Hi, Red Wizard here; you might remember me from such posts as:

I just finished “Left-Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder,” and right off the bat, good lord Lenny, what is up with the name of this book? I want to shorthand this book name, but what the hell do I shorthand it to? “Left-Wing Communism”? That’s the best I got, I think…

So, I finished all these damn books. Reading on vacations, as the passenger in long car rides, in dance class lobbies, on swim class sidelines, after the kids go to bed, when I’m alone in the office on lunch. This has been a real marathon, and I really think you could read this faster than me. I have a pretty jam-packed schedule, which doesn’t always allow for extended reading. So three months is maybe even an overestimation.

But lets get to “Left-Wing Communism”! This really feels like a capstone to Lenin’s work, starting with “What is to be done?” They are true bookends of his theoretical and strategic contributions to Marxism and the proletarian struggle. So in many ways, “Left-Wing Communism” is a defense of the ideas laid out in “What is to be done?” Those ideas being, utilizing every legal opportunity and right given to us by bourgeois society, including participation within bourgeois parliament and electoralism, engaging in compromise tactically to take evasive action in what is undoubtedly a disadvantageous battle, combining our legal work with illegal work when it furthers party activity and goals, and engaging with the masses in all spheres of life, from all classes, so that we might convince them our path is the clear one.

Electoralism has been, at least in this space, and maybe beyond, a topic of much discussion as of late. What Lenin (and Marx, as Lenin shows) means when discussing participation in electoralism is participation as a truly working-class party, as a party of the proletariat. The goals when engaging in electoralism are not to simply make reforms but to meet the masses who get their political ideas and education through the electoral process. In his time, their participation gave them a captive audience with the industrial workers of Russia, as granted by the electoral process of the time. Dedicated time to speak directly to the working class in their factories. Lenin viewed this as an opportunity to agitate and count their numbers. It gave the Bolsheviks a means of measuring their level of support and for support of the soviets.

The Bolsheviks famously engaged in illegal activity to fund their party activities, and there is emphasis on this as well from Lenin. While Stalin and the gang may have been doing bank heists to stock their coffers, or were being exiled for opposition to WW1, there are countless activities in my country (America) that are very much illegal that the working class should be engaging in. Wildcat strikes, for example, are illegal in the USA, but that shouldn’t stop those of us in unions from performing them. General strikes are broadly illegal in the USA as well, and again, that shouldn’t stop us. Being a communist and the leader of a trade union is also illegal in the states, but that shouldn’t stop us from becoming leaders of trade unions (it never really has, but you get my point). For liberals, the idea of breaking the law, even for good reason, is nearly unfathomable, and we have to dissuade them from this thinking. When Black Americans were performing their non-violent sit-ins at restaurants during the civil rights movement, they were not simply making people uncomfortable; they were breaking the law. I am convinced that point is not driven home at all with the way that part of recent history is taught, and as such, the concept of “good trouble” is heavily watered down as a result.

More broadly, thinking back over all these readings, one thing one must do is understand what a soviet even was. It’s funny that even my grammar checker wants to capitalize soviet, but there is a distinction between a soviet and the Soviets. Understanding that they were workers councils is the first step. They functioned as a kind of united front of union laborers, where a council of representatives from various trade unions were elected and acted as central organizers and coordinators. They formed militias to maintain order while performing strike actions; they created publications and press to bypass state-controlled media. In a way, they formed the germ of a new political life through democracy, militia, and media, all worker-controlled. This structure of dual power is what eventually allowed the soviets to subsume the role of the existing government and usher in the dictatorship of the proletariat in Russia.

Imperialism and Lenin’s analysis thereof pose hard questions for those of us living in the imperial core. We do not exist where the chains are weakest, where these revolutions found their foothold in history. We sit in the belly of the beast, and we can see what decades of imperial gluttony have done both at home and abroad. The world is far more capable of resisting the grasp of imperialism’s demands, and global dual power structures are found in organs like BRICS and The Belt and Road Initiative. The west is turning to fascism to deal with the rotting corpse of liberalism shambling about the earth. If there is one thing that reading Lenin has done to my brain, it’s instilled in me revolutionary optimism. What is to be done? Left-Wing Communism, and State and Revolution clear the road in my mind and shine like the north star.

What concerns me in this immediate moment is that we are woefully behind for what should be a revolutionary moment in history. In the last two weeks, we’ve seen at least one government liquidated via the Gen Z movement in Nepal, and we have move activity under way in Madagascar activity in Morocco. In the case of Nepal, it would seem that our good friends at the NED have their hands in the pot already. Time will tell about Morocco and Madagascar and any others that might spring up. In the states, there is resistance happening, but it’s hard to say if any true movement out of the Leninist camps is really happening. The world seems poised for Lenin’s strategies and tactics; it seems ripe for new soviets to challenge existing power, but the decades of repression of left thought have clearly taken their toll.

That isn’t to imply that all is lost. Only that, the best time to participate in building our mass movement was years ago, the second best time is right now. Pick up these books by Lenin from your friendly neighborhood archive and get to reading! It will take you less time than you think.