Lenin Reloaded: Toward a Politics of Truth
sic vii ([sic] Series) (Paperback)

~ Sebastian Budgen (Editor, Contributor), Stathis Kouvelakis (Editor), David Fernbach (Translator), Alex Callinicos (Contributor), Savas Michael-Matsas (Contributor), Kevin B.Anderson (Contributor), Daniel Bensaid (Contributor), Georges Labica (Contributor), Domenico Losurdo (Contributor), Sylvain Lazarus (Contributor), Jean-Jacques Lecercle (Contributor), Alan Shandro (Contributor)
Key Phrases: materialist reversal, proletarian hegemony, general intellect, Collected Works, United States, New York (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Lenin Reloaded is a rallying call by some of the world’s leading Marxist intellectuals for renewed attention to the significance of Vladimir Lenin. The volume’s editors explain that it was Lenin who made Karl Marx’s thought explicitly political, who extended it beyond the confines of Europe, who put it into practice. They contend that a focus on Lenin is urgently needed now, when global capitalism appears to be the only game in town, the liberal-democratic system seems to have been settled on as the optimal political organization of society, and it has become easier to imagine the end of the world than a modest change in the mode of production. Lenin retooled Marx’s thought for specific historical conditions in 1914, and Lenin Reloaded urges a reinvention of the revolutionary project for the present. Such a project would be Leninist in its commitment to action based on truth and its acceptance of the consequences that follow from action.

These essays, some of which are appearing in English for the first time, bring Lenin face-to-face with the problems of today, including war, imperialism, the imperative to build an intelligentsia of wage earners, the need to embrace the achievements of bourgeois society and modernity, and the widespread failure of social democracy. Lenin Reloaded demonstrates that truth and partisanship are not mutually exclusive as is often suggested. Quite the opposite—in the present, truth can be articulated only from a thoroughly partisan position.

Contributors. Kevin B. Anderson, Alain Badiou, Etienne Balibar, Daniel Bensaïd, Sebastian Budgen, Alex Callinicos, Terry Eagleton, Fredric Jameson, Stathis Kouvelakis, Georges Labica, Sylvain Lazarus, Jean-Jacques Lecercle, Lars T. Lih, Domenico Losurdo, Savas Michael-Matsas, Antonio Negri, Alan Shandro, Slavoj Žižek

About the Author

Sebastian Budgen is the member of the Editorial Board of the Journal, Historical Materialism. Stathis Kouvelakis teaches political theory at King’s College London. He is the author of PHILOSOPHY AND REVOLUTION: FROM KANT TO MARX (Verso, 2003) and co-editor with Vincen Charbonnier of SARTRE, LUKACS, ALTHUSSER: DES MARXISTES EN PHILOSOPHIE (Paris, PUF, 2005). Slavoj Zizek, is Senior Researcher at the Institute for Social Studies, Ljubljana, Slovenia. He is the author of DID SOMEBODY SAY TOTALITARIANISM?: FOUR INTERVENTIONS IN THE (MIS)USE OF A NOTION (Verso, forthcoming); ON BELIEF (Routledge, forthcoming); THE FRAGILE ABSOLUTE, OR, WHY IS THE CHRISTIAN LEGACY WORTH FIGHTING FOR? (Verso, 2000); THE TICKLISH SUBJECT: AN ESSAY ON POLITICAL ONTOLOGY (Verso, 1999); THE PLAGUE OF FANTASIES (Verso, 1997); THE INVISIBLE REMAINDER: AN ESSAY ON SCHELLING AND RELATED MATTERS (Verso, 1996); THE METASTASES OF ENJOYMENT: SIX ESSAYS ON WOMEN AND CAUSALITY (Verso, 1994); ENJOY YOUR SYMPTOM!: JACQUES LACAN IN HOLLYWOOD AND OUT (Routledge, 1992); FOR THEY KNOW NOT WHAT THEY DO: ENJOYMENT AS A POLITICAL FACTOR (Verso, 1991); LOOKING AWRY: AN INTRODUCTION TO LACAN THROUGH POPULAR CULTURE (MIT, 1991); THE SUBLIME OBJECT OF IDEOLOGY (Verso, 1989). He edited (w/Molly Rothenberg and Dennis Foster) PERVERSION AND SOCIAL RELATION: SIC V (Duke, 2003); COGITO AND THE UNCONSCIOUS (Duke, 1998); (w/Renata Salecl) GAZE AND VOICE AS LOVE OBJECTS (Duke, 1996); TARRYING WITH THE NEGATIVE: KANT, HEGEL, AND THE CRITIQUE OF IDEOLOGY (Duke, 1995); MAPPING IDEOLOGY (Verso, 1994); EVERYTHING YOU ALWAYS WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT LACAN: (BUT WERE AFRAID TO ASK HITCHCOCK) (Verso, 1992). His is also the Editor of [sic] series, Duke University Press.

