Lenin’s Intervention and Relevance in German Philosophy and Beyond

Leo Deng

August 2023

Professor Frieder Otto Wolf

Freie Universität Berlin – German Philosophy: From Kant to Habermas

Lenin’s Intervention and Relevance in German Philosophy and Beyond: Mediations between Althusser and Horkheimer

Introduction

The spectre of Stalinism still haunts Lenin. This is the undeniable obstacle or already-existent suppressing force from the communist movement that does not allow for Lenin’s elaboration in Philosophical thought. Of course, there are the “Marxist intellectuals working within the establishment constantly fight[ing] a kind of guerrilla war within its institutions,”[1] but for the most part, academic philosophy in the 21st century is dominated by the Analytic tradition or a Continental one that dismisses Lenin largely.[2] However, much of this anti-Leninist reality can be traced to McCarthyism (specifically in the USA) and the Anti-communism of the West, which are clear imperialist (over-)reactions to the threat of the Soviet Union and other socialist revolutions after WWII. Even with Marx being largely retained in Continental places of study, Lenin is not—this gives rise to Lenin’s possibility for relevance in philosophy. In a few ways, it already has, namely in one figure, through Louis Althusser. His project was a revival of Marxism-Leninism in the realm of Marxist theory against Stalinism,[3] which is not an explicit intervention into Philosophy proper but published works of his like Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays lay the groundwork for that claim. Thus, to argue for Lenin’s relevance, I have to define Leninist Theory, define Stalinism, and argue for Lenin’s place or possible contribution in philosophy. Also, I will use Max Horkheimer of the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory as an example of the culmination of canonical German Philosophy as a point of comparison to Althusser and Lenin to show the latter’s poignant potential relevance in the former and thus, its potential productive interaction with philosophy broadly. “It is a good symptom that we can now quote Adorno and Althusser together as classics without falling into the trap of trying to bicker about who was right in what detail”[4] and thus, despite their ignorance of each other, much crossover already is emerging and exists. In the global order of imperialism, Lenin’s fundamental additions to Marxism are ever-important to the field that desires to continue clarifying and, hopefully, changing the world—philosophy.

The Stalinist Stain, Leninist Theory, and Althusser

Without a doubt, one of the most significant reasons for Lenin and Leninist Theory’s lack of interaction in philosophy is the stain of Stalinism and “Soviet Terror” (broadly) that affects the West, who as the global hegemon will influence predominant modes of thinking and scholarship—including philosophy. Especially viewed from the Western perspective (diametrically opposed to the Soviet Union based on both class interest and eventually global competition), Red Scare and McCarthyist propaganda either directly contributed to or do not help the legacy of the Soviet Union’s impression being that of famine, labor camps (gulags), and social repression. However, there are two possible responses—either to deny or attempt to argue for another perspective of the terrors of Soviet socialism or to starkly distinguish Stalinism from Leninist Theory. The first is an arduous and rigorous task in terms of historical scholarship, and I believe the constant battles between scholars in the field of socialist history reflect that.[5] The extremely supportive side of Soviet history would essentially deny Holodomor as intentional genocide,[6] say labor camps were essentially just their prison system,[7] say the Great Purges was the doing of Yezhov[8] rather than Stalin (and that in many aspects they reflected a quality of the Maoist GPCR in letting the masses make decisions),[9] and that the social repression was exaggerated by the West.[10] I only use this side of the extreme because the modern right-wing and liberals are wholly dismissive on this subject, while the Left has the absolute extreme in supporting those ideas I presented at one end of the spectrum and a nuanced gradient that span different Leftists that seem to have different degrees of support for Stalin’s Soviet Union vs. Lenin’s vs. the Soviet Union’s entire history, and so on. Nevertheless, this complicated battleground only adds to the Stalinist stain as such, but the Marxist-Leninists that do believe in a certain degree of achievement in the Soviet Union have the benefit of theorizing Stalin critically and Lenin as much as they desire, which is extremely useful, still, for revolutionary practice.

