Lenin’s rejection of left opportunism was a tactical retreat amid revolutionary defeats

Evidence

Here Lenin was mounting an attack on what he termed “left opportunism,” that is, political action and judgment that used the texts of Marx and Engels to criticize and oppose Lenin and the Bolshevik Party’s leadership. The setting was 1920. In Russia, the civil war was still undecided; and in Europe, the revolutionary movement had been “temporarily” defeated. Lenin was urging a tactical retreat. This document was meant to stem criticism that emerged from other Russian revolutionists who insisted that the revolution must maintain an international arena and scope, and could not be secured in one national territory. — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 1032

Categorization

• XREF: Explains the ideological environment in which Lenin recruited Blacks — the Comintern’s ‘Negro Question’ arose from this moment of tactical accommodation to capitalism, linking to the reader’s arc. — connects to: Lenin treated state capitalism as a neutral stepping-stone to socialism — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 517; Leftists must transform during defeat rather than retreat or adapt — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 1561