Lenin and Marx Contrasted

[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

Actually, I was wrong, it was Engels who wrote that, clearly something was wrong with his materialism that day.  He also wrote this:

Quote:

Answer: We are convinced not only of the uselessness but even of the harmfulness of all conspiracies. We are also aware that revolutions are not made deliberately and arbitrarily but that everywhere and at all times they are the necessary consequence of circumstances which are not in any way whatever dependent either on the will or on the leadership of individual parties or of whole classes. But we also see that the development of the proletariat in almost all countries of the world is forcibly repressed by the possessing classes and that thus a revolution is being forcibly worked for by the opponents of communism. If, in the end, the oppressed proletariat is thus driven into a revolution, then we will defend the cause of the proletariat just as well by our deeds as now by our words.

[my bold]You really, really don't understand any of this, do you, YMS? This is Engels' 'Materialism', 'that day' and every day, and is nothing whatsoever to do with Marx's ideas about 'social production'.Engels was talking complete bollocks, as many socialists have pointed out since the late 19th century.Let's spell out what Labriola et al pointed out:              'the necessary consequence of circumstances' is voided by 'if'.Engels' letters in the 1890s say the same nonsense. He argues for 'finality', and denies 'finality', in the same letter.This guff impresses the 'materialists', but everyone who's read Marx since with an open mind, can easily see where Engels destroyed Marx's political argument.Marx argued for social production and change; Engels argued for matter and finality. The 'ultimate' is a religious  concept, which is why 'materialism' is a faith.Apparently, a 'faith' followed by those who can't read and make sense of texts…

[Anonymous]

LBird wrote:

Young Master Smeet wrote:

Actually, I was wrong, it was Engels who wrote that, clearly something was wrong with his materialism that day.  He also wrote this:

Quote:

Answer: We are convinced not only of the uselessness but even of the harmfulness of all conspiracies. We are also aware that revolutions are not made deliberately and arbitrarily but that everywhere and at all times they are the necessary consequence of circumstances which are not in any way whatever dependent either on the will or on the leadership of individual parties or of whole classes. But we also see that the development of the proletariat in almost all countries of the world is forcibly repressed by the possessing classes and that thus a revolution is being forcibly worked for by the opponents of communism. If, in the end, the oppressed proletariat is thus driven into a revolution, then we will defend the cause of the proletariat just as well by our deeds as now by our words.

[my bold]You really, really don't understand any of this, do you, YMS? This is Engels' 'Materialism', 'that day' and every day, and is nothing whatsoever to do with Marx's ideas about 'social production'.Engels was talking complete bollocks, as many socialists have pointed out since the late 19th century.Let's spell out what Labriola et al pointed out:              'the necessary consequence of circumstances' is voided by 'if'.Engels' letters in the 1890s say the same nonsense. He argues for 'finality', and denies 'finality', in the same letter.This guff impresses the 'materialists', but everyone who's read Marx since with an open mind, can easily see where Engels destroyed Marx's political argument.Marx argued for social production and change; Engels argued for matter and finality. The 'ultimate' is a religious  concept, which is why 'materialism' is a faith.Apparently, a 'faith' followed by those who can't read and make sense of texts…

You are going off track again, you have to prove thru Lenin works that the socialist party is a Leninist group, and untill now you have not been able to prove thatWe  might also reject volume 2 and volume 3 of Capital that were finished, and  compiled  by Engels. He was the only person at that moment able to understand Marx handwritting

[Anonymous]

ALB wrote:

What is Leninism (contrasted with Marx's views)?  I suggest there are three basic positions that are not found in Marx.1. The theory of the need for a top-down, hierarchical vanguard party to lead the workers and seize power supposedly on their behalf.2. The distinction bewtween "socialism" and "communism" where "socialism" is defined as a society where everybody is an employee of the State and where money, markets, banks, wages, production for sale, etc continue to exist, i.e that state capitalism is"socialism" and a necessary step on the way to socialism/communism.3. The theory that a section of the workers in the "imperialist" countries are given a share in the super-profits of imperialist exploitation and that this is why they aren't revolutionary; and that support should therefore be given to anti-imperialist movements as, if successful, this will deprive workers in the imperialist countries of their share of super-profits and so make them amenable to following the lead of the vanguard party.We, in the Socialist Party, have always opposed these three positions (both as wrong in themselves and as not representing Marx's view either) and so are anti-Leninist. OK, Lenin accepted the Labour Theory of Value and the Materialist Conception of History and we do too, but if that makes us Leninists it would make a lot of others too. But it's the logic fallacy of A is x, B is x, therefore B is A.

