Was Lenin too Europe-centric?

[Blanquist]

Lenin was mostly focused on europe and europeon languages. Did he just not care?

What stopped him from learning Japanese?

[bad ideas actualised by alcohol]

Lenin was mostly focused on europe and europeon languages. Did he just not care?

What stopped him from learning Japanese?

Well, it's not like he lived really close to Japan. Also look how much he has been in exile, not that weird that someone would learn a bit of languages of the places they live.

[Crux]

Lenin was mostly focused on europe and europeon languages. Did he just not care?

What stopped him from learning Japanese?
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/jun/04.htm

[Q]

The Second International had its strongest presence in Europe and Europe was vital for the world revolution as it was the center of capitalism.

[Blanquist]

The Second International had its strongest presence in Europe and Europe was vital for the world revolution as it was the center of capitalism.

So, if Lenin were alive now, he would certainly learn eastern languages like chinese and japanese?

[bad ideas actualised by alcohol]

So, if Lenin were alive now, he would certainly learn eastern languages like chinese and japanese?

Depends on his personal interests,we can't know what he would've done because we can't look in his head can we? but why is it a problem that he didn't learn Japanese and Chinese? Does that make his theories les valuable?

[Khalid]

Eurocentrism was (and still is) a common problem of Communist movement.

[Mass Grave Aesthetics]

Lenin was probably less eurocentric than most major marxist thinkers of his time, f.e. his thesis on the socialist revolution and the self- determination of nations is not what I´d call eurocentric. Eurocentrism was also more understandable back then than it is now.

[Q]

So, if Lenin were alive now, he would certainly learn eastern languages like chinese and japanese?

Europe is still a vital part of the capitalist core and still has strong traditions of the workers movement.

[Igor]

Uh, not studying non-European languages doesn't mean you're Eurocentric. I speak several European as second languages myself (Russian, Swedish, French, English), because they're useful to me. Not because I'm Eurocentric, but because I live in Europe. As did Lenin. I could study Chinese, Arabic or Swahili for fun, for academic exercise or if those languages somehow suddenly became relevant to me, but at this point in my life, none of them are, and language learning isn't exactly a walk in the park, especially when we're talking non-European languages because they're usually very different from European languages, which are most related to each other, and studying them has a lot less steep of a learning curve.

So yeah, it's really about geographical proximity to where these languages are actually spoken and the fact that European languages are very much easier to learn for speakers of other European languages, not Eurocentrism. Eurocentrism is a serious problem even on the left, but it has nothing to do with language-learning patterns.

[cynicles]

I'm don't really see what him knowing only european languages has to do with eurocentric theory.

[Ocean Seal]

This really has little to do with Eurocentricism instead it has to do with the fact that you learned the languages that you were taught and education at the time was quite Eurocentric.

[A Marxist Historian]

So, if Lenin were alive now, he would certainly learn eastern languages like chinese and japanese?

Or ask others around him to learn them.

Lenin needed to know German and French, living so many years in Switzerland, and moreover German was the lingua franca of the world reovlutionary movement then. I think he learned English too.

Learning foreign languages is a valuable skill for revolutionaries (I know a decent number myself) but hardly a precondition, unless you are living abroad from your country.

-M.H.-

[Deliverous]

It is true that Marxism, like most of the other main theoretical standpoints, evolved out of Europe. There is a case perhaps to be said here that Marx, like Adam Smith and John Locke, were Euro-centric.

Though equally one could argue that merely because a point of view evolved from Europe, does not mean it is necessarily wrong. Postcolonial theory tends to highlight that Marxism is Euro-centric.

[The CPSU Chairman]

I'm reading William Duiker's biography of Ho Chi Minh right now, and apparently one of the big things that drew Ho Chi Minh to Communism was the fact that at the time he became interested in the movement, Lenin was one of the only people who was talking about taking any kind of revolutionary action outside of Europe. Liberating the colonial peoples, etc. The book talks at length about how when Ho was in France and the USSR, he had a lot of difficulty getting anyone in the leftist movement to pay any attention to the issue of the oppressed peoples of the colonies, and how Lenin seemed to be one of the only people in a high place who cared about the issue. Consequently, Ho was apparently devastated when Lenin died before he could meet him and speak with him.

So no, Lenin wasn't a Eurocentrist. And in any case, it's kinda ridiculous to suggest that a person is Eurocentric just because he only spoke European languages anyway. If Lenin was more focused on Europe than anywhere else, it's because he knew that the success of the Socialist movement depended on the success of revolution in the industrial nations of Europe.

[Prometeo liberado]

What stopped him from learning Japanese? Why didn't those damn Japanese learn to learn Lenin speak? Silly poster, tricky posts are for kids!

