May 14, 1949
Dear J:
For the time being - because I have not had time to reorient in Pittsburgh - I will not write on the dialectic itself (that is on Lenin's Notebooks on it) but only the circumstances surrounding it:
(1) Krupskaya's1 memoirs (Vol. II, pp. 153-52) speak of 1914-16 and emphasize (a) international range of VIL's activity which gave a new tone to his work for Russia, (b) study of philosophy as preparation for his essay on Karl Marx, which began with Philosophic Materialism and Dialectics. Krupskaya comments: "This was not the usual way of presenting Marx's teachings. Before writing the chapters on philosophic materialism and dialectics Ilyich again diligently read Hegel and other philosophers and continued these studies even after he had finished the essay. The aim of his work in the realm of phil. was to master the method of transforming philosophy into a concrete guide to action. His brief remarks about the dialectical approach toward all phenomena, made in 1921 in the course of the controversies [with Trotsky, Bukharin concerning the trade unions...]3
(2) The introduction by Adoratsky,4 under the editorship of Bukharin,5 to the Notebooks (Leninski Sbornik,6 #12, 1933; the Leninski Sbornik #9, 129 has an introduction by Deborin7 along similar lines). These state the following (a) "In all works after 1914 Lenin mentions the dialectic. For example: 'Collapse of the 2nd Int.', 'Results of the Discussion on Self-Determination', 'About the Junius Pamphlet' and the Trade Union dispute". (b) then cites the notes of the Lenin institute which show that on 11/30/20 Lenin asked for a copy of S. Labriola: His. Mat. & About Philosophy; Ilyin: Hegel. Also in that year he asked for a Russian edition of Hegel's Science of Logic. (c) letter to editors of Under Banner of Marxism in 1923.8 (The introduction by Deborin had also included reference to Lenin's Notes on Bukharin's "Economics of the Transition Period" as being entirely about "method".9 I remember, incidentally that when I studied these notes, although I studied them only as an "economist" I had been much attracted by his criticism of Bukharin's statement as to capitalism being "an antagonistic, contradictory order" because these two words were "not one and the same. The first (antagonism) would disappear, the second will remain under socialism". And began to ply you with questions as to difference of the two in Hegelian terminology. Also, never being able to get away from the accumulation debate, I remember now that the outline of Lenin's intended book against Luxemburg10 included a section entitled "Dialectics and eclectics").11
Now the question of Plekhanov.12 You will remember VILs first reference to him (p. 40 of my tr.) is still as a source for after quoting Hegel on the "arabesques of history", Lenin comments: "This 'inner spirit' - of Plekhanov - is the idealistic, mystical but very profound indication on historic causes of events".13 The note by the M-E-L Institute on that refers you to Plekhanov's "On the 60th Anniversary of Hegel's Death" which is the alpha and omega of some people.14 By p. 49 however he places him as one who criticized the Kantians in the Feuerbachian rather than Hegelian manner.15 This is 1914. In 1915 he begins his notes on Hegel's History of Philosophy. It is there (p. 6 of the excerpts I sent you) that he writes:
"NB" Work out: Plekhanov wrote on philosophy (dialectic) probably nearly 1,000 pages (Beltov16 - against Bogdanov17 - against Kantians - on fundamental questions, etc. etc.). There is nil in them about the larger Logic, about it, its thoughts (i.e. dialectic proper, as a philosophic science)!!"18
The MEL Institute then footnotes the names of these works, thus: N. Beltov "On the Question of the Monistic View in History"; re Bogdanov: "From Defense to Offense"; re Kantians, Bernstein, etc: "Criticism of Our Critics" and "Fundamental Problems of Marxism".19
And finally there is the reference to Plekhanov in the short piece "On Dialectics" in Selected Works, XI, p. 81.20 As contrasted to that there is the advice to the youth to study Plekhanov. No one, however, has denied that Plekhanov never had taken up the question of the dialectic.
It is not true however that Lenin's notes were merely notes inside of a copy in the library in which any one could have written. The Philosophic Notebooks consists of 10 notebooks, on the cover of the first of which Lenin marked: "Notebooks on Philosophy".21Unfortunately I cannot get the work of Ilyin here;22 it would take over a month to try to borrow it from the Library of Congress; I think the only thing we can do on that is drop it for the time being and when I am next in NY (It will not be May 30 as that trip has had to be cancelled; perhaps July 4th) I will read and make extracts.
What you write of the plenum is "interesting".
Here all is quiet and relations smoothed; I will see they don't run off that course again.
The Best to Connie and Nobby.23
1 Nadezhda K. Krupskaya (1869-1939) was a Russian revolutionary, writer, educator and Secretary of the Bolshevik Faction of the Social Democratic Party. Wife and advisor to V.I. Lenin. Secretary to the Board of Iskra.
2 The material Dunayevskaya is referring to is from the section 'Berne, 1914-15', in N. K. Krupskaya, Reminiscences of Lenin, (1933).
