Lenin's Philosophical Notebooks (Marxism Made Cheap)

One of the great summits of Marxist theory, Lenin's famed Philosophical Notebooks on Hegel, Feurbach, Marx, Aristotle, and the major debates of his era are a long-ignored wellspring for academics and activists alike! "Aphorism: It is impossible completely to understand Marx's Capital, and especially its first chapter, without having thoroughly studied and understood the whole of Hegel's Logic. Consequently, half a century later none of the Marxists understood Marx!!,” exclaimed the Russian exile Lenin. Living in Switzerland, utterly flummoxed as the European Socialist movement imploded into the bloodshed of the First World War where proletarian solidarity was sacrificed in service of racism, colonialism, imperialism, and Great Nation chauvinism, Vladimir Ilyitch Ulyanov, nom de guerre Lenin, retired to study the writings of G. F. W. Hegel, the foundational theorist that inspired Marx. After reading The Science of Logic, Lectures on the Philosophy of History, and the Lesser Logic, he emerged with the grasp of dialectics that enabled him to author later monumental works such as The April Theses and State and Revolution. Long dismissed unfairly as an authoritarian monster, author of Stalin's worst totalitarian abuses, here is Lenin the continental philosopher, theorist, and critic. With End Notes, Index, and Editorial provided by the Soviet Progress Publishers, this volume, long out-of-print and unfairly maligned by a century of Cold War calumnies and prejudices, now is reissued in an affordable and accessible form for a new century of scholars and activists seeking to grasp the true depth of this revolutionary philosopher. The deep richness of Lenin's Notes would overwhelm me if it were not for their utter simplicity. It is a masterly understatement to say that I am immensely impressed. -Raya Dunayevskaya