The other, simpler response is to clearly define Leninist Theory in opposition to Stalinism and Lenin as opposed to Stalin (and the rest of the Soviet leaders) in a theoretical manner.[11] This is simpler because it avoids the prior battleground of historical scholarship and allows more Leftists to see the Lenin behind the Stalinist stain. Thus, I also use “Leninist Theory” to delineate from Leninism (of Marxism-Leninism) to make this rhetorical move and also be historically accurate (as Leninism was really developed and coined by Stalin and co.).[12] Most simply, Leninist Theory is the major theoretico-practical additions to Marxism that Lenin made throughout his life in theory and practice: these include a clear trifecta of Vanguardism, Democratic Centralism, and his theory of Imperialism.[13] For Vanguardism, Lenin states “the role of [the] vanguard fighter can be fulfilled only by a party that is guided by the most advanced theory,” which is formulated into practice with the principle that the revolutionary party of a socialist society must be the vanguard of the proletariat in educating the masses in class consciousness, maintaining a dictatorship of the proletariat, and being controlled by proletarians itself.[14] “The principle of democratic centralism and autonomy for local Party organisations implies universal and full freedom to criticise, so long as this does not disturb the unity of a definite action,”[15] which is formulated into practice with Party Congresses, Plenary Sessions, and other meetings that allow for critical debate until a decision is made that must be carried by all members of the party so as to maximize the effect on said decision (furthering the revolution, implementing a policy, defeating an enemy, etc.). Lastly, his theory of imperialism is one of the most robust, seamless, and economically rigorous definitions and would be a shame to be left out of philosophy (or even humanities at large).

Imperialism is the monopoly stage of capitalism. […] On the one hand, finance capital is the bank capital of a few very big monopolist banks, merged with the capital of the monopolist associations of industrialists; and, on the other hand, the division of the world is the transition from a colonial policy which has extended without hindrance to territories unseized by any capitalist power, to a colonial policy of monopolist possession of the territory of the world, which has been completely divided up.[16]

This was just Lenin’s briefest definition, but the famous pamphlet includes one of the most enlightening economic analyses of the monopoly stage of capitalism’s international, political manifestations—precisely those that represent the capitalist transition to the domination of finance capital (a merging of bank and industrial capital), and its drive for colonialist conquest in a redivision of the already “fully-colonized” world after the primitive colonialism that preceded it (Columbus and so on). Besides these three tenets, Lenin also explicitly engages with philosophy in two major works that Althusser comments on: the Philosophical Notebooks (a.k.a. Collected Works Vol. 38, 1895-1916) and Materialism and Empirio-Criticism (a.k.a. Collected Works Vol. 14, 1908).

Lastly, we arrive at Althusser, who gives the best theoretical foundation for Leninist Theory and argument for its relevance in philosophy. Even before his explicit lecture “Lenin and Philosophy” (1968), Althusser acknowledges the kernel of Lenin’s relevance for philosophy by acknowledging a different Marxist-Leninist’s work—Mao Zedong’s ‘On Practice’ (and ‘On Contradiction,’ 1937).

Mao Zedong, for example, shows (in ‘On Practice’) that the knowledge a given period is in a position to produce is always subject to the determinate forms of existing practice (bound up, above all, with the existing social mode of production, i.e, with the dominant mode of the transformation of nature). But within these historical limits, the truths acquired through practice are absolute (there is no truth outside them). It is this dialectic of the historical conditions of knowledge which Lenin worked out in his frequently misunderstood theory of relative and absolute truth.[17]

Not only does this praise Mao’s formulation and development of Marx’s notion of ‘practice’ (found early in the “Theses on Feuerbach”) into a theory of knowledge—which clearly brings Lenin’s actual practice that resulted in the first successful proletarian, socialist revolution in history to the level of philosophy—but Althusser also elaborates on the point to concretize the kernel of Lenin’s relevance in philosophy within Mao’s ‘On Practice,’ giving the very idea of a Leninist Theory of Knowledge an opening of escape that is not stained by the forthcoming “Maoism” that is used in the pejorative “Stalinism” sense.[18] With Althusser’s short, but potent, concretization of the dialectical materialist theory of knowledge ‘practice,’ we arrive at his much more explicit commentary on Lenin and philosophy. His reconquering of Lenin, with his ‘Marxism-Leninism’ (as he does use the term explicitly), aims to still maintain the lineage between Marx and Lenin for both the theoretical and practical fight for revolution. Althusser begins his lecture “Lenin and Philosophy” by accentuating, ironically, Lenin’s oppositional attitude towards philosophical discussion—that “if science unites, and if it unites without dividing, philosophy divides, and it can only unite by dividing. We can thus understand Lenin’s laughter: there is no such thing as philosophical communication, no such thing as a philosophical discussion.”[19] Althusser then quotes directly, “Lenin said: […] Not only do I not ‘philosophize’ with their [academic philosophers’] philosophy, I do not ‘philosophize’ at all. […] I treat philosophy differently, I practice it, as Marx intended, in obedience to what it is. That is why I believe I am a ‘dialectical materialist’.”[20] The upshot here is that “the real question is not whether Marx, Engels and Lenin are or are not real philosophers, […], whether they do or do not make foolish statements about Kant’s “thing-in-itself.” […] For all these questions are and always have been posed inside a certain practice of philosophy. The real question bears precisely on this traditional practice, which Lenin brings back into question by proposing a quite different practice of philosophy.”[21] This is directly linked to Marx’s lineage not only in the “Theses on Feuerbach,” but also in the broader project that emerged from Marx’s life’s work—a true science of history in the face of the philosophies of history that preceded it that were all mere ideology (and ideology has no history)[22].[23] This echoes the main tenet of Scientific Socialism—the method that has highly influenced Marxist(-Leninist) organizations throughout the last two centuries for using the history of the class struggle as their “laboratory” for this science. Only through the evaluation of the material conditions of a certain country (region, etc.), its ripeness for revolution, and creating a suitable course of action (or the Althusserian “concrete analysis of the concrete situation”),[24] can revolutionary theory and practice be tested, (self-)criticized, and refined to construct a truly socialist society.