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

Failing to learn Kazakh, Mongolian, Azeri and Uzbek are probably better examples of Eurocentrism, considering these were actual parts of the Soviet Union at the time. Learning Kazakh as a Russian leader is more practical than learning, say, French from the perspective of actually relating to the domestic population one claims to represent. I don't know which languages Lenin himself knew but there was a general orientation towards learning European languages even before the languages of fellow residents of the Empire.

This failure to learn the languages of the periphery almost certainly contributed to the alienation between European socialists and the subject peoples of the empires in which they lived.


If Lenin was more focused on Europe than anywhere else, it's because he knew that the success of the Socialist movement depended on the success of revolution in the industrial nations of Europe.

This is of itself could be construed as a Eurocentric assumption. Certainly, since the time of Marx, industrialism has been associated with social ferment and change, and that pre-industrial movements did not succeed with the same frequency, however it is unscientific to assume that there is some kind of absolute necessity in it being a European-style "Industrial state".

[electrostal]

The Bolsheviks talked about the revolution in the East all the time, i don't think it makes sense to accuse them of "Eurocentrism".

[islandmilitia]

The Second International had its strongest presence in Europe and Europe was vital for the world revolution as it was the center of capitalism.

This comment seems to evade a whole set of key issues. Firstly, given that the initial question was about Lenin, it seems odd that you would immediately make a comment about the Second International, given that Lenin broke away from the Second International in many respects - including over the question of colonialism, and the role of conscious political leadership in the revolutionary process.

In the second place, and following on from the first point, you seem to treat the concentration of classical social democracy in Europe as if it were a reflection of objective reality, specifically the nature of capitalist development, that is, Europe being "the centre of capitalism". In doing so, you evade the ways in which the ideological Eurocentrism of the Second International - in particular, the extremely ambiguous attitude of many sections towards colonialism, nationalism, and anti-imperialism - was itself responsible for undermining the development of socialist politics outside of Europe, and allowing non-socialist politics such as bourgeois nationalism to dominate early anti-imperialist movements. In other words, you ignore that the European base of social democracy was a manifestation of the latter's ideological failures and shortcomings, rather than being objectively necessary. Moreover, you also present an over-simplistic conception of capitalist development which ignores the ways in which the "peripheral" position of non-European societies in world capitalism produced political and social conditions that favored the outbreak of revolutionary crises, as well as the ways in which the imperialist nature of European states facilitated the easing of social tensions andy class struggle, via the creation of the labour aristocracy.

Lenin's contribution was precisely to recognize these processes, to conduct a critique of the Eurocentrism of the Second Internationalism, and to emphasize the absolute centrality of the "periphery" to the socialist revolution. In that sense and to that extent, his politics represent a strong refutation of pseudo-socailist Eurocentrism and pro-imprialism. I would also argue that we need to be conscious of the transitions in Lenin's own thought over time, however, and not to view his ideas as a stable or unchanging whole, because Lenin came to emphasize the revolutionary potential of Asia largely towards the end of his life, after 1917.


Europe is still a vital part of the capitalist core and still has strong traditions of the workers movement.

In what sense? Within Europe and the EU, it is one of the countries that most approximates the status of a "peripheral" society - Greece - that offers the greatest opportunities for struggle, not the core countries of Europe. On a broader scale, it is still countries outside of Europe and North America that embody the conditions most likely to produce revolutionary crises (that is, the conditions of combined and uneven development) and it is between China and the US that we are seeing the emergence of new inter-imperialist tensions, not between European states, or between the EU and other power blocs.

[Forward Union]

He was Industry-centric, and most/all of the industry was in Europe at that time

[electrostal]

He was Industry-centric, and most/all of the industry was in Europe at that time
What?
Leninism doesn't say that a revolution is neccessarily to break out first in the most industrialized countries and then in the more undeveloped ones.
It is clear that the East was seen as having a great revolutionary potential.

[Red Joe]

Lenin was, after all, a Marxist. And Marx, of course, was primarily concerned with modern capitalism, which was developing in Europe. Lenin did, however, write an excellent book on imperialism, which drew it's power from exploiting the people and resources of it's colonial possessions...which were not European.

So...yes and no, but more no.

[Comrade Trollface]

What stopped him from learning Japanese?There wasn't any good anime out yet anyway I guess, so he had people for that.

[MarxSchmarx]

I'm not terribly surprised by Lenin's initial lack of attention to Asia; that was common among most westerners of the time, and indeed inadequate industrialization and the legacy of feudalism was quite widespread in Asia ; the Chinese revolution came late in Lenin's career, and the grip of the british raj was substantial.

What is perhaps more striking is Lenin's utter, utter lack of curiosity on so many things American. This is striking, because both north and south america were key to the development of a lot of European industries, major points of emigration, and by the early 20th century the United States's global weight could no longer be ignored. Moreover, at that time places like Argentina had per capita GDPs higher than italy or switzerland, raising real questions about where the wealth of the future would lie.