 We have not mentioned Lenin Nationalist point of view, and his conception on the National Question and the colonies, and we have never taken any nationalist stand. On the National Question, Rosa Luxembourg took a much better stand than Marx, and Luxembourg was questioning volume 2 of Capital and what Engels did with volume 2, and she  fell deeper  on his own mistakes when she wrote the Anti-Critiquehttp://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1990s/1998/no-1125-may-1998/world-view-lenin-theorist-nationalismhttp://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/education/depth-articles/socialist-writers/rosa-luxemburg-and-national-questionI can also say that Marx stand supporting certain bourgeois revolution and his wrong conception on the national question is also an excuse used by the Leninist to approve their own nationalism, can we say that Marx was a proto-Leninist ? 

[ALB]

mcolome1 wrote:

I can also say that Marx stand supporting certain bourgeois revolution and his wrong conception on the national question is also an excuse used by the Leninist to approve their own nationalism, can we say that Marx was a proto-Leninist ?

I remember giving a talk on just this at the 1998 SPGB Summer school:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/audio/did-lenin-really-distort-marxThe text is also in our pamphlet Marxism Revisted.I've just checked and the answer was:

Quote:

So, we can say, in answer to the question "Was Marx a Leninist?", that he did flirt with Leninist-type ideas for a while but then abandoned them and always thereafter opposed them in favour of a long and protracted process of working-class self-organisation which would eventually lead to them being ready to win political control and establish socialism.

[Anonymous]

robbo203 wrote:

LBird wrote:

robbo, the simple answer to your predicament is to realise that we don't share the same political ideology.I'm a Democratic Communist, influenced by Marx's ideas about 'social production', and the democratic control of that production.You believe something else.I can't explain my views from your perspective, only from my own.If you don't accept my Marxist viewpoint, that's fine by me. If you don't think all social production should be democratically controlled, that's fine by me.I'm more interested in discussing these democratic ideas about social production with socialists who are influenced by Marx.Quite frankly, your ideological focus on 'Opportunity Costs', 'specialists' and 'individuals' is irrelevant to me, and my views about social revolution, workers' democracy and socialism. My views, similarly, will be irrelevant to you.Why not take up your discussion with someone who shares your ideology?

So, once again, yet another famous LBird cop-out… You know, the idea that you can just dismiss the question of opportunity costs as ideological and something to be ignored is really quite silly.  Opportunity costs are unavoidable in life and in any conceivable kind of society.  I agree there is an ideological aspect to them inasmuch as they involve choices but that is a different matter.  The point is that you cannot avoid having to make such choices however ideological these choices are. There is nothing "Marxist" in dismissing the concept of opportunity costs.  In fact if Marx were a member of this forum I could well imagine him now  in front of his  laptop furiously  firing off a post in that characterisically brusque manner of his, branding LBird as an idealist nincompoop who has no grasp of basic economics Opportunity costs are everywhere.  If you LBird decide to respond to this post,  the opportunity cost of you doing so is to forego that game of snooker you promised you would play with your mates down at the pub.  If a socialist society decided to build a bridge out of 20k tonnes of some metal alloy then the opportunity costs of that is to do without all those tractors you could have manufactured out of all this metal alloy.  If Jill decide to take a 5 year degree course to become a competent neurosurgeon then the opportunity cost of that is to abandon the idea of becoming a competent and trained up geophysicist  able to decide whether some obscure theory in geophysics is true or not And finally – on what grounds do you imagine I do not support the idea that "production should be democratically controlled"???  I do and I have said so.  Howeever that idea is TOTALLY TOTALLY TOTALLY different to the idea we are talking about here which is the idea of "democratically determining whether scientific theories are true". I feel I need to capitalise these words and repeat them  to bring this to your attention. Why is it that whenever we have this discussion you always scurry back to the comfrot zone of appealing to the idea that production should be democratically controlled when this is NOT – repeat NOT – what I am calling into question?? You are trying to couple this idea with your own idiosyncratic idea which is nowhere to be found in Marx that scientific theories should be democratically voted upon, Ive seen through your tactic LBird and it wont wash….