Sebastian Budgen is the member of the Editorial Board of the Journal, Historical Materialism. Stathis Kouvelakis teaches political theory at King’s College London. He is the author of PHILOSOPHY AND REVOLUTION: FROM KANT TO MARX (Verso, 2003) and co-editor with Vincen Charbonnier of SARTRE, LUKACS, ALTHUSSER: DES MARXISTES EN PHILOSOPHIE (Paris, PUF, 2005). Slavoj Zizek, is Senior Researcher at the Institute for Social Studies, Ljubljana, Slovenia. He is the author of DID SOMEBODY SAY TOTALITARIANISM?: FOUR INTERVENTIONS IN THE (MIS)USE OF A NOTION (Verso, forthcoming); ON BELIEF (Routledge, forthcoming); THE FRAGILE ABSOLUTE, OR, WHY IS THE CHRISTIAN LEGACY WORTH FIGHTING FOR? (Verso, 2000); THE TICKLISH SUBJECT: AN ESSAY ON POLITICAL ONTOLOGY (Verso, 1999); THE PLAGUE OF FANTASIES (Verso, 1997); THE INVISIBLE REMAINDER: AN ESSAY ON SCHELLING AND RELATED MATTERS (Verso, 1996); THE METASTASES OF ENJOYMENT: SIX ESSAYS ON WOMEN AND CAUSALITY (Verso, 1994); ENJOY YOUR SYMPTOM!: JACQUES LACAN IN HOLLYWOOD AND OUT (Routledge, 1992); FOR THEY KNOW NOT WHAT THEY DO: ENJOYMENT AS A POLITICAL FACTOR (Verso, 1991); LOOKING AWRY: AN INTRODUCTION TO LACAN THROUGH POPULAR CULTURE (MIT, 1991); THE SUBLIME OBJECT OF IDEOLOGY (Verso, 1989). He edited (w/Molly Rothenberg and Dennis Foster) PERVERSION AND SOCIAL RELATION: SIC V (Duke, 2003); COGITO AND THE UNCONSCIOUS (Duke, 1998); (w/Renata Salecl) GAZE AND VOICE AS LOVE OBJECTS (Duke, 1996); TARRYING WITH THE NEGATIVE: KANT, HEGEL, AND THE CRITIQUE OF IDEOLOGY (Duke, 1995); MAPPING IDEOLOGY (Verso, 1994); EVERYTHING YOU ALWAYS WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT LACAN: (BUT WERE AFRAID TO ASK HITCHCOCK) (Verso, 1992). His is also the Editor of [sic] series, Duke University Press.

