RES 295-01 - Special Topic: The Explosive East: Lenin and his Legacy in Thought

1 or 2 credits (Spring)

Marxist-Leninist ideology is likely dead within Central and Eastern Europe. The objectives/ends of the communist hypothesis have been exhausted. And yet, the legacy of Leninism lives – not as a theory of social and economic organization, but as a theory of tactics and strategy. In this class, we will look specifically at the following features of the Leninist concept of the political and political practice: the friend/enemy distinction; the leadership theory of the vanguard party; and democratic centralism. After working through Lenin’s own writings, the course will examine various texts from thinkers within Central and Eastern Europe with widely divergent positions on the Leninist legacy: Georg Lukács (Hungarian Marxist philosopher and literary theorist), Slavoj Žižek (Communist Slovenian philosopher, dissident and cultural theorist), Jan Patočka (Czech philosopher and dissident), Leszek Kołakowski (Polish philosopher and dissident), and Boris Groys (Russian/German art theorist and philosopher). In addition to works by these aforementioned authors, the course will examine several recent authoritarian/illiberal/populist political experiments in Central and Eastern Europe, including the rise of Viktor Orbán and Fidesz in Hungary, the Law and Justice government of the Kaczyński brothers in Poland, the rise and fall of Victor Yanukovych and the Party of Regions in Ukraine, among others. These contemporary topics will be explored through journalistic sources and short documentary films, which we will discuss in light of assigned readings to explore possible transformations and transpositions of Leninist concepts in contemporary political life within the region.

Prerequisite: PHI 111, POL 101, or second-year standing.
Note: Dates: February 2 to February 27. Short course deadlines apply.
Instructor: staff