Factory of Strategy

Lenin is the only prominent politician of the modern era to seriously question the "withering away" and "extinction" of the state, and like Marx, he recognized the link between capitalism and modern sovereignty and the need to destroy capitalism and reconfigure the state. Antonio Negri refrains from portraying Lenin as a ferocious dictator enforcing the proletariat's reappropriation of wealth, nor does he depict him as a mere military tool of a vanguard opposed to the Ancien Régime. Negri instead champions Leninism's ability to adapt to different working-class configurations in Russia, China, Latin America, and elsewhere. He also argues that Lenin developed a new political figuration in and beyond modernity and an effective means of organization capable of absorbing different historical conditions. He ultimately urges readers to recognize the universal application of Leninism today and its potential to institutionally—not anarchically—dismantle centralized power.

A renewed engagement with Lenin's revolutionary politics and a persuasive case for his contemporary relevance.

Antonio Negri has taught political philosophy at the University of Padua, the University of Vincennes, and the College Internationale de Philosophie. His books include The Politics of Subversion: A Manifesto for the Twenty-First Century and Negri on Negri.

Arianna Bove has translated many texts from Italian and French into English. Her work can be found at www.generation-online.org.

Alberto Toscano, Goldsmiths, University of London, author of Fanaticism: On the Uses of an Idea:
Factory of Strategy is a bracingly original and systematic inquiry into the development of the Russian revolutionary's political thought, bearing comparison with Lukács's earlier Lenin. It doubles as a unique record of a crucial moment in Negri's trajectory as a political philosopher and activist, when questions of strategy and insurrection were foremost in his mind. Among the most accessible, accomplished, and vibrant pieces of Negri's writing, it stands out for its effort to combine political pedagogy and ideological intervention.

Fredric Jameson, Duke University:
There are many Lenins: in this exciting synthesis, with its emphasis on philosophy as well as praxis and on spontaneity versus organization, Antonio Negri discloses the dialectical logic of Lenin's historical situation. At the same time, by insisting on situational logic as such, he demonstrates its differences from our own today, where keeping faith with Lenin's lessons might lead to different forms. This important text from Negri's activist period is therefore a crucial document for understanding Negri's own work and positions and those of Lenin.

Slavoj Žižek, author of Living in the End Times:
This book on Lenin turns into a revolutionary text, into a true manual of resistance.