>I might add that, your attention to the specific empirical
>developments _is_ "Leninist analysis for 2003". So, in a way, the
>answer to your question, " what is it to be...in 2003" is right
>under your whatever. But as I say , in a way that is just the sense
>in which Leninist analysis is Marxist analysis. It's
>empirical,concrete.
I'm with you on this. Someone at Zizek's Lenin conference said the essence of L'ism was "concrete analysis of the concrete situation." Which is fine, but instead I hear/see a lot of L'ists quoting the guy as if he were scripture. And - given Ulhas' observation that a vanguard party only makes sense in a revolutionary situation - we even see a L'ist practice taken completely out of context. So it seems to me that "Leninism" today is a floating signifier that can mean anything people want it to mean. He does make a pretty cool looking icon, a sinister counterpart to the sexy Che.
Doug