Domenico Losurdo is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Urbino and Director of the Institute for Philosophical and Pedagogical Sciences. His books include the following: DEL MEDIO ORIENTE AI BALCANI: L'ALBA DI SANGUE DEL "SECOLO AMERICANO" (QuattroVenti, 1996); GESCHICHTSPHILOSOPHIE UND ETHIK (P. Lang, 1998); DAI FRATELLI SPAVENTA A GRAMSCI: PER UNA STORIA POLITICO-SOCIALE DELLA FORTUNA DE HEGEL IN ITALIA (La Citt del Sole, 1997); ANTONIO GRAMSCI DAL LIBERALISMO AL "COMMUNISMO CRITICO" (Gamberetti, 1997); DEMOCRAZIA O BONAPARTISMO: TRIONFO E DECADENZA DEL SUFFRAGIO UNIVERSALE (Bollati Boringhieri, 1993); LA COMMUNIT, LA MORTE, L'OCCIDENTE: HEIDEGGER E L'IDEOLOGIA DELLA GUERRA (Bollati Boringhieri, 1991); LA CATASTROFE DELLA GERMANIA E L'IMMAGINE DI HEGEL (Guerini, 1987); AUTOCENSURA E COMPROMESSO NEL PENSIERO POLITICO DI KANT (Bibliopolis, 1983). Ed: (w/Ruggero Giacomini) LENIN E IL NOVECENTO: ATTI DEL CONVEGNO INTERNAZIONALE DI URBINO, 13-14-15 GENNAIO 1994, (La Citt del Sole, 1997) ; (w/Maurizio Viroli) ASCESA E DECLINO DELLE REPUBBLICHE (QuattroVenti, 1997); (w/Alberto Burgio) AUTORE, ATTORE, AUTORIT (QuattroVenti, 1996); (w/Ruggero Giacomini and Michele Martelli) GRAMSCI E L'ITALIA: ATTI DEL CONVEGNO INTERNAZIONALE DI URBINO, 24-25 GENNAIO 1992 (La Citte del Sole, 1994); RIVOLUZIONE FRANCESE E FILOSOFIA CLASSICA TEDESCA (QuattroVenti, 1993); (w/Alberto Burgio an dGian Mario Cazzaniga) MASSA, FOLLA, INDIVIDUO: ATTI DEL CONVEGNO ORGANIZZATIO DALL'INSTITUTO ITALIANO PER GLI STUDI FILOSOFICI E DALLA BIBLIOTECA COMUNAL DI CATTOLICA (QuattroVenti, 1992); (w/Gian Mario Cazzaniga and Livio Sichirollo) METAMORFOSI DEL MODERNO: ATTI DEL CONVEGNO ORGANIZZATO DALL'INSTITUTO ITALIANO PER GLI STUDI FILOSOFICI E DALLA BIBLIOTECA COMUNAL DI CATTOLICA (QuattroVenti, 1992); (w/Han Jorg Sandkuhler) PHILOSOPHIE ALS VERTEIDIGUNG DES GANZEN DER VERNUNFT (Pahl-Rugenstein Verlag, 1988); (w/Pasquale Salvucci and Livio Sichirollo) GYORGY LUKACS NEL CENTENARIO DELLA NASCITA, 1885-1985 (QuattroVenti, 1986).

Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Duke University Press (April 30, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0822339412
• ISBN-13: 978-0822339410
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 1.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #679,010 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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9 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Why Lenin? Why Now?, September 24, 2008

By	Christopher D. Wright "redtwister" (Baltimore) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

In any period where uncertainty dominates, and even more so in periods that seems terribly bleak, intellectuals commonly reach for prior "success stories" to buttress their hope for the future. Lenin's popularity today, thanks in no small part to Slavoj Zizek, the only name here that most people will have any familiarity with, reflects the claim to success of the seizure of power in 1917 and Lenin's early death which allows many people to dissociate him from Stalinism (not that Zizek, however, does so, not to mention the number of Maoist creeps writing in this book.)

Some will recover Lenin as the politicizer of Marx, the man who translated Marx from theorist into political force (itself a deep falsification of Marx as political man and Lenin as theoretician.) Others will see in him the first to 'return to Hegel', and therefore the first Hegelian Marxist (thanks in no small part to the raw and obscure nature of Lenin's notebooks on Hegel's Logic, allowing for all kinds of fantastic nonsense.) Still others see in 'State & Revolution' and 'Imperialism' high works of Marxist theory. And others will praise Lenin's internationalism. Still others will praise his defense of national liberation.

I am against demonizing Lenin. He was a part of the left-wing in social democracy, including Rosa Luxemburg, Anton Pannekoek, Herman Gorter, the Bremen Left, the German left communists, Lukacs and Korsch. Nonetheless, it is not clear that there is anything worth reclaiming from Lenin (his revolutionary defeatism is the only thing that comes to mind.)

His theory of imperialism betrays much confusion regarding Marx's critique of political economy (for example, his confusion over the concentration of capital and the centralization of capital, his mistaken notions of money, the absence of a notion of value, his treatment of competition, etc.)

His theory of the state is the typical instrumental treatment of the state as a vessel which can be filled with any content.

His policies undermined the factory councils, soviets, and in fact everything tending to transform daily life in Russia, in favor of modernization along typically capitalist lines: reinforcement of wage labor, piece wages, forced overtime, etc.

His theory of the party, whose highest theoretical formation was actually Lukacs' work on imputed class consciousness, made the party the brain and the class the body, thereby simply reproducing the mental-manual dichotomy of class society anyway, and begging the question of who educates the educator.

