By Roland Boer
This publication pursues the results for linking Lenin with theology, which isn't a venture that has been undertaken to date. What does this inveterate atheist recognized for describing faith as 'spiritual booze' (a gloss on Marx's 'opium of the people') need to do with theology? This booklet finds way over may possibly at first be anticipated, rather a lot in order that Lenin and the Russian Revolution can't be understood with no this advanced engagement with theology.
It additionally seeks to deliver Lenin into fresh debates over the intersections among theology and the Left, among the Bible and political idea. the most important names excited about this debate are quite famous, together with Alain Badiou, Slavoj Žižek, Giorgio Agamben, Antonio Negri, Terry Eagleton, Ernst Bloch, Theodor Adorno, Louis Althusser, Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari. Boer has written referring to those critics, between others, in Boer's previous five-volume feedback of Heaven and Earth (Brill and Haymarket, 2007-13). Lenin and Theology builds upon this past venture however it additionally stands by myself as a considerable research in its personal correct. however it can be recognized as a contribution that follows a sequence that has, as critics have mentioned, performed an enormous position in reviving and taking to a brand new point the controversy over Marxism and religion.
The ebook is predicated upon a cautious, particular and significant analyzing of the total forty five volumes of his amassed Works in English translation – fifty five volumes within the Russian unique. From that shut recognition to the texts, a few key issues have emerged: the ambivalence over freedom of selection in concerns of faith; his love of the sayings and parables of Jesus within the Gospels; his personal love of creating new parables; the prolonged and intricate engagements with Christian socialists and 'God-builders' one of the Bolsheviks; the significance of Hegel for his reassessments of faith; the arresting recommendation revolution is a miracle, which redefines the which means of miracle; and the veneration of Lenin after his death.
Review:
"In examining this publication (which he absolutely may have done), Lenin himself could have been amused via Boer's personal present for the outrageously humorous, and maybe indignant through an all-too-apt detection of the non secular dimensions of his innovative views. modern day readers will research a lot concerning the Bolshevik 'god-builders' opposed to whom Lenin so fiercely polemicized, and in regards to the ironic twists by which latter-day Bolshevik 'god-builders' grew to become this secular progressive right into a deity. Boer's actual admire for the fellow and his idea intertwines in attention-grabbing methods with an intimate wisdom of Christian rhetoric and theology, leading to a clean, provocative contribution - to highbrow historical past, non secular stories, and Marxist scholarship." - Paul Le Blanc, Professor of heritage, l. a. Roche university, united states; writer, Lenin and the innovative get together and Marx, Lenin, and the innovative event.
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Additional info for Lenin, Religion, and Theology (New Approaches to Religion and Power)
Example text
We do not advocate secession. In general, we are opposed to secession. (Lenin 1913v, 500–1/235)54 He begins by reiterating the standard position: autonomy for everyone. ” Note the subtle shift: Autonomy appears without a qualifier, but secession is a right. The parenthetical comment clarifies what that right means: Everyone may have the right, but we are certainly not keen on everyone exercising this right, for if they all seceded, the whole project would be immeasurably weakened. Realizing he has perhaps let the cat peek a little too much out of the bag, he attempts to push it back.
Now comes the key: The man’s slaves suggest gathering in the weeds after the master has answered their question concerning the source of the weeds. Not so fast, he says; let the weeds and wheat grow up together and then only at harvest time may they be separated and gathered in turn, weeds first and then wheat. The former will then be consigned to the fire, while the latter can go into the barn. Many other features of the parable suggest further paths of investigation, such as the presence of agricultural slaves (douloi ), the problematic suggestion that the manager of the kingdom of heaven is a slave owner whom the slaves call “Lord [kurie],” and the precise reason why the master instructs the slaves to wait until harvest time.
8 He was not one who eschewed the legal work of trade unions and worker organizations in favor of a small cadre of revolutionary intellectuals; instead, the illegal organization would work closely with the legal forms, spreading the socialist message, organizing strikes (both economic and political), training radical and “purposive workers,” ensuring that the legal organizations have a good number of underground members involved. The legal organizations thereby became the means for a widespread movement, for the opportunity to agitate at a level well beyond that of the illegal movement.