 Now, we have discovered according to L Bird that Robbo is not a socialist, he is a defender of the capitalist ideology. Many peoples will hold themselves to a hot nail in order to defend their wrong conceptions.  I have seen in many forum and sites Robbo defending Marx stands and the stands of the Socialist Party

[Dave B]

There was no division between Marx and Engels. Any Apparent differences were a result of them dealing with separate aspects of their combined case, thus;  As a consequence of the division of labour that existed between Marx and myself, it fell to me to present our opinions in the periodical press, that is to say, particularly in the fight against opposing views, in order that Marx should have time for the elaboration of his great basic work. Thus it became my task to present our views, for the most part in a polemical form, in opposition to other kinds of views. So also here.  https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1872/housing-question/preface.htm Engels also did not have any finality position either. As it is not our task to create utopian systems for the arrangement of the future society,… https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1872/housing-question/ch01.htm  %5BA much under read and ignored important booklet incidentally if you like teasing out interesting stuff from a boring subject matter.] If the statement “socialism or Barbarism” doesn’t make that clear? On Lenin’s “State and Revolution” it is obviously lauded by modern anti Bukharinist Leninists. The irony of it is that Lenin actually disowned it. Lenin was never shy about quoting his own past material but he never referred back to that. In fact when Lenin started his stagiest state capitalist April 1918 (as opposed to april 1917) Bukharin wrote a glowing review of it as part of his criticism of Lenin’s state capitalist thesis. Rubbing Lenin’s face in his own recent material; intended and understood by Lenin as that. The vanguardist what is to be done stuff ‘where the word became flesh’ so to speak reappeared again later. V. I. LeninThe Trade Unions, The Present SituationAnd Trotsky’s Mistakes Speech Delivered At A Joint Meeting Of Communist Delegates To The Eighth Congress Of Soviets, Communist Members Of The All-Russia Central Council Of Trade Unions And Communist Members Of The Moscow City Council Of Trade Unions December 30, 1920  But the dictatorship of the proletariat cannot be exercised through an organisation embracing the whole of that class, because in all capitalist countries (and not only over here, in one of the most backward) the proletariat is still so divided, so degraded, and so corrupted in parts (by imperialism in some countries) that an organisation taking in the whole proletariat cannot directly exercise proletarian dictatorship. It can be exercised only by a vanguard that has absorbed the revolutionary energy of the class. The whole is like an arrangement of cogwheels. Such is the basic mechanism of the dictatorship of the proletariat, and of the essentials of transition from capitalism to communism. http://marxists.anu.edu.au/archive/lenin/works/1920/dec/30.htm  On this ‘finality’ thing well it isn’t that simple. It’s about extrapolation or projection or where is what is going on going to end up if it continues like this. It is the essence of Hegelianism and in fact science and cosmology etc. The idea of Karl was that we would end up with a load off, or in fact not many, rich bastards owning everything and a real load of wage slaves. And even the rich bastards not being able to control their systems but mere being hand-maidens to a system. The basic idea has since 2003 reappeared in a most peculiar form; many of these serious scientists are starting to take it seriously including Brian Cox’s co-worker and mate- went to his lecture in Manchester last week.

[ALB]

Thanks Dave. That passage from Lenin deserves highlighting as it brings out the essence of Leninism and why we've nothing in common with it.:

Lenin wrote:

V. I. Lenin The Trade Unions, The Present Situation And Trotsky’s MistakesSpeech Delivered At A Joint Meeting Of Communist Delegates To The Eighth Congress Of Soviets, Communist Members Of The All-Russia Central Council Of Trade Unions And Communist Members Of The Moscow City Council Of Trade Unions December 30, 1920But the dictatorship of the proletariat cannot be exercised through an organisation embracing the whole of that class, because in all capitalist countries (and not only over here, in one of the most backward) the proletariat is still so divided, so degraded, and so corrupted in parts (by imperialism in some countries) that an organisation taking in the whole proletariat cannot directly exercise proletarian dictatorship.It can be exercised only by a vanguard that has absorbed the revolutionary energy of the class. The whole is like an arrangement of cogwheels. Such is the basic mechanism of the dictatorship of the proletariat, and of the essentials of transition from capitalism to communism.http://marxists.anu.edu.au/archive/lenin/works/1920/dec/30.htm

[Bijou Drains]

robbo203 wrote:

LBird wrote:

robbo, the simple answer to your predicament is to realise that we don't share the same political ideology.I'm a Democratic Communist, influenced by Marx's ideas about 'social production', and the democratic control of that production.You believe something else.I can't explain my views from your perspective, only from my own.If you don't accept my Marxist viewpoint, that's fine by me. If you don't think all social production should be democratically controlled, that's fine by me.I'm more interested in discussing these democratic ideas about social production with socialists who are influenced by Marx.Quite frankly, your ideological focus on 'Opportunity Costs', 'specialists' and 'individuals' is irrelevant to me, and my views about social revolution, workers' democracy and socialism. My views, similarly, will be irrelevant to you.Why not take up your discussion with someone who shares your ideology?