What Lenin brilliantly elaborates on for this Marxist method in his “great ‘philosophical’ work”[25]Materialism and Empirio-Criticism is organized into three theses by Althusser: (1) “Philosophy is not a science,” (2) “there is a privileged link between philosophy and the sciences. This link is represented by the materialist thesis of objectivity,” and (3) the history of philosophy is “the history of an age-old struggle between two tendencies: idealism and materialism.”[26] Thesis 1 is supported by what I have already presented of Althusser, thesis 2 posits Lenin’s rigorous maintaining of theory’s practical necessity (and practice’s theoretical necessity) at the forefront of his ‘philosophy’ and his scientific practice,[27] and thesis 3 radically ruptures and re-enlightens Kant’s notion of ‘Philosophy as a battleground’ that poses it between idealism and materialism, between ideological thinking and material practice—between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. For this last point I will redirect to an Althusser elaboration:

The ultimate stake of philosophical struggle is the struggle for hegemony between the two great tendencies in world outlook (materialist and idealist). The main battlefield in this struggle is scientific knowledge: for it or against it. […] Marxist-Leninist philosophy, or dialectical materialism, represents the proletarian class struggle in theory. In the union of Marxist theory and the Workers’ Movement (the ultimate reality of the union of theory and practice) philosophy ceases, as Marx said, to ‘interpret the world’. It becomes a weapon with which ‘to change it’: revolution.[28]

Althusser’s culminating point on Lenin’s contribution to philosophy needs to be carefully clarified that it is not that philosophy can be reduced to class struggle, but precisely the contrary—that philosophy represents (and is) class struggle in the realm of theory. His two nodal points that concretize this point are: (1) “the relation between philosophy and the sciences” and (2) “the relationship between philosophy and politics. Everything revolves around this double relation.”[29] Ultimately, for Althusser, Lenin “unexpectedly” suggests the displacement of “Marxist Philosophy from the rumination of philosophical practice”[30] and thus, made Marxism its own field. More accurately, “less than ever can we say that Marxism is a new philosophy, a philosophy of praxis. […] Marxism is not a (new) philosophy of praxis, but a (new) practice of philosophy. This new practice of philosophy can transform philosophy,”[31] i.e., transform it into a revolutionary weapon. “It is the masses who make history. […] Marxist-Leninist philosophy can only complete its abstract, rigorous and systematic theoretical work on the condition that it fights both about very ‘scholarly’ words (concept, theory, dialectic, alienation, etc.) and about very simple words (man, masses, people, class struggle).”[32]

German Philosophy and Horkheimer

With the grasp of Lenin’s ‘Philosophy’ in hand, we can directly correlate it to German Philosophy and show both its relevance and—more importantly—Lenin’s advancement within the canon. Modern canonical German Philosophy essentially begins with Kant’s revolution in the transcendental turn, a scathing critique and amelioration of absolutism that made philosophy a secondary practice of clarification and articulation predicated on the primary practices (natural sciences, ethics, politics, etc.) and ‘facts of reason.’[33] This critical reversal influenced the generations to come, philosophy no longer being the primary practice that created the theoretical ground for the other practices to be built upon.[34] Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel attempt to complete this development of the transcendental turn with different theories that rid Kant’s theory of its metaphysical danger of the Noumena (Hegel becoming the eventual, dominant development). Here, Lenin is extremely relevant in his commentary on Hegel’s critique of Kant’s Noumena: “Essentially, Hegel is completely right as opposed to Kant. […] All scientific (correct, serious, not absurd) abstractions reflect nature more deeply, truly and completely. From living perception to abstract thought, and from this to practice—such is the dialectical path of the cognition of truth, of the cognition of objective reality.”[35] This is the dialectical materialist theory of knowledge articulated fully by Mao that was developing Lenin’s thought from Materialism and Empirio-Criticism; it is a true advancement of Marx’s idea of ‘practice’ within the framework of Marxist Philosophy that is dialectically contingent and draws from the changing material conditions of the world order (for Lenin, it is the ascent of imperialism). Thus, it is a shame and an utter lack of intellectual rigor for Western (Post/Neo-)Marxists and all other philosophers to ignore this particularly (Marxist-)Leninist theory of knowledge if they desire to truly criticize it (even from the outside) and defend their own views in the face of the full breadth of the battleground of philosophy. More explicitly on Hegel, Lenin unexpectedly reveals a kernel of materialism within Hegel’s chapter on the ‘Absolute Idea’ in the Science of Logic: “the whole chapter on the ‘Absolute Idea’ scarcely says a word about God […]—it contains almost nothing that is specifically idealism, but has for its main subject the dialectical method.”[36]As Althusser says, this is “how to read Hegel’s Logic as a materialist, a process without a subject is precisely what can be found in the Chapter on the Absolute Idea. […] dialectics is by no means peculiar to history. […] The Marxist tradition was quite correct to return to the thesis of the Dialectics of Nature, which has the polemical meaning that history is a process without a subject.”[37] Most importantly, it is found here that the only absolute thing in the world is the ‘concept of the process’:

By the very place of [Hegel’s] Logic, origin negated as origin, Subject negated as Subject, Lenin finds in it a confirmation of the fact that it is absolutely essential (as he had learnt simply from a thorough-going reading of Capital) to suppress every origin and every subject, and to say: what is absolute is the process without a subject, both in reality and in scientific knowledge.[38]

This reflects Althusser’s famous stance of Anti-humanism, but it also pays its theoretical respect to that of Lenin. So, without the critical interaction with Lenin by philosophers because of the Stalinist Stain (which evaluated Marxism-Leninism on current events and practices of the Soviet Union rather than reading Lenin directly) or—more accurately—without the success of worldwide socialist revolution, philosophy was prohibited from reaching its full potential of the transcendental turn. This is because the transcendental turn ‘succeeded’ differently in capitalist society; it ‘succeeded’ to its own failure because philosophy’s role became mere articulation (although important) that combined with the expedience of the division of labor within academia and the global capitalist world order, propelling it to a more hermit space in academia. It did not become the potential science of articulation that would make its role so much more connected to helping the primary practices through clarification and critique.[39] I will explain why socialism’s success would have changed this dynamic through the real, intra-capitalist reaction to philosophy becoming mere articulation that was the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory.

The problem of what I will now call the ‘failure of the transcendental turn’ is best represented in its most robust, all-encompassing reaction by the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory. I will use Max Horkheimer as a representation of the Frankfurt School’s general project, which is the “best” reaction to the failure of the transcendental turn because it attempts to correct the problem I posed of philosophy becoming mere articulation by way of ‘critical theory’ (and it is ‘all-encompassing’ because the Frankfurt School drew on the German canon and beyond to do critical theory, using Existentialism, Marxism, Phenomenology, Psychoanalysis, etc.). Critical theory sought to counter the enlightenment-residual of ‘traditional theory’ that only required science and research to have logical necessity (the validation of their results within their own framework, laws, theories), which reflected the self-fetishizing problem of the division of labor affecting academia. Critical theory would have real necessity, i.e., the results of scientific and research-related inquiry must be validated by reality—human reality spanning many different conceptions (emancipation, revolution, just bettering society, etc.).[40] The Frankfurt School’s project was thus built on this fundamental method of inquiry, which became infused with social commentary on fascism, US capitalism, aesthetics, mass media, and more as they escaped the Nazi takeover in Germany from 1933 until after WWII. Although the Frankfurt School were clear critics of Soviet Marxism-Leninism, as I mentioned before, they evaluated it more on their view of its manifestations within current events rather than Leninist Theory itself. Crossover between Critical Theory and Leninist Theory is quite common now that we have the benefit of comprehending both retrospectively in a comparative manner. For example, in Horkheimer’s “End of Reason,” he states, “government in Germany was not usurped by gangsters who forced an entry from without, rather, social domination led to gangster rule by virtue of its own economic principle”[41] and “with the total incorporation of the enterprise into the realm of monopoly, rational argumentation loses its force.”[42] Here, he essentially agrees with a Lenin-inspired definition of fascism—capitalism in decay, that something like a police state would be built by the bourgeoisie’s attempts to keep their stranglehold on the economy in the face of crises, overproduction, the natural tendency for the rate of profit to fall, and so on. Fascism is thus a reactionary, chauvinist political response to threats of both the fall of capitalism or the possibility of socialism—a direct result of imperialism’s contradictions as mapped out by Lenin.[43] The second Horkheimer quote also agrees with Lenin’s tenet of imperialism as a result of monopoly capitalism—that it is the contradictory nature for capital to centralize instead of its ideal of ‘competition’ but incorporated into a broader argument of ‘reason’ for Horkheimer.

