It's Lenin's birthday, which means it's time to go re-read of my fave Lenin texts, particularly some of the lesser-known ones.

'A Caricature of Marxism and Imperialist Economism' full of spot on formulations on anti-imperialism, anti-militarism and the political consequences they have for the left.

https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/carimarx/

"What, generally speaking, is “defence of the fatherland”? Is it a scientific concept relating to economics, politics, etc.? No. It is a much bandied about current expression, sometimes simply a philistine phrase, intended to justify the war."

If the “substance” of a war is ... the overthrow of alien oppression ... then such a war is progressive ... If ... the “substance” of a war is redivision of colonies, division of booty, plunder of foreign lands .. then all talk of defending the fatherland is “sheer deception" ...

"Liberation of the colonies, we stated in our theses, means self-determination of nations. Europeans often forget that colonial peoples too are nations, but to tolerate this “forgetfulness” is to tolerate chauvinism." [True to-fucking-day]

'Socialism and War' has one of my favourite formulations criticising the kind of formalism we get in international law.

https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1915/s-w/ch01.htm#v21fl70h-299

'For example, if tomorrow, Morocco were to declare war on France, India on England, Persia or China on Russia, and so forth, those would be “just”, “defensive” wars, irrespective of who attacked first and every Socialist would sympathise with the victory of the oppressed'

If you somehow ended up committing youself to studying internaitonal law like I did, you cannot help but love Lenin's line in his 'Terms of Admission into Communist International'

https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/jul/x01.htm

"[W]ithout the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism, no international arbitration courts, no talk about a reduction of armaments, no “democratic” reorganisation of the League of Nations will save mankind from new imperialist wars."

And lots of people don't agree with an account of the labour aristocracy, but Lenin's writings attempting to think through how the economics of imperialism shape the labour movements in the core imperialist countries remain absolutely vital.

A Marxist, thinking class together with international forms of racially-inflected stratification!? But it can't be done!!!!!

And because I am a slow-moving Bukharinite NEPman at heart, you've gotta love Lenin's later attempts to try and think through how the fuck to preserve any of the gains of the revolution.

"The Trade Unions, The Present Situation
And Trotsky’s Mistakes" - Lenin warns that you really shouldn't be overzealous in thinking that the Bolshevik state was a seamless representative of workers.

https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/dec/30.htm

"Economics and Dictatorship in the Era of the Proletariat" - in which Lenin argues that it is going to be a slooooooooooooooooooow process making the transition, but that it does so within a transformed class context

https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1919/oct/30.htm

'Classes have remained but in the era of the dictatorship of the proletariat every class has undergone a change, and the relations between the classes have also changed. [C]lass struggle does not disappear under the dictatorship of the proletariat; it ... assumes different forms'

And 'Better Fewer But Better' because we have all been in those fucking meetings where we think exactly that ...

https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1923/mar/02.htm

And I could go on and on and on (I didn't even mention much of the early stuff - but everyone already likes that), but really, there are still so many crucial political, ecnomic and theoretical formulations in there which absolutely stand up.