Alan Shandro, Laurentian University
In Lenin and the Logic of Hegemony, by means of a careful textual and contextual analysis of the writings of Lenin and his Marxist contemporaries, Alan Shandro traces the contours of the ‘(anti-) metaphysical event’ identified by Gramsci in Lenin’s political practice and theory, the emergence of the ‘philosophical fact’ of hegemony. In so doing, he effectively disputes conventional caricatures of Lenin’s role as a political actor and thinker and unearths the underlying parameters of the concept of hegemony in the class struggle. He thereby clarifies the conceptual status of this pervasive but now increasingly elusive notion and the logic of theory and practice at work in it.
Biographical note
Alan Shandro teaches political theory at Laurentian University in Sudbury, Ontario. He is on the editorial board of Science & Society and has published a number of articles in Marxist political philosophy.
Readership
Anyone interested in Marxist theory, the concept of hegemony or philosophical issues of theory and practice and or in the history of Marxism, particularly Lenin and the Russian revolution.
Table of contents
Contents
Acknowledgements
I. A Philosophical Fact: Hegemony in the Class Struggle
II. On the Relation of Theory and Practice: Karl Kautsky and the First Post-Marxist
III. Situating Marxism in Russia: Ambiguous Coordinates
IV. Marxism, Lenin and the Logic of Hegemony: Spontaneity and Consciousness in the Class Struggle
V. Dogmatism and Criticism: Freedom in the Class Struggle
VI. Two Orientations to Hegemony: Mensheviks and Bolsheviks
VII. The Mechanics of Proletarian Hegemony: Solidarity in the Class Struggle
VIII. Imperialism and the Logic of Hegemony: The ‘People’ in the Class Struggle
IX. The Arm of Criticism and the Criticism of Arms: Courage in the Class Struggle
X. A Modern Prince to Discourses of Resistance … and Back?
Appendix I: Karl Kautsky, ‘The Revision of the Austrian Social-Democratic Programme’
Appendix II: Text and Context in the Argument of Lenin’s What Is to Be Done?
Appendix III: Lenin as a Reader of What Is to Be Done?
Bibliography
Index
