Page:Solomon Abramovich Lozovsky - Lenin, The Great Strategist of the Class War - tr. Alexander Bittleman (1924).pdf/12

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

Marxism in Practice.

LENIN was a Marxian dialectician. There are many people that know Marx very well but are incapable of deriving the political lessons and conclusions implied in theory. In this respect Lenin was totally different. He has taken the Marxian theory and methods and applied them in the practice of life. And with the help of his acute analytical mind he interpreted events in their dialectical development. Lenin was one of the foremost experts in the economic and philosophical theories of Marx. But as already said, he was not primarily a theoretician, but a practical Marxian and a political dialectician. The Hegelian dialectics which Marx had developed to its highest point were completely mastered by Lenin. He never reasoned abstractly. He despised pure rationalizing. He hated the free sway of "pure reasoning." He fought against philosophic charlatanism and always proved in action that the truth is concrete.

Just as Marx was manoeuvring with the general factors of economic life, so was Lenin maoeuvring with the concrete forces of the class struggle. In the colorful kaleidoscope of social relations and from the complexities of the everyday events of modern life he always managed to hit upon the fundamental and most important tendencies. He was never deceived by appearances. He was a man called upon to tread new paths. Always pursuing his own way, capable by means of his dialectics not only to explain but constantly to drive history forward, Lenin was a dialectician in politics and a Marxist in action. That is, he knew exactly how to make history in as masterly a fashion as Marx explained it.

10