ABSTRACT
One of the most powerful and enduring images of Lenin portrays him as a cunning, practical organizer with little interest in political theory other than as a justification for whatever action he found expedient at the given moment.1 Yet this account is difficult to reconcile with the facts. It was, after all, Lenin who made one of the most detailed assessments of the prospects for Russian capitalism, The Development of Capitalism in Russia, at the very beginning of his political career. And it was the same Lenin who, faced with an unprecedented world war, made notes running over some eight hundred printed pages before finishing his own study of imperialism. Similar research accompanied his path-breaking analysis of the marxist theory of the state in State and Revolution.
