I hope that someone will answer Michael Dawson's question.
The other day in another thread, Andie N. defended Lenin as an important thinker; he said that unless we somehow free ourselves of imperialism that people will still be reading "Imperialism: the Highest Stage of Capitalism" two hundred years from now. That may be so. But let us remember that Lenin's "Imperialism", even by his own admission was not original. In fact, he subtitled it, "A Popular Outline". It was nothing more than a reiteration of what Hilferding, Bukharin, and even Hobson had written on the topic. Lenin's work may be the most famous book on Imperialism, but it is devoid of anything original. In fact, its estimation that capitalism was at its last gasp has proven to be dead wrong.
Of course that in itself does not mean that Lenin's "Imperialism" is not important, but there is nothing original. Popular books such as "Java Programming For Dummies" might do a good job of explaining things, but that does not make the author of that work original or on the same level as James Gosling (the main founding developer of the Java Programming language).
What about "State and Revolution"? Anything original or important in there? It's been years since I have read it, so I will not argue that there isn't. I just dont recall.
I suspect that Lenin was an genius of political strategy, but as I said before, St. Paul was probably more a genius in this respect than Lenin. A number of months ago in my study circle, when someone suggested that we might want to study Lenin on the organizational question (in spite of the authoritarian nature of leninism), I responded that in that case, it would be better to study the life of St. Paul. Someone pointed out to me that a political philosopher-I believe it was Badiou- had already written a book or essay on this very idea (St. Paul as mastermind of the expansion of Christianity).
-Thomas
===== <<You and me baby ain't nothin' but mammals So let's do it like they do it on the Discovery Channel>>
Bloodhound Gang, "The Bad Touch"
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