3 The text inside the square brackets was transcribed by the editor from hand written text added to the original typescript. There is more text, but it is difficult to decipher. And it is not clear if the handwritten text was added at a different date to the typed text, or was on the letter originally circulated to the other correspondents.
4 Vladimir V. Adoratsky (1878-1945) joined the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic and Labour Party in 1904. He was imprisoned in 1905 and on his release went into exile. In 1918 he returned to Russia and became an archivist. From 1920-1928 he was assistant manager of the Central Archives Board. From 1928 to 1931 he was deputy director of the Lenin Institute. In 1932 he became a member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. In 1931, when David Riazanov fell out of favour with Stalin, Adoratsky became the Head of the merged Marx-Engels and Lenin Institutes.
5 Nikolai Bukharin (1888-1938) was a leading Bolshevik, who worked with Lenin and Leon Trotsky (1879-1940) in exile, before 1917. Lenin, in his Last Testament, (1922/23), described Bukharin as: "not only the most valuable and biggest theoretician of the party, but also may legitimately be considered the favorite of the whole party; but his theoretical views can only with the very greatest doubt be regarded as fully Marxian, for there is something scholastic in him (he never has learned, and I think never fully understood the dialectic)." After Lenin's death Bukharin sided with Stalin against Trotksy, but he fell out of favour with Stalin when he spoke out against the forced collectivisation of agriculture (a policy he feared would undermine the New Economic Policy).
6 Leninski Sbornik is the multi-volume Russian language Collection of the works of Lenin.
7 Abram Deborin (1881-1963) was a Soviet philosopher. He joined the revolutionary movement in Russia towards the end of the 1890s. In 1903 he joined the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic and Labour Party, he switched to the Menshevik faction around 1907. He became a disciple of Georgi Plekhanov. Soon after the October 1917 Revolution he left the Mensheviks and began lecturing at the Communist Universities. He became a member of the editorial board of Under the Banner of Marxism, which he headed from 1926-1931. He headed the 'dialecticians' in the factional philosophical disputes between them and the 'mechanists' (who were allied with Bukharin).
8 The editor has been unable to locate an English language translation of Deborin's Introduction.
9 The editor has been unable to locate an English language translation of Lenin's Notes on Bukharin's Economics of the Transition Period, (1920).
10 It looks like the typewritten word 'her' is overwritten with 'Luxemburg'.
11 Lenin 'Rosa Luxemburg's Unsuccessful Addition to Marx's Theory' (1913).
12 Georgi Velentinovich Plekhanov (1856-1918), was one of the founders of the first Marxist organisation in Russia (the Emancipation of Labour Group, founded 1883). He was a major intellectual influence on Lenin.
13 Dunayevskaya's translation of Lenin's Philosophic Notebooks on Hegel, page #1532.
14 G. V. Plekhanov 'For the Sixtieth Anniversary of Hegel's Death', (1891).
15 Dunayevskaya's translation of Lenin's Philosophic Notebooks on Hegel, page #1541.
16 Beltov was the pen-name used by Plekhanov.
17 Aleksandr A. Bogdanov (1873-1928) was one of the Old Bolsheviks. He joined the Bolsheviks in 1903 but was expelled in 1909 after leading the ultra-left, boycottist (or ultimatist) tendency. He maintained that the party could only work through illegal organizations (due to the suppression of political parties during this period). Lenin's Materialism and Empirio-Criticism, was written as a polemic against Bogdanov and others, dealing with the influence of Positivism in the Bolshevik Party.
18 Dunayevskaya's translation of Lenin's Philosophic Notebooks on Hegel, page #1580.
19 This is a list of works by G. V. Plekhanov: The Development of the Monist View of History, (1895); From Defence to Offence, (1910); "Criticism of Our Critics." in Nos. 2 and 3 of Zarya (1901-2); Fundamental Problems of Marxism, (1908), in Selected Philosophical Works: Volume 3 (pp. 117-183).
20 This appears to be a reference to: V. I. Lenin, Selected Works, Volume XI: The Theoretical Principles Of Marxism, (International Publishers, 1939). The essay being referred to appears to be: 'On the Question of Dialectics' (written 1915, published 1925).
21 Lenin, Philosophical Notebooks, 1895-1916.
22 'Ilyin' appears to be a reference to Ivan Alexandrovich Ilyin (1883-1954), a Russian of aristocratic descent. He supported the 1917 February Revolution, but was an opponent of the October Revolution. He was appointed as a law professor at Moscow University in 1918, the year in which his major work on Hegel was published. He was exiled in 1922 for his opposition to the Bolshevik government. In exile he became one of the main ideologues of the White Movement, of Russian exiles, and a supporter of fascism. His major work on Hegel was published in German in 1946 and in English, in two volumes, as Hegel's Philosophy as a Doctrine of the Concreteness of God and man in 2010 and 2011.
23 'Connie' was Constance Webb, an actress, writer and model who CLR James married in 1946. 'Nobbie' was their son, CLR James Jr, who was born in 1949.