I started to read this but
I started to read this but I’m afraid I didn’t get very far. As far as I can see the author is trying to rehabilitate Lenin by saying that he wasn’t really a Leninist but someone who favoured an open, democratic party (a leftwing Menshevik then?). I doubt it and it certainly upset other Leninists who insisted that he really did stand for a centralised, hierarchical vanguard party to lead the masses. A couple of them quote Trotsky’s ridiculous statement (which could be said to be the essence of Trotskyism) that “The world political situation as a whole is chiefly characterized by a historical crisis of the leadership of the proletariat.”