, only one conclusion
can be drawn: Ali has no interest in defending Lenin’s “revolutionary edge”.
The only ones interested in re-establishing Lenin’scontemprary importance are
the Trotskyists of the International Committee of the Fourth International(ICFI).
In a two-part Series, the Marxist David North defends
Lenin’s revolutionary edge from the blunt blade of Professor Sean McMeekin. McMeekin
wrote an article for the New York Times in which he accused Lenin, amongst
other things, of being a German Spy.[3] His
article was based on his 2017 book The Russian Revolution: A New History, which
North said” cannot be described as a work of history because McMeekin lacks the
necessary level of knowledge, professional competence and respect for facts.
McMeekin’s book is simply an exercise in anti-communist propaganda from which
no one will learn anything.”[4]
He continued, “Why did he write the book? Aside from the
lure of easy money (anti-communist works are usually launched with substantial
publicity and guaranteed positive reviews in the New York Times and many other
publications), McMeekin has a political motive. At the start of this year, the
World Socialist Web Site wrote: “A spectre is haunting world capitalism: the
spectre of the Russian Revolution.” McMeekin is among the haunted. He writes in
the book’s epilogue, “The Specter of Communism,” that capitalism is threatened
by growing popular discontent, and the appeal of Bolshevism is again on the
rise. “Like the nuclear weapons born of the ideological age inaugurated in
1917, the sad fact about Leninism is that once invented, it cannot be
uninvented. Social inequality will always be with us, along with the
well-intentioned impulse of socialists to eradicate it.” Therefore, “the
Leninist inclination is always lurking among the ambitious and ruthless,
especially in desperate times of depression or war that seem to call for more
radical solutions.” McMeekin continues: “If the last hundred years teach us
anything, we should stiffen our defences and resist armed prophets promising
social perfection.” [5]
In some ways, Ali and McMeekin are two sides of the same
coin. Both attempt to bury Lenin's revolutionary struggle, his true legacy and
contemporary importance. The only organisation on the planet that can truly
celebrate and thank Lenin for his insight and revolutionary struggle and bring
him to a new audience is the orthodox Marxists of the ICFI.
[1]
https://www.versobooks.com/en-gb/blogs/news/3230-tariq-ali-asks-why-lenin
[2]
― Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, The State and Revolution
[3]
Was Lenin a German Agent?By Sean Mcmeekin-June 19, 2017-https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/19/opinion/was-lenin-a-german-agent.html
[4]
Professor Sean McMeekin revives discredited anti-Lenin slanders (Part I)-
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/06/30/mcme-j30.html
[5] Professor Sean McMeekin revives discredited anti-Lenin slanders (Part I)- https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/06/30/mcme-j30.html
