Read Online Lenin: A Revolutionary Life by Christopher Read - Free Book Online Page B

began to hinder other work.’ [Krupskaya 39–40] The image of the single-minded Lenin, the determined revolutionary, was already being moulded. Although, as we shall see, he did not entirely cut himself off from relaxing pastimes and hobbies, he was concerned to keep them under great control. The most famous, and most frequently quoted example, comes from Gorky’s obituary of Lenin in which he referred to Lenin confessing to a love of Beethoven’s Appassionata sonata, which he said he could listen to every day because it was ‘marvelous superhuman music’. The problem was that
    I cannot listen to music often, it works on my nerves, I want to say sweet stupidities and stroke the heads of people who, living in this dirty hell, can create such beauty. But at the present time one must not stroke people’s heads, they will bite your hand, it is necessary to hit them over the head, hit without mercy, even though in our ideal we are against using any violence against people. Hmm, hmm, our duty is devilishly hard. 1
    As in other areas of Lenin’s life his virtues – in this case revolutionary determination – were often the flipside of his vices – an obsession with politics and principles too frequently at the expense of actual individuals. A softer, more sympathetic Lenin who worked through his feelings rather than suppressed them might have been a more effective Lenin. However, he was not alone in believing strength of will implied trampling on one’s own feelings, let alone those of others. It was a common motif of an increasingly Nietzschean age.
    ‘YEARS OF SERIOUS STUDY’
    The carousel of history did not stop just because Lenin had been forced to step off for four years from 1896 to 1900. Indeed, they were particularly eventful times as imperialism continued to carve up the globe and the world slid towards total war. Socialism, too, was in deepening crisis. Significant Marxist movements were emerging across the capitalist world but their appearance brought conflict with earlier radical movements. Not only that, disagreements about interpreting the writings of Marx became more acute. The question of questions facing Marxists was why had no Marxist revolution appeared? In many ways, early twentieth-century Marxism was a series of answers to that crucial conundrum.
    From the Russian point of view three great debates were dominating the radical scene. In the minds of many the three debates have become confused with one another so it is as well to define them and separate them as clearly as possible.
    We have already mentioned the first. Was the growth of capitalism in Russia inevitable? Although populists had been divided on tactics between those who urged long-term persuasion and propaganda and those who saw terror as catalyst of revolution, they were united over one fundamental principle. Russian society was already deeply saturated with socialism. Peasants, it was argued, were not petty-capitalists but proto-socialists. They held property in common; they redistributed it in accordance with ancient principles of social justice; their lives were largely self-governing through the local commune ( mir or obshchina ). The collective mentality was translated into industrial society through co-operative workshops ( artely ). The existence of these institutions and the mentality of equality and fairness which underpinned them could, it was thought, provide a basis for a direct transition into socialism without Russia having to pass through the super-exploitative agonies of a capitalist industrial revolution. Inventive minds embroidered the arguments in many ways. A leading populist economist, N.F. Danielson, put forward an argument which merits attention today given the tribulations of Russia’s post-Soviet version of capitalism. He argued that capitalism could never be competitive in Russia because its size and educational/cultural backwardness inhibited its infrastructural growth, and intractable factors such as