Althusser also has some cross-over with the Frankfurt School, even if he “was ignorant of the Frankfurt School. He had some idea that it wasn’t his cup of tea. […] There are some formulations of his in which he shows that he has not really studied Frankfurt School theorists and dismisses them in a more or less arbitrary way.”[44] This opposition, which was also reciprocal,[45] can be sourced to the fact that Althusser and the Critical Theorists had drastically opposite approaches to criticism: the latter called for theoretical struggle within the party apparatus, while the former always critiqued from outside.[46] Nevertheless, one of the most outstanding similarities between Althusser and Horkheimer is their view on ideology—an ever-more important phenomenon and reality in the 21st century:

“Present day education is directly carried out by society itself and takes place behind the back of the family.”[47] “Ideology consists more in what men are like than in what they believe–[...]. [...] Any object is comprised under the accepted schemata even before it is perceived. [...] Even the unique becomes a function and appendage of the centralized economy. Culture, exalting the unique as the resistive element amid a universal sameness of things is an ingredient rather than an opponent of mass culture.”[48] -Max Horkheimer

“The ideological State apparatus which has been installed in the dominant position in mature capitalist social formations as a result of a violent political and ideological class struggle against the old dominant ideological State apparatus, is the educational ideological state apparatus.”[49] “It [school] takes children from every class at infant-school age, and then for years, […] squeezed between the family State apparatus and the education State apparatus, it drums into them […] a certain amount of ‘know-how’ wrapped in the ruling ideology ([…]) or simply the ruling ideology in its pure state ([…]). Somewhere around the age of sixteen, a huge mass of children is ejected ‘into production.’ […] A last portion reaches the summit, either to fall into intellectual semi-employment, or to provide” as “agents of exploitation,” “agents of repression,” “and the professional ideologists.”[50] -Louis Althusser

From reading these two selections alone, one can evidently see their similarities—not only similarities but a kernel within Horkheimer that Althusser fully develops. This is the reproduction of the relations of production that Althusser most clearly puts on the forefront of focus in “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses” (and is developed further in On the Reproduction of Capitalism). This essay shines through even the Stalinist stain (although subdued) of Althusser in the anglophone academic sphere because it puts such a new emphasis on the superstructural manipulation of the masses through ideology and ISAs (for the sole purpose of reproducing the relations of production and thus, the sustainment of capitalism), which is very resembling of the manipulation and instrumentalization of reason by fascism that Horkheimer proclaims. Moreover, the position of schooling or education as a drastically changing force in society (Horkheimer) is concretized as the dominant ISA of capitalist society to enforce the ideological obedience of the next generation that is subjugated to the capitalist mode of production (Althusser). Lastly, an ideology—as schemata—that is ‘passed through’ by an object necessarily manifests as what “men are like” (Horkheimer) because “ideology is material” (Althusser).[51] Despite these similarities, the question still must be raised of their differing methods and those methods’ relationship to both their material conditions and their outlook on people’s emancipation. I think those that are even very supportive of the Frankfurt School (mainly Horkheimer and Adorno here) admit to their absolute lack of practical engagement, let alone engagement with the masses. They will talk loosely about emancipation, but no more than that (“barbarism or freedom”).[52] The key difference then with Althusser is—thus—Lenin, that the importance of struggling against, conducting, and formulating theory within the communist movement, within the true working-class party (the party that has the objective mass support of their country’s proletariat) of given time and place is his contradistinction from the Critical Theorists. I am not trying to explicitly ignore the Frankfurt School’s circumstances of Nazism and US capitalistic cannibalism of culture that, of course, influenced their “signature pessimism” or “nihilism,” rather that—once again—with the advantage of retrospection, we can learn from both to ultimately emancipate the masses from capitalist oppression (Marx/Lenin/Althusser) and guarantee the absolute imperative for fascism to never rise again (Horkheimer/Adorno).

