{"id":184,"date":"2010-07-23T08:09:07","date_gmt":"2010-07-23T15:09:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lexiconic.net\/wheatfromthechaff\/07-3\/wheat-from-the-chaff-a-j-polan-lenin-and-the-end-of-politics"},"modified":"2013-05-19T13:27:19","modified_gmt":"2013-05-19T20:27:19","slug":"wheat-from-the-chaff-a-j-polan-lenin-and-the-end-of-politics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lexiconic.net\/wheatfromthechaff\/archives\/184","title":{"rendered":"A.J. Polan: Lenin and the End of Politics"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"wp_fb_like_button\" style=\"margin:5px 0;float:none;height:30px;\"><script src=\"http:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/all.js#xfbml=1\"><\/script><fb:like href=\"https:\/\/lexiconic.net\/wheatfromthechaff\/archives\/184\" send=\"false\" layout=\"standard\" width=\"450\" show_faces=\"false\" font=\"arial\" action=\"recommend\" colorscheme=\"light\"><\/fb:like><\/div><div id=\"content\">\n<div class=\"blog\">\n<p><!-- back and forward --><\/p>\n<div class=\"blogbody\">\n<p><span>One of the more stimulating and thoughtful examples of progressive \u201cleft wing\u201d pluralism is A.J. Polan\u2019s<em> Lenin &amp; the End of Politics*<\/em>. Polan\u2019s book is not merely an attack on the political and historical outcomes of Bolshevism; it\u2019s an attack on the very logic that underlies Lenin\u2019s most democratic and emancipatory analysis of the state, <em>The State and Revolution<\/em>. The central assumptions that ground this text, Polan argues, form a fundamentally \u201ccausal\u201d element (p. 129) in the creation of the totalitarian Soviet state. In other words, Polan takes issue with Lenin\u2019s \u201cbest possible case\u201d (p. 58), one where Lenin temporarily veers away from his vanguardist theories and discusses the possibility of a society run by local workers\u2019 councils, or soviets. <\/span><\/p>\n<p>At the core of Polan\u2019s critique is an epistemological belief in the limitation of human understanding, which in turn leads to a view of politics that&#8217;s, at least in terms of values, irreducibly pluralistic:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cThe political realm has to deal with questions to which no answers have so far been found that have the status of absolute truth and can command the assent of an entire populace. Politics, therefore, is fundamentally the contest of conflicting value orientations. The answers to these fundamental issues can never be derived and formulated in the language of rationality and calculability that is the proud possession of the [bureaucratic] administrators\u201d (p. 105).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Buttressing Polan\u2019s analysis is his belief in the historically specific Western consciousness, a consciousness that \u2013 following Sartre \u2013 is self-aware yet chaotic. In the language of post-modern thought, subjectivity is both the product of and scourge to regularized power. The modern individual is a matter of possibility \u201cproduced by \u2018conscience\u2019, the possibility of choice. This is the ambiguous burden which the world of modernity inscribes in the heart of the human soul\u201d (p. 213).<\/p>\n<p>According to Polan, Lenin rejects such a view and invokes the Marxist equivalent of Rousseau\u2019s <em>general will<\/em> (p. 73). The antinomies of Kant\u2019s modern Man are reduced to a single Identity (p. 136 ff.). From the vantage point of the working class (and the Party), Lenin is incapable of viewing dissent or difference as anything but error. And since the Bolsheviks know the irrefutable truth, Lenin (and not just Stalin) is incapable of tolerating politics. To Lenin,<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201c[p]olitics is private self-interest made public. Thus Lenin\u2019s first move is to abolish any possible distance between the gross economic position of an individual and his motivations; to abolish any space for \u2018values\u2019, and consequently, disagreement over values\u201d (p. 175).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Lenin does what politicians of any age have done to their opponents: label their views as merely self-interested, and without principle or merit. But going beyond Western practice (at least until Fox News), Lenin\u2019s opponents are \u201cdelegitimized <em>a priori<\/em>\u201d (p. 174). Enforced by the Cheka and the Red Army, Lenin moves quickly to quash any possible opposition from the outside (liberals and Socialist Revolutionaries) and from within (the \u201cLeftists\u201d and the \u201clabour aristocracy\u201d). Opposition, in other words, is liquidated rather than regularized in parliamentary institutions. In Lenin\u2019s view, why regularize falsehoods?<\/p>\n<p>In the end, the key lesson I take from Polan\u2019s book is that your view of truth has a critically important impact on your political theory, and it must be a consideration during any point of research, analysis and reconstruction. Alongside a view of human nature, a theory of knowledge is a necessary foundation for how you interpret the nature of political life, and formulate essential concepts like politics, autonomy and power.<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;\">* Polan, A.J.. <em>Lenin &amp; the End of Politics<\/em>. Oakland: U. of California Press, 1984.<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"posted\">Posted by <a href=\"mailto:cwelch@lexiconic.net\">Colin Welch<\/a> at 1:05 PM<br \/>\n<em>Edited on: Monday, August 09, 2010 6:46 PM<\/em><br \/>\nCategories: <a href=\"http:\/\/lexiconic.net\/wheatfromthechaff2\/archives\/cat_books.html\">Books<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/lexiconic.net\/wheatfromthechaff2\/archives\/cat_inaphilosophicalmood.html\">In a Philosophical Mood<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One of the more stimulating and thoughtful examples of progressive \u201cleft wing\u201d pluralism is A.J. Polan\u2019s Lenin &amp; the End of Politics*. Polan\u2019s book is not merely an attack on the political and historical outcomes of Bolshevism; it\u2019s an attack on the very logic that underlies Lenin\u2019s most democratic and emancipatory analysis of the state, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,109,13,14],"tags":[154,153,152,150,151],"class_list":["post-184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-critical-theory","category-in-a-philosophical-mood","category-language","tag-book","tag-epistemology","tag-knowledge","tag-polan","tag-theory"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lexiconic.net\/wheatfromthechaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lexiconic.net\/wheatfromthechaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lexiconic.net\/wheatfromthechaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lexiconic.net\/wheatfromthechaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lexiconic.net\/wheatfromthechaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=184"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/lexiconic.net\/wheatfromthechaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1773,"href":"https:\/\/lexiconic.net\/wheatfromthechaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184\/revisions\/1773"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lexiconic.net\/wheatfromthechaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lexiconic.net\/wheatfromthechaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lexiconic.net\/wheatfromthechaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}