So, once again, yet another famous LBird cop-out… You know, the idea that you can just dismiss the question of opportunity costs as ideological and something to be ignored is really quite silly.  Opportunity costs are unavoidable in life and in any conceivable kind of society.  I agree there is an ideological aspect to them inasmuch as they involve choices but that is a different matter.  The point is that you cannot avoid having to make such choices however ideological these choices are. There is nothing "Marxist" in dismissing the concept of opportunity costs.  In fact if Marx were a member of this forum I could well imagine him now  in front of his  laptop furiously  firing off a post in that characterisically brusque manner of his, branding LBird as an idealist nincompoop who has no grasp of basic economics Opportunity costs are everywhere.  If you LBird decide to respond to this post,  the opportunity cost of you doing so is to forego that game of snooker you promised you would play with your mates down at the pub.  If a socialist society decided to build a bridge out of 20k tonnes of some metal alloy then the opportunity costs of that is to do without all those tractors you could have manufactured out of all this metal alloy.  If Jill decide to take a 5 year degree course to become a competent neurosurgeon then the opportunity cost of that is to abandon the idea of becoming a competent and trained up geophysicist  able to decide whether some obscure theory in geophysics is true or not And finally – on what grounds do you imagine I do not support the idea that "production should be democratically controlled"???  I do and I have said so.  Howeever that idea is TOTALLY TOTALLY TOTALLY different to the idea we are talking about here which is the idea of "democratically determining whether scientific theories are true". I feel I need to capitalise these words and repeat them  to bring this to your attention. Why is it that whenever we have this discussion you always scurry back to the comfrot zone of appealing to the idea that production should be democratically controlled when this is NOT – repeat NOT – what I am calling into question?? You are trying to couple this idea with your own idiosyncratic idea which is nowhere to be found in Marx that scientific theories should be democratically voted upon, Ive seen through your tactic LBird and it wont wash….

Robbo, your whole argument is completely fallacious. Are you honestly expecting the members of this forum, to swallow this disingenuous nonsense whole? The very idea? I can't believe that a contributor with such a consistent track record of well developed and consistent argument would have the temerity to think that we would seriously believe that L Bird had a mate?Shame in you

[Anonymous]

ALB wrote:

Thanks Dave. That passage from Lenin deserves highlighting as it brings out the essence of Leninism and why we've nothing in common with it.:

Lenin wrote:

V. I. Lenin The Trade Unions, The Present Situation And Trotsky’s MistakesSpeech Delivered At A Joint Meeting Of Communist Delegates To The Eighth Congress Of Soviets, Communist Members Of The All-Russia Central Council Of Trade Unions And Communist Members Of The Moscow City Council Of Trade Unions December 30, 1920But the dictatorship of the proletariat cannot be exercised through an organization embracing the whole of that class, because in all capitalist countries (and not only over here, in one of the most backward) the proletariat is still so divided, so degraded, and so corrupted in parts (by imperialism in some countries) that an organization taking in the whole proletariat cannot directly exercise proletarian dictatorship.It can be exercised only by a vanguard that has absorbed the revolutionary energy of the class. The whole is like an arrangement of cogwheels. Such is the basic mechanism of the dictatorship of the proletariat, and of the essentials of transition from capitalism to communism.http://marxists.anu.edu.au/archive/lenin/works/1920/dec/30.htm