Conclusion

21st-century imperialism and neoliberalism continue on their ruthless march despite all the grand communist prophecies of the 20th century. For philosophy to even have a chance at achieving the transcendental turn in its fullest form—to be a potential science of articulation—Marx’s categorical imperative must still be taken into account, but also, more importantly now, Lenin’s immense advancement of the philosophy of ‘practice’ (the new practice of philosophy) as not only a theory of knowledge, but also the unity-of-theory-and-practice[53] that can emancipate Philosophy from its subordination by capital (which is thanks to developments by Mao and Althusser, as well). Whether Althusser is attempting to reconquer Lenin and Leninist Theory, or he is fighting a “war on all fronts to restore Marxism-Leninism to its original class-based antagonistic stance,”[54] his contributions to philosophy—which are necessarily influenced by Lenin—must also be taken into account. If this is done correctly, philosophy’s role is two-fold and contradictory in its layers: the Marxist Philosophy that pushes for the liberation of all peoples and thus, all fields of the superstructure (including Philosophy-qua-Philosophy), but also philosophy as articulation continuing its role since Kant despite of its conditions (this will continue inevitably as long as even the smallest of intellectual passion survives). Therefore, I open up the new discussion of Lenin’s importance in the emancipation of Philosophy as such, whether it is a necessity or not, and—as I quoted Althusser on—what the reality of the new practice of philosophy’s (Marxist Philosophy as being radically distinct in its unity-of-theory-and-practice) ability to “transform philosophy” will be. Only the future of the scientifically socialist movement will be able to tell—WORKERS OF THE WORLD UNITE!

Bibliography

Althusser, Louis. “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses.” In Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays. New York: Monthly Review Press, 2001.

———. “Lenin and Philosophy.” In Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays. New York: Monthly Review Press, 2001.

———. Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays. Translated by Ben Brewster. New York: Monthly Review Press, 2001.

———. “Lenin before Hegel.” In Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays. New York: Monthly Review Press, 2001.

———. “On Marxism.” In The Spectre Of Hegel: Early Writings. London ; New York: Verso Books, 2014.

———. “Philosophy as a Revolutionary Weapon.” In Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays. New York: Monthly Review Press, 2001.

———. The Spectre Of Hegel: Early Writings. London ; New York: Verso Books, 2014.

Central Intelligence Agency. “COMMENTS ON THE CHANGE IN SOVIET LEADERSHIP,” February 26, 2008. https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP80-00810A006000360009-0.pdf.

Furr, Grover. “Grover Furr, "Anti-Stalin Falsehoods from a ‘Socialist’ Writer. Refuting Alex Skopic’s ‘Stalin Will Never Be Redeemable.,’” May 2023. https://msuweb.montclair.edu/~furrg/research/gfantiskopic0523.html.

———. “My Response to Comments on Article The Defamation of Grover Furr’’,” December 13, 2012. https://msuweb.montclair.edu/~furrg/pol/response_to_comments_121812.html.

Goldman, Wendy Z. Terror and Democracy in the Age of Stalin: The Social Dynamics of Repression. Illustrated edition. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007.

Horkheimer, Max. “The End of Reason.” In Studies in Philosophy and Social Science, Vol. IX. New York City: The Institute of Social Research, 1941.

———. “Traditional and Critical Theory.” In Critical Theory: The Essential Readings, edited by David Ingram and Julia-Simon Ingram, 1st edition. New York: Paragon House, 1998.

Jameson, Fredric. “Introduction.” In Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays, by Louis Althusser. New York: Monthly Review Press, 2001.

Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich. “Dogmatism And ‘Freedom of Criticism.’” In What Is To Be Done? Burning Questions of Our Movement. Moscow: Foreign Languages Press, 1961. https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1901/witbd/i.htm.

———. “Freedom to Criticise and Unity of Action.” In Lenin Collected Works, 10:442–43. Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1965. https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1906/may/20c.htm.

———. “Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism.” In Imperialism in the 21st Century | Updating Lenin’s Theory a Century Later. San Francisco: Liberation Media, 2015.

———. What Is To Be Done? Burning Questions of Our Movement. Moscow: Foreign Languages Press, 1961. https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1901/witbd/i.htm.

Rockhill, Gabriel. “The CIA & the Frankfurt School’s Anti-Communism.” The Philosophical Salon (blog), June 27, 2022. https://thephilosophicalsalon.com/the-cia-the-frankfurt-schools-anti-communism/.

Williams, Garrath. “Kant’s Account of Reason.” In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by Edward N. Zalta and Uri Nodelman, Fall 2023. Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University, 2023. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2023/entries/kant-reason/.

Wolf, Frieder Otto. An Experimental Discussion: the Althusserian problematic | Historical Materialism. Interview by Daniel Lopez, May 31, 2019. https://www.historicalmaterialism.org/interviews/experimental-discussion-althusserian-problematic.