And yet Lenin seems to have been pretty completely indifferent to the situation in the Americas. This is in stark contrast to Marx, who gave considerable thought to how the new world differed from Europe. Even Lenin's so-called "letter to american workers" is rife with boilerplate slogans.

This i think is more plausible evidence of Lenin's incredible Euro-centrism than his comparative neglect of Asia, at least early on. He did eventually come to see things like the Chinese revolution in a new light, and I think Lenin loosened some his obsession with Europe as the civil war expanded east. But throughout his life, the silence of his pretty thorough omission of the new world is deafening.

[A Marxist Historian]

I'm not terribly surprised by Lenin's initial lack of attention to Asia; that was common among most westerners of the time, and indeed inadequate industrialization and the legacy of feudalism was quite widespread in Asia ; the Chinese revolution came late in Lenin's career, and the grip of the british raj was substantial.

What is perhaps more striking is Lenin's utter, utter lack of curiosity on so many things American. This is striking, because both north and south america were key to the development of a lot of European industries, major points of emigration, and by the early 20th century the United States's global weight could no longer be ignored. Moreover, at that time places like Argentina had per capita GDPs higher than italy or switzerland, raising real questions about where the wealth of the future would lie.

And yet Lenin seems to have been pretty completely indifferent to the situation in the Americas. This is in stark contrast to Marx, who gave considerable thought to how the new world differed from Europe. Even Lenin's so-called "letter to american workers" is rife with boilerplate slogans.

This i think is more plausible evidence of Lenin's incredible Euro-centrism than his comparative neglect of Asia, at least early on. He did eventually come to see things like the Chinese revolution in a new light, and I think Lenin loosened some his obsession with Europe as the civil war expanded east. But throughout his life, the silence of his pretty thorough omission of the new world is deafening.

Hm? He was very interested in America indeed. In fact, on agricultural questions, he was almost an America-obsessive. The whole line of argument of Lenin on the peasant question, which for Lenin was absolutely key, was that the land should be nationalized so that, with the feudal nobility erased from the picture, as in America, you'd get American-style small scale capitalist farming, the best basis for a bourgeois-democratic revolution overseen by "the democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry."

Of course, after 1917, when the peasants in fact did nationalize the land, get rid of the nobility and set about small-scale capitalist farming, he shifted gears, now seeing "kulak" i.e. American-style capitalist farmers as the new menace. He had already shifted from the "Old Bolshevik" ddpp program to a reasonable approximation of Trotsky's "permanent revolution" analysis when he published his famous "April Theses."

Now, he didn't play huge immediate attention to America in the period after 1917 for the simple reason that he knew America well enough to know that, whereas Europe and the colonial world were ripe for revolution, America really was not. But he played a definite role in bringing the initially quite ultraleft American Communists back to their senses.

Thus, it was Lenin who urged the American Communists to vote for Eugene Debs in 1920, something they refused to do. And it was Lenin who first suggested that it would be possible under certain circumstances for American Communists to advance the slogan of forming a Labor Party in America.

-M.H.-

[MarxSchmarx]

Hm? He was very interested in America indeed. In fact, on agricultural questions, he was almost an America-obsessive. The whole line of argument of Lenin on the peasant question, which for Lenin was absolutely key, was that the land should be nationalized so that, with the feudal nobility erased from the picture, as in America, you'd get American-style small scale capitalist farming, the best basis for a bourgeois-democratic revolution overseen by "the democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry."

Of course, after 1917, when the peasants in fact did nationalize the land, get rid of the nobility and set about small-scale capitalist farming, he shifted gears, now seeing "kulak" i.e. American-style capitalist farmers as the new menace. He had already shifted from the "Old Bolshevik" ddpp program to a reasonable approximation of Trotsky's "permanent revolution" analysis when he published his famous "April Theses."

Now, he didn't play huge immediate attention to America in the period after 1917 for the simple reason that he knew America well enough to know that, whereas Europe and the colonial world were ripe for revolution, America really was not. But he played a definite role in bringing the initially quite ultraleft American Communists back to their senses.

Thus, it was Lenin who urged the American Communists to vote for Eugene Debs in 1920, something they refused to do. And it was Lenin who first suggested that it would be possible under certain circumstances for American Communists to advance the slogan of forming a Labor Party in America.

-M.H.-

REally? I didn't know that; I mean, although I'm not a Leninist I have read Lenin's major books and never got that impression. In "Imperialism" for instance, America appears almost always alongside references to Asia and often references to Australia/Oceania (suggesting a view of America as outside the west instead of merely outside Europe) and he at times compares the US to Germany in Marx's time as a developing capitalist state and hardly references Latin America at all. Maybe in his private correspondence or after he gained power in memoranda and stuff he exhibited a different side.

As to the Eugene Debs vote, the only reference that I've seen that was in his aforementioned "letter to american workers" which doesn't convey to the reader a very distinct understanding of the American situation .