Lenin wrote that the essence of Marxism was the dictatorship of the proletariat, this phrase of Lenin shows that  he did not have a complete understanding of the whole body of ideas of Marx, and all the  Bolshevik parties around the world  did not understand it  either, and they still continue supporting the DOP,  in a worldly  society where capitalism has expanded all over the earth. For me, personally  the DOP was completely mistake from Marx, and it was not  applicable on the XIX Century, and it was not  applicable on the XX Century and it is not applicable in our times.The only Marxist which was able to describe properly the DOP was Karl Kaustky, and Lenin made a real mess, and he has confused too many workers and members of the Leninist party, on his book Kautsky clean the floor with Lenin analysis of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, and during the times of Marx, dictatorship means government, and it was an expression taken from the Roman world. Can we say the Marx and Kaustsky were Leninists ?  When Kautsky was a  genuine socialist he was able to clean the floor with Leninism because he had better argumentation, Lenin tried to destroy him when he wrote The Renegade Karl Kaustky, but he has  forgotten everything that he learned from Kautsky, and he forgot that Kaustky was one of the greatest exponent of Marxism before 1900. Can we throw away everything that Kaustky wrote before 1900 ? ( It was not 1914 as Lenin wrote )  Can we  throw away all the contributions that F.  Engels made to socialism because he made certain mistakes ? I came to Socialism because I had the opportunity when I was very young to read Engels" From Utopian to Scientific Socialism," and that was my point of departure, it might contain mistakes, but, we can not throw it  away completely,  we can  also see how Lenin in certain moments he also changed some of this point of view. There is a great difference between being critical and being unflexibleThis Socialist Party of Great Britain and the WSM have never supported the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, and we  came to the understanding that it is not needed in our time because capitalism has been established all over the earth, and we are able to establish a society of free access, and we are able to produce more than during the XIX and the XX century. Where is our similarity with Leninism ? Probably,  I might need binoculars to see the equality.Someone told Charles Denby that he has been brainwashed by the communists, and he said that he should have been brainwashed when he was a  slave. I would like to say that I should have been 'brainwashed" by the principles of the Socialist Party when I was born, because I could have avoided so many ideological  problems, and could have understood socialism since I was very young,  One of the major problem that I have faced to get new members for the WSM is that we are not Leninists, they can not understand that we can be socialist without being Leninists, and that there were  Marxists who were anti-Bolsheviks

[Anonymous]

LBird wrote:

ALB wrote:

jondwhite wrote:

Also mcolome1 recommends Franz Mehring herehttp://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/forum/general-discussion/new-trojan-horse-elf-lacan-left#comment-36394Wasn't Mehring a Leninist?

No, I wouldn't say so.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_MehringSounds as if he was more of a "Luxemburgist" if anything.

In regard to the issue of whether there was a 'unified entity' named 'Marx-Engels', then Mehring was a Leninist.This was opposed by, for example, Lukacs, Korsch and Gramsci, who discussed the differences between Marx's and Engels' separate views.I'm sure that I don't need to stress to the SPGB the political pedigree of the 'unified entity Marx-Engels' claim?Hmmm…well… why not?Marx-EngelsMarx-Engels-LeninMarx-Engels-Lenin-Stalin'Unified entities', eh? There's always a political purpose for the concept, which is an essentially conservative one of building political legitimacy for the later in the chain, based on the legitimacy of the first in the chain.That's why 'materialists' always link Engels to Marx, because it is a political necessity.

Off Topic clarificationsGeorge Lukacs which is not the  topic ( You are just trying to derail the main topic which Lenin vs Marx ) was a member of the Frankfurt School, and one of the favorite idol of the Marxist-Humanists and he was a Hegelian, He considered that Orthodox Marxism was Marx and Engels, the Marxist Humanist rejected the Vanguard Party, but they did not reject Leninism completely, even more,  they have said that Lenin was ambivalent, and Kevin Anderson wrote a book in Lenin based on that ambivalenceAntonio Gramsci was a member of the Italian left, and he never broke away from Leninism, he had conflict with Trotsky, and Hugo Chavez requested to the Venezuelan workers to study his work because his conception of revolution had affinity with his view, along with the permanent revolution of Trotsky, that is reason why Celia Hart a famous Cuban Trotsky was supporting the Bolivarian revolution and Gramsci. Wherever you see Engels, you see Leninism, and wherever you do not see Engels, you see Marxism including those that support state capitalism

[Anonymous]

ALB wrote:

Young Master Smeet wrote:

To be fair to Lenin: in his 'What is to be done' he did propose a society of shared work, democratic production, with every cook an accountant, etc.  And in his later essays, such as "Better Fewer but Better" he suggested that the role of his government was to raise the culture of the workers: so I don't think he envisaged technical dictatorship forever, any more than Marx did.

