- Lenin
Lenin’s contribution to thinking about language is not limited to the marginal
note that we have already cited. In truth, it has a paradoxical character. In
July 1917, declared an outlaw by the provisional government and having
taken refuge in the area around Lake Razliv, Lenin took the time at a moment
of acute political crisis to write a text on the nature and selection of slogans.^40
Obviously, it does not set out a general theory of slogans, but rather consists
in a concrete analysis of the political conjuncture, from the standpoint of
formulating correct slogans. But it seems to me that this short text is
fundamental for the formulation of a Marxist philosophy of language.
The principal thesis defended by Lenin is that slogans are, to put it
anachronistically, performatives, that they exercise power. There is nothing
surprising about this: it is what slogans are for – a watchword, a slogan, was
originally a war cry. Lenin’s original contribution is situated in the analysis
of this ‘power’, which has nothing to do with the vague notion of force –
‘illocutionary force’ – among Anglo-American pragmatists (where it simply
has a role in classifying speech acts). The text indicates three aspects of the
power exercised by a good slogan. (i) It serves to identifythe moment of the
conjuncture – in the particular case to hand, this means: on 4 July 1917, the
first, virtually peaceful phase of the revolution is over and the slogan that
encapsulated it – ‘All power to the soviets!’ – is outmoded. (ii) Consequently,
a correct slogan names the political taskcorresponding to the moment of the
conjuncture: the task of this moment is to prepare for the ‘decisive battle’ –
that is, the overthrow by force of a government that has become counter-
revolutionary. A correct slogan makes its possible to name the decisivemoment.
(iii) In as much as it does this, a correct slogan exercises a power because it
condensesand embodiesthe concrete analysis of the concrete situation. The
implicit Leninist slogan here is: ‘without correct slogans, no successful
revolution’.
The central place accorded to a concrete power has consequences for what
a Marxist philosophy of language should be. Naturally, Lenin’s text does not
explicitly set them out, but gives them to be understood. I shall suggest five.
(i) We have here a concept of meaning (of an utterance) that is bound up with
The Marxist Tradition • 97(^40) See Lenin 1964.