[1] This quote is within a question by Daniel Lopez. Frieder Otto Wolf, An Experimental Discussion: the Althusserian problematic | Historical Materialism, interview by Daniel Lopez, May 31, 2019, https://www.historicalmaterialism.org/interviews/experimental-discussion-althusserian-problematic. [2] I will also be largely making such statements in regard to the American, Anglophone world as the only one I’m acquainted enough with to speak on and a specific site that contains the manifestations of a neoliberal order maintained by the global capitalist hegemon of the 21st century so far. [3] “In our countries there are immense resources for the revolutionary class struggle today. […] They will not be ‘discovered’ without close contact with the masses, and without the weapons of Marxist-Leninist theory” -Althusser. “Philosophy as a Revolutionary Weapon,” in Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays, by Louis Althusser (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2001). [4] Wolf, An Experimental Discussion: the Althusserian problematic | Historical Materialism. [5] I here refer to the phenomenon where there can be accounts from figures like Stephen Kotkin (Stalin. Waiting For Hitler) to Anne Applebaum (Gulag: a History), but also to Grover Furr (Stalin: Waiting For… the Truth!, Khrushchev Lied, Trotsky’s Lies, etc.) who have drastically different arguments for Soviet reality, especially on Stalin. Statistics on death tolls for famines or ‘genocidal’ events in socialist history also are much more up to debate than in, say, fascist ones; I am not trying to make a claim about historical truth here, rather I want to show that there is an underlying reason for this never-ending debate: an ideological battleground superimposes itself on the historical and makes such events extremely hazy. [6] Grover Furr, “My Response to Comments on Article The Defamation of Grover Furr’’,” December 13, 2012, https://msuweb.montclair.edu/~furrg/pol/response_to_comments_121812.html. [7] Grover Furr, “Grover Furr, "Anti-Stalin Falsehoods from a ‘Socialist’ Writer. Refuting Alex Skopic’s ‘Stalin Will Never Be Redeemable.,’” May 2023, https://msuweb.montclair.edu/~furrg/research/gfantiskopic0523.html. [8] See Yezhov vs. Stalin : the Truth about Mass Repressions and the So-called "Great Terror" in the USSR by Grover Furr. [9] Wendy Z. Goldman, Terror and Democracy in the Age of Stalin: The Social Dynamics of Repression, Illustrated edition (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 81-82. [10] “Even in Stalin’s time there was collective leadership. The Western idea of a dictator within the Communist setup is exaggerated. Central Intelligence Agency, “COMMENTS ON THE CHANGE IN SOVIET LEADERSHIP,” February 26, 2008, https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP80-00810A006000360009-0.pdf. [11] Obviously, this solution is only philosophical, which is precisely the scope of the essay, but a solution of critical historical analysis is also instinctually rendered in reaction to the prompt of Lenin vs. Stalin, which is unfortunately out of the scope of this essay but endlessly elaborated on by Leftists (e.g., Wendy Goldman is a Stalin critic I’ve worked with who wrote Women, State, and Revolution), Marxists, Trotskyists (and Trotsky himself), and some Marxist-Leninists (e.g., Domenico Losurdo, Stalin: History and Critique of a Black Legend). [12] This also similarly reflects the distinction made between “Marxian Theory” and “Marxism.” [13] This trifecta is neither static nor concrete; it is stated for the organizational purpose of defining Leninism concisely. [14] Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, “Dogmatism And ‘Freedom of Criticism,’” in What Is To Be Done? Burning Questions of Our Movement (Moscow: Foreign Languages Press, 1961), https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1901/witbd/i.htm. [15] Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, “Freedom to Criticise and Unity of Action,” in Lenin Collected Works, vol. 10 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1965), 442–43, https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1906/may/20c.htm. [16] Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, “Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism,” in Imperialism in the 21st Century | Updating Lenin’s Theory a Century Later (San Francisco: Liberation Media, 2015), 163-164. [17] “On Marxism,” in The Spectre Of Hegel: Early Writings, by Louis Althusser (London; New York: Verso Books, 2014), 274-5. Also, it can be found at https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/althusser/1953/onmarx/on-marxism.htm. [18] I put this “Maoism” in quotes because Maoism (non-pejorative) has a whole history of theory and practice unique to its additions to Marxism(-Leninism) while Stalinism is almost always without such additions—it is either the pejorative term for Marxism-Leninism or describing it with the practical changes of Soviet bureaucracy and repression. [19] Louis Althusser, “Lenin and Philosophy,” in Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2001), 13. [20] Althusser, “Lenin and Philosophy,” 17. [21] Althusser, “Lenin and Philosophy,” 17. [22] This parenthetical refers to a famous remark in the German Ideology, but a very succinct argument can also be found in the latter part of Althusser’s “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses.” [23] Althusser, “Lenin and Philosophy,” 21. “Marx has opened up to scientific