Actually, YMS, it wasn't in What Is To Be Done that Lenin put forward these ideas but in State and Revolution. As Marcos has just pointed out, in the former he puts forward his notorious view of the need for a vanguard party to bring socialist ideas to the workers considered incapable on their own of developing beyond a trade union consciousness.Here is an article from the Socialist Standard  in April 1970 (the centenary of his birth) which discusses Lenin's last articles including the one you quote from. It shows a different Lenin, or at least a more realistic one in the circumstances:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1970s/1970/no-788-april-1970/did-lenin-admit-defeat

 What is to be done ? was not going to be republished by Lenin, but after  his death and during his  sickness they continued publishing itLenin considered this conception as a  temporary measure that was only applicable to Russia. What would have happened if they have decided to eliminate the vanguard party concept ? Some individuals and groups have rejected the vanguard party concept and they continued supoorting Leninism, therefore, it did not make any differencehttp://www.wspus.org/in-depth/russia-lenin-and-state-capitalism/   This was the stand of the Impossibillist of the SPGB since the very beginning in regard to the Vanguard Party.We have another articles which says that What is to be done? and the vanguard party concept is the Prince Machiavelli of Russia, a political manipulation from the top.  Do we need more evidences to show that we are not a vanguard party, and that we do not support vanguardisnm ? If we take this case to a court,  our accusser are going to leave with the tails between their legs, because they are not going to have sufficient argumentation to prove it

[ALB]

mcolome1 wrote:

George LukacsAntonio Gramsci

Good point and not at all off topic. Two dyed-in-the-wool, die-hard supporters of the Vanguard Party (Lukacs was even worse than Lenin in arguing that the party could/should substitute for the class) and Russian State Capitalism quoted favourably while we dyed-in-the-wool, die-hard opponents of the Vanguard Party and State Capitalism are called Leninist.  The world turned upside down.

[Anonymous]

ALB wrote:

mcolome1 wrote:

George LukacsAntonio Gramsci

Good point and not at all off topic. Two dyed-in-the-wool, die-hard supporters of the Vanguard Party (Lukacs was even worse than Lenin in arguing that the party could/should substitute for the class) and Russian State Capitalism quoted favourably while we dyed-in-the-wool, die-hard opponents of the Vanguard Party and State Capitalism are called Leninist.  The world turned upside down.

http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/2000s/2004/no-1193-january-2004/more-lenin-or-less-lenin This is another good article from the SPGB in regard to the Italian Left, or communist left  and Bordiga who was also related to Korsch, which rejected Marxism in 1960, and the class nature of the state ( similar to the Lacanian left )  and the International Communist Current was also in one time based on the conception of Bordiga, those are Leninists of others stripes. More Lenin, or Less Lenin ? 

[Anonymous]

ALB wrote:

mcolome1 wrote:

George LukacsAntonio Gramsci

Good point and not at all off topic. Two dyed-in-the-wool, die-hard supporters of the Vanguard Party (Lukacs was even worse than Lenin in arguing that the party could/should substitute for the class) and Russian State Capitalism quoted favourably while we dyed-in-the-wool, die-hard opponents of the Vanguard Party and State Capitalism are called Leninist.  The world turned upside down.

George Lukacs also subscribed himself to the concept of Dialectical Materialism, which is not a creation of Marx, or Plekhanov, it is a creation of JOSEPH DIETZGEN. Lenin created the concept of Materialism-dialectical-historical. Since we have subscribed to the  Materialist Conception of History , we are Engelsian and Leninists.

[ALB]

Here's Lukacs the Leninist:

Quote:

If there is one commonplace which cannot be too strongly emphasized, it is that the communist party is the organizational expression of the revolutionary will of the proletariat. It is therefore by no means bound to embrace the whole of the proletariat from the very outset; as the conscious leader of the revolution, as the embodiment of the revolutionary idea, its task is rather to unite the most conscious sections, the vanguard, the really revolutionary and fully class-conscious workers. The revolution itself is brought about necessarily by the natural laws governing the economic forces. The duty and the mission of communist parties everywhere is to supply the revolutionary movement – which to a large extent arises independently of them – with a direction and a goal and to lead the elemental outbreaks sparked off by the collapse of the capitalist economic order on to the only viable path of salvation, on to the dictatorship of the proletariat.

Pure Leninist Vanguardism — the conscious vanguard leading the merely discontented masses, a perfect echo of What Is To Be Done?  But I wouldn't be so illogical as to try to argue that because A shares Lukacs views on epistemology and because Lukacs was a Leninst, therefore A is a Leninist.

[Author]

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