Lenin at least had the decency to call the Soviet Union what it was: state capitalism. Contrary to the Trotskyist fantasy, Lenin never abandoned his earlier conceptions of a workers and peasants' state over a capitalist economy. The problem is that it was then and is even more so today a recipe for capitalist development and takes us not one inch close to the abolition of capitalism.

The support for nationalist struggles, for a politics of anti-imperialism, has been the basis for selling out to one nationalist i.e. capitalist, leadership after another, whether in the Pop Fronts of 1925-7 in China, in 1935 in France, in 1936-7 in Spain or after WWII under the rubric of "left-wing" national independence in Vietnam, Algeria, Iran, Nicaragua or in Iraq today as they bow and scrape before Islamicist "right-wing" politics. All nationalist politics is anti-proletarian, all of it is predicated on the unity of labor and capital.

Lenin believed he was carrying out a communist politics when he brought his Lassallean politics to power in 1917. He was wrong. In fact, it was evident to many already in 1920. But there will always be an academic cottage industry for the left-wing of capitalism and a politics of untruth. Lenin is the symbol that marks a moment in time and gives a name to the limits of a certain constellation of class struggle and theoretical consciousness, one which can tell us a lot about how we got into the mess we are in but which has nothing to say about how to get out.

9 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Much ado about nothing, March 9, 2008

By	M. A. Krul (Utrecht, Kingdom of the Netherlands) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

It is unfortunate that such an important political figure in the history of socialism as Lenin is so often outside the realm of academic discussion, and therefore the reasoning behind having a collection of academic writers discuss Lenin specifically is a good one. However, the result, "Lenin Reloaded: Towards a Politics of Truth" is astoundingly mediocre.

The great majority of the articles are incomprehensible pseudo-philosophical ramblings, either by professional dilettantes like Zizek, Jameson, and Balibar, or by people who do have something to say but are incapable of expressing themselves clearly, like Badiou and Callinicos. The greater part of this book is dedicated to essays musing on Lenin's relation to Lacan, the "Situation", "Leninist gestures", "the dialectic today", and so on and so forth. Even a normally engaging writer like Terry Eagleton comes off poorly when forced to write on such an infertile ground, although he at least has the advantage of being a skilled writer. It is unfortunate, but it is safe to say that almost all the articles in this collection can be skipped without any loss to the reader.

I say skipped, however, because there are a few contributions that at least redeem this book a little bit, although to strain the reader's patience they are all put at the back of the book (perhaps nobody can be enticed to actually read the likes of Zizek or Kouvelakis otherwise). Georges Labica has a strong and interesting piece comparing Lenin's view of imperialism to global capitalism today. Also of interest is a perhaps somewhat far-fetched, but nevertheless very original and intriguing view of Lenin as a socialist missionary by Lars Lih, who incidentally is also the only author in the collection to not express support for Lenin. This is best read in combination with the article by Alan Shandro on Lenin's idea of vanguard politics and its relation to hegemony in politics, an essay surprisingly free of Gramscian jargon. But the best contribution in the collection is probably by Domenico Losurdo, who uses Lenin to mount a very strong and rhetorically effective, almost Mike Davis-like, attack on liberalism's hypocrisy and pretense about democracy and 'human rights', both in the past and today. This article and that of Lih are certainly must reads. Borrow this book from a university library to read those, and so spare yourself the expense of money for a whole pile of nothing.

9 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars God is a Post-Modern Left Wing Intellectual, April 8, 2008

By	Mr. Colin Moore (Australia) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is an awful book, full of elliptical jargon that exemplifies the piteous state left wing theory has stumbled into. The basic problem seems to be the capture of Marxism by an exclusively university-based contingent of professional obscurantists and windbags. Since the demise of communist states marxism lost any semblance of a connection to lived experience and the lives and struggles of real people. It now resembles the species of 19th century German idealist philosophy that Lenin reviled. It is amusing to contemplate what Lenin would make of Badiou or the unbelievably opaque Zizek, and how he would review this mud-wallow of speculation without praxis, addressed to a vacuum. It seems designed to put its audience to sleep or drive them into the arms of Liberal Democratic theory. At least that body of work has some relation to reality and attempts to address itself to the real world. There is something to be said for Leninist labour camps for this pompous gaggle of academic wankers.