Dr. Stefan Gužvica About Leninism Before Lenin

On December 6, the Centre for Historical Research held a seminar with a lecture by Dr. Stefan Gužvica (Associate Professor of the Department of History, HSE St. Petersburg.) entitled “Leninism before Lenin? Understanding the Revolutionary Conjuncture on the Periphery”.

Dr. Stefan Gužvica introduced the concept of “revolutionary conjuncture” in his lecture to clarify why Bolshevism gained support and acceptance among socialists in the European periphery after the Russian Revolution. Before 1914, Marxists in Eastern and Central Europe struggled with a variety of issues, including agrarian “backwardness,” national conflicts, imperialism, and a revolutionary climate characterized by the weakness of the bourgeoisie. The orthodox Marxist concept of German Social Democracy that served as their reference point did not effectively address these pressing problems because it was designed for a more developed, industrialized context. Nevertheless, this framework offered a social-scientific approach to analyzing these circumstances and responding accordingly. This shared methodology allowed thinkers and activists working independently to reach fundamentally similar or even identical conclusions about contemporary political challenges. This meeting of ideas is referred to as “revolutionary conjuncture.” Each figure focused on certain elements of this conjuncture. It was only when the Russian Revolution became a practical model that they perceived Lenin's “metatheory” of revolution in peripheral contexts.  

After the lecture, the seminar participants discussed issues related to national historiographical narratives, national politics and the problem of the revolutionary expectations.