You can’t just say Leninist because people might think you’re a Beatles fan
I wouldn’t know: I’m a GNU Marxist.
Stalin coined the term Marxism-Leninism. Marxism-Leninism was already in practice in Lenin’s time, though Lenin didn’t say his application of Marx’s theories was Leninist, the same way Marx didn’t call himself a Marxist. It was only after the fact that Stalin synthesized Marxism-Leninism by combining Lenin’s and Marx’s theories. In the same way, people didn’t call themselves Hegelians or Darwinians when Hegel and Darwin were alive.
Lenin was very serious about staying true to Marx, to the point of quoting entire pages to be sure he’s not taking things out of context. His work is Marx’s thought applied to economical and political developments Marx couldn’t have foreseen, but it’s in no way revisionist. I think this is why Stalin called it “Marxism-Leninism”, to make sure it’s clear this is Marxism.
Still you have “orthodox Marxists” who will claim ML is not really Marxism but I think if it was called just “Leninism” it would’ve been even easier for them to claim Leninism isn’t even Marxism.
Marx and Lenin focused on different things. The primary focus of Marx was on economic theory while Lenin’s primary focus was on how to organize an effective revolution. This is an excellent take on the subject incidentally
Leninists were, at a time, what trotskyists called themselves in opposition to “Stalinists”, where as Stalin outlined the philosophy of “Marxism-Leninism” so it’s defined in that old polemic I believe. Don’t hear Leninism too often anymore though. I think Marxism is emphasized mostly because of how he able to outline dialectical materialism as opposed to his other socialist/communist contemporaries, and even if we say Marx was more incorrect than those who came after him he’s still foundational or at least inspirational to a lot of the work that came after him. Mao built on Lenin’s theories in incredibly important ways as well but calling myself a Maoist has different connotations like Leninist might have, and ppl generally accept MZT as part of ML so it’s been an effective way of communicating the contemporary communist position (siding with Stalin over Trotsky, Sino over Soviet, MZT over Maoism).
Considering the many great communists that have existed, even those who never took inspiration from Marx, or who saw his work as accurate and useful but not central to their communist thought (Frantz Fanon comes to mind, never feeling a need to call himself a Marxist) I generally prefer a simple “communist” as it gives a bit less eurocentrism and doesn’t pay special attention to anyone in a movement that belongs to the masses. However, “Marxism” as a name for the eternal science of dialectical materialism and it’s application is very effective as a means of communicating this school of thought and valuable contribution he made in outlining it, where as terms like “Leninism” “Maoist” “Hoxhaist” “Marxism-Leninism” “Dengist” often refer to a specific polemic outlined by an influencial figure in the overall movement as opposed to the quality of the named people’s contributions to this science or its application.
Not at all, Lenin is so important complement to Marxism that you cannot ignore him.
Lenin’s contributions include the understanding of imperialism, a more systematic approach towards understanding national liberation movements, his contributions to revolutionary praxis, the theory and practice of the dictatorship of the proletariat, many contributions of political tactics and strategy, tactics of revolutionary organization, his philosophy of organization (democratic centralism), his contributions towards a systematic dialectical materialist understanding…
Lenin’s contributions far exceed any other Marxist in terms of revolutionary praxis. So Marxism is the philosophical worldview which instructs our understanding of the capitalist system, while Leninism is the body of work detailing strategy and tactics towards revolutionary action. So yes, Marxism-Leninism is an appropriate description of the current state of Marxist development.
I meant that saying “Leninism” includes Marxism the same way Mao Zedong Thought includes Leninism. Therefore, just saying “Leninism” would suffice without having to include “Marxism”.
To be fair, one normally says “Marxism Leninism with MZT”
What a mouthful 🤣
It’s a mouthful but often with these things it’s better to be precise
Lenin led the foundation of the world’s first socialist republic. In doing so he, in part, expanded on and deviated from Marx’s original conceptualisation of capitalism and socialist organising.
You must look at the 20s and 30s in the Soviet Union, especially after Lenin died. I personally only use “Marxist” and this is how I describe myself. Marxist-Leninist is not valid term in my opinion, because Lenin is the continuation of Marx. If I encounter someone who is d’accord with Stalin, Trotsky or maybe Mao, I call them stalinist, trotskyist or whatever. I do it, because they are important differences in what those people think.
Let’s say I would think, that Bukharin/Stalin/Trotsky is the man I think has the right thoughts. For me, this would be the continuation of marxism and everything else would be revisionist, reactionary and non-marxist. Don’t making difference would be the same as naming everything “tankie”.
So I still say I am a Marxist, but if anyone would ask me what my opinion is regarding those figures, I would then say, that I am trotskyist/stalinist/bukharist. I hope it is understandable what I am trying to say.
I know that many here call themself Marxist-Leninist and seriously use this term, but I don’t, I don’t think it is a valid term. After Stalin there were enough figures who used it anyway. After “sino-soviet split” they both claimed to be the continuation of Marxism-Leninism.
So I always like to ask more questions. While probably Trotskyism is maybe for many the same thing, there are many differences. In this way I can know if I have it to do with a person who is actually a liberal in disguise or someone who is “orthodox”. The same thing goes for other factions.
“stalinist” is only used by those opposed to ML tho.
As I said ML is not a valid term in my opinion and historically it was used after the establishing and banning of the “left opposition”, especially by Stalin. After splits here and there between the soviet union and other countries, where everyone claimed to be the true continuation of ML, I prefer to differ this way. And since other splits after Lenin’s dead also claimed to be the true successors of Lenin, I think it is more accurate to handle it this way
In every one of those cases, the “minority” position group eventually named themselves something else. Left-opp called themselves leninists and then trotskyists (if they were that particular flavor or left opp). Left deviationists of late Mao eventually settled at MLM to distinguish between the majority opinion there of ML (ML MZT if you want to get fancy, but not necessary because it isn’t distinguished from ML in any real scenario relevant to today).
Other nations had different approaches but agree that they are currently ML with differences in conditions and therefore differences in concrete tactics.
But regardless, you are changing a word unecessarily. Everyone who knows anything about it knows what one means with ML. What purpose is there to changing the label for something concrete and existing to which it refers? Call it a Camel for all I care, as long as we know we’re referring to the foundation of historical materialism applied to material conditions, it doesn’t matter. So changing it should have some benefit, which I’m not convinced exists.
