June 10, 1949(?)
My dear Rae,
You are covering a lot of ground and it is pretty good. But after some conversations with G, & reading (carefully, this time) your correspondence, I feel that we are still off the point, despite the apparently final form of the blue-print I worked out last week.
This represents the core of our problem.
Lenin in 1914 had one view of Capital and of Philosophy. The war & the collapse of the Second Int. made him study Dialectic and changed his view of Capital and of Philosophy.
Now despite many talks with G and looking up many profound and illuminating points she makes, no one has put his finger on this yet. After once more going through the stuff I arrive here.
Lenin before 1914 had read philosophy to write his essay on Marx. Krupskaya, you say, says so. He was working towards a philosophic conception. But on reading the essay I see not a serious line about opposition - the unity of opposites. New: are there any notes of his philosophic readings previous to this essay. I presume there are none. But this reading of Hegel leaves him just where Plekhanov is.
If you note Vol. XI, pp. 33 & 34, you will see his conception of the socialised prole. is quite abstract; so is his conception of the the state.
Thus by early 1914 he was exactly like the others.
Now, we have to be careful here.
The article Who Are the Friends of the People1 is in the same tradition. (By the way Williams, what are your chances of getting Lenin, Selected Works, complete. I know you have some volumes. You need all). Thus Friends of the People; Mat'm & Empirio-C'm.; and 1914 are all one.
But there is another Lenin: the practising revolutionary in Russia. And here he is dialectical to an extreme degree. He is an extreme revolutionary temperament driven by the sharpest contradictions in Russia, so that in his conception of the rev., v.v. important (Vol. VII, around p. 263), his conception of the armed workers, etc., his conception of the role of the party, etc. (that thing I bless Grace so much for bringing sharply to our notice) in all this there is a Lenin profoundly different from Plekhanov.
We will have to begin here - in the contradiction in Lenin himself before 1914.
Here let me suggest that you get down to this stuff. We must begin here.
Then comes 1914, August, and, I presume, L studies Hegel's Logic. Previously he probably had read only the same kind of general philosophy about who2 P. had written. Check all this like an accountant.
Now, his Russian experiences are going to be generalised for capitalism as a whole. The point will be made, by the way, of how his previous study of Capitalism in Russia had dealt with the aspects you singled out.
Now the question is:
What did Lenin primarily discover? More precisely, what fundamental conception illuminated his readings of the Logic? We have the war, the breakdown of the Int., the disillusionment with all previous thought, and methods of thought.
But Lenin does not begin blank. In him is the revolutionary dialectic. In him is embodied the most violent contradictions of world-capitalism. When he begins to study afresh, the Russian proletarian revolution is beginning.
Here is point I. The mind wh. is now reading dialectic is beginning to apply to the world scene the special contradictions of Russia.
A detailed list of his observations, principles, etc. on Capital, party; labor movement; philosophy, etc. before is imperative. Put each one down, classify, organize them.
Now to go back a little?
What fundamental conception for him, organized the new material. Marxism in general. He had just finished a complete rereading. But theoretically his stronghold is not philosophy. It is Capital. So that we begin, as he began of necessity, with Capital.
At the start he is going to read the Logic materialistically, he says. How else except in terms of his world outlook. Therefore I propose: Capital must be the basis - not philosophy. And I note that except in reference to Plekhanov he makes no concrete references except to Capital.
There is a logic, a dialectic, a materialism of Capital. All are the same. We do not need any other Logic. You have to master all the Logic to understand Capital. Inductive and deductive is the method of Capital, etc.
I feel we have been playing around so far. (No offence to Grace).
Lenin says Marx left us the Logic of Capital, the method of Capital. Isn't it obvious that the Logic and the method are what now become his logic and his method?
These questions, this transition we must answer first and FULLY.
Once more, what is the logic of Capital and the theory of knowledge.
There I was compelled to stop, but G and I had a talk on Friday wh. I explained to her the rest of my ideas. The first draft of this
(Over)3
1 Lenin, What the "Friends of the People" Are and How They Fight the Social-Democrats (1894).
2 This word is obscured in the text.
3 The manuscript ends here.