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Lenin 100 years on new issue of In Defence of Marxism magazine out now

Marxist Theory · 2026-05-13

Core Argument

This article announces the publication of Issue 44 of In Defence of Marxism magazine, timed to the centenary of Lenin's death in 1924. The central thesis is that Lenin's theoretical and political legacy remains an indispensable weapon for the contemporary revolutionary movement. The issue is positioned not as a historical retrospective but as an intervention in the present: Lenin's method — his dialectical materialism, his fight against passivity, his struggle against bureaucracy, and his insistence on breaking out of old routines in periods of rising struggle — is presented as directly applicable to the tasks facing Marxists today. The claim is that the centenary is an opportunity to reclaim Lenin from both bourgeois caricature and from the bureaucratic degeneration that followed his death, and to rearm the movement with his actual ideas.

Theoretical Grounding

The analysis draws on several interconnected Marxist traditions:

  • Lenin's philosophical legacy, particularly his studies of Hegel's Science of Logic and his development of materialist dialectics. The inclusion of Lenin's 'Summary of Dialectics' signals a commitment to the view that revolutionary practice requires a rigorous philosophical method, not merely empirical observation.
  • The Leninist theory of the party, understood here as the organisational weapon against passivity and spontaneism. The article implicitly rejects the notion that Lenin's vanguardism was a product of Russian backwardness, instead presenting it as a universal principle for revolutionary organisation.
  • Trotsky's continuation of Lenin's struggle against bureaucracy, which situates the analysis within the tradition of the struggle against Stalinist degeneration. This is a settled position of the Revolutionary Communist International: the bureaucratic degeneration of the Soviet Union was a counter-revolutionary process, and Lenin's fight against it in his final years is the correct starting point for understanding what went wrong.
  • The unity of theory and practice, exemplified by the reprint of Lenin's 'New Tasks and New Forces', which shows how Lenin adapted Marxist method to a concrete conjuncture of rising strike waves.

The article sits firmly within the orthodox Marxist tradition that runs from Marx and Engels through Lenin and Trotsky, and which the International Marxist Tendency (now the RCI) claims to defend against both reformist and ultra-left distortions.

Conjunctural Relevance

The article connects to the current moment in several specific ways, though the announcement itself is brief and the conjunctural analysis is carried by the magazine's contents rather than the promotional text:

  • The centenary itself (January 2024) provides the immediate occasion, but the framing is not merely commemorative. The reference to Lenin's fight against "passivity and inaction" speaks directly to the experience of Marxists in a period where, despite deep crises, the organised left has largely failed to translate objective conditions into revolutionary advance.
  • The struggle against bureaucracy within the Bolshevik Party is presented as a warning for the present. In an era where many workers' parties and trade unions have become ossified, the question of how to combat bureaucratic conservatism from within is a live one.
  • The reprint of 'New Tasks and New Forces' is particularly pointed. Lenin wrote this in 1905, during a revolutionary upsurge, arguing that Marxists must break from routine and adapt their methods to the new level of struggle. The implication is that the current period — with its strike waves, cost-of-living crises, and geopolitical instability — demands a similar break from the routines of the reformist left.
  • Geopolitically, the article does not name specific forces, but the broader context of the RCI's work includes the war in Ukraine, the crisis of global capitalism, and the collapse of social democratic parties into pro-war positions. Lenin's analysis of imperialism and the state is the unspoken backdrop.

Where the Argument Continues

This article is a promotional piece, so its argument is necessarily compressed. The argument continues in several directions:

  • The full issue of In Defence of Marxism magazine (Issue 44), which contains the editorial by Rob Sewell, the articles on Lenin's philosophy, his fight against bureaucracy, and the reprints of his texts.
  • The biography In Defence of Lenin, co-authored by Rob Sewell, which is available for pre-order and presumably develops the same arguments at book length.
  • The broader corpus of the RCI, including Against the Stream episodes and other IDOM articles, which regularly return to Lenin's method as a guide to the present — particularly on questions of the party, the state, and the united front.
  • The struggle against bureaucracy is a theme that runs through Trotsky's writings (especially The Revolution Betrayed) and through the entire tradition of the Fourth International. The article points to this lineage without developing it.

What the article leaves open is the concrete application of Lenin's method to the specific conjuncture of 2024 — that is the work of the magazine itself, and of the RCI's ongoing political interventions.

Connections

  • Lenin's Philosophical Notebooks and his Materialism and Empirio-Criticism — the article's emphasis on dialectics points directly to these texts.
  • Trotsky's The Revolution Betrayed and his writings on the Soviet bureaucracy — essential for understanding the continuity of the struggle after Lenin's death.
  • Lenin's 'New Tasks and New Forces' (1905) — the reprint in the magazine is the key text for understanding the article's conjunctural argument.
  • Rob Sewell's In Defence of Lenin — the companion biography.
  • The writings of the International Marxist Tendency/RCI on the current period, particularly their analyses of the war in Ukraine, the crisis of social democracy, and the need for a revolutionary party.

Key Quotes

  1. "To commemorate the centenary of the death of one of history's greatest communists, this issue focuses on the life and work of Lenin."

  2. "With articles covering wide-ranging aspects of Lenin's life and ideas, this issue is an invaluable weapon in the arsenal of communists everywhere."

  3. "Beginning with a special editorial by Rob Sewell (co-author of a new biography, In Defence of Lenin, also available for pre-order!) for the centenary of Lenin's death in 1924."

  4. "Issue 44 also includes articles looking at Lenin's philosophical studies of Hegel; his fight to combat passivity and inaction within the revolutionary movement; his struggle against bureaucracy within the Bolshevik Party; and how this struggle was taken up by Trotsky after his death."

  5. "Also in this issue is a reprint of Lenin's short but masterful article 'New Tasks and New Forces', in which he explains the need for Marxists at the time to break out of old routines in the face of a significant wave of strikes across Russia."

  6. "In addition, the magazine includes Lenin's 'Summary of Dialectics', a brief and insightful exposition of a key aspect of the philosophical method of Marxism."