knowledge a new, third scientific continent, the continent of History,” Althusser, “Lenin and Philosophy,” 22. [24] Wolf, An Experimental Discussion: the Althusserian problematic | Historical Materialism. [25] Althusser, “Lenin and Philosophy,” 27. [26] Althusser, “Lenin and Philosophy,” 28, 30, 32. [27] “Without revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement.” Lenin, “Dogmatism And ‘Freedom of Criticism.’” “He [Lenin] could of equally have written: without scientific theory there can be no production of scientific knowledge.” Althusser, “Lenin and Philosophy,” 31. [28] Althusser, “Philosophy as a Revolutionary Weapon,” 6-7. [29] Althusser, “Lenin and Philosophy,” 40. [30] Althusser, “Lenin and Philosophy,” 40. [31] Althusser, “Lenin and Philosophy,” 42. [32] Althusser, “Philosophy as a Revolutionary Weapon,” 9. [33] See first two paragraphs of 2.2 for concise explanation of ‘facts of reason’: Garrath Williams, “Kant’s Account of Reason,” in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Edward N. Zalta and Uri Nodelman, Fall 2023 (Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University, 2023), https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2023/entries/kant-reason/. [34] Before getting into the canon of German Philosophy, one notable figure of canonical philosophy (broadly) before Kant that stands out in relation to Lenin is Spinoza (this is only found through the recognition by Althusser). The essay “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses” necessarily congeals Marx, Lenin, and ‘Marxist-Leninist Philosophy’ for Althusser and states, “Ideology has no outside (for itself), but at the same time that is it nothing but outside (for science and reality). Spinoza explained this completely two centuries before Marx, who practiced it but without explaining it” and “to find the material with which to construct a theory of the guarantee, we must turn to Spinoza.” Thus, if Marx practiced this theory of ideology and Lenin practices Marx’s philosophy, a unique kernel of Spinoza is within all of them. Louis Althusser, “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses,” in Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2001), 119, 123. [35] Quoted from Lenin’s Collected Works (Philosophical Notebooks), Vol. 38, p. 171:Louis Althusser, “Lenin before Hegel,” in Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2001), 77-78. [36] Page 234 of Collected Works, Vol. 38 (Philosophical Notebooks) quoted in: Althusser, “Lenin before Hegel,” 80. [37] Althusser, “Lenin before Hegel,” 81. [38] Althusser, “Lenin before Hegel,” 82. [39] Here, I imagine a world where philosophy is treated with utmost respect in its critique of the primary fields to fulfill its articulating role in the best way, rather than the largely disregarded field it is today in relation to the primary fields. [40] Max Horkheimer, “Traditional and Critical Theory,” in Critical Theory: The Essential Readings, ed. David Ingram and Julia-Simon Ingram, 1st edition (New York: Paragon House, 1998). [41] Max Horkheimer, “The End of Reason,” in Studies in Philosophy and Social Science, vol. IX (New York City: The Institute of Social Research, 1941), 374. [42] Horkheimer, “The End of Reason,” 378. [43] Lenin literally devotes a chapter in Imperialism to this: “Parasitism and Decay of Capitalism.” Lenin, “Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism,” 173-181. [44] Wolf, An Experimental Discussion: the Althusserian problematic | Historical Materialism. [45] “The Frankfurt School tried to ridicule and exclude Althusserian problematics by, on the one hand, asserting that his work represented an old-school philosophical approach.” Wolf, An Experimental Discussion: the Althusserian problematic | Historical Materialism. [46] “Althusser was trying to intervene in the communist movement as it was.” Wolf, An Experimental Discussion: the Althusserian problematic | Historical Materialism. For the Critical Theorists, they are commonly criticized for not participating in any form of praxis and never even discuss it theoretically. More extreme arguments are worth mentioning that their indifference to praxis manifests in an overt anti-communism that is represented by their material actions as opposed to their writing. See: Gabriel Rockhill, “The CIA & the Frankfurt School’s Anti-Communism,” The Philosophical Salon (blog), June 27, 2022, https://thephilosophicalsalon.com/the-cia-the-frankfurt-schools-anti-communism/. [47] Horkheimer, “The End of Reason,” 380. [48] Horkheimer, “The End of Reason,” 387. [49] Althusser, “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses,” 103. [50] Althusser, “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses,” 104-105. [51] “The existence of the ideas of his belief is material in that his ideas are his material actions inserted into material practices governed by material rituals which are themselves defined by the material ideological apparatus from which derive the ideas of that subject.” Althusser, “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses,” 114. [52] Horkheimer, “The End of Reason,” 388. [53] “Marxism is not a philosophy, [...] it is, like psychoanalysis and unlike any other contemporary mode of thought, what I will call a unity-of-theory-and-practice.” Fredric Jameson, “Introduction,” in Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays, by Louis Althusser (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2001), ix. [54] Jameson, “Introduction,” viii.