这个考究的帖子很有趣啊,“brought in only from outside" 是对当时历史语境下的猜测。
引用:
We stated that there could not have been a Social-Democratic awareness [at that time] among the workers. It could have been brought in only from outside.
(我们说过,在当时那种情况下,工人当中本来也不会有社会民主主义的意识。这种意识只能从外面带入。)
stated用了一般过去时,could not have been和could have been brought则采用了情态动词+现在完成时,表示对**过去发生的事情的推测**。也就是说,按照英译本来看,列宁说的并不是“工人在任何情况下都不会自发产生社会民主主义意识,永远需要革命知识分子从外部灌输”,而仅仅是“在19世纪90年代中期”那个时候!Lih就好像害怕读者看不明白似的,还特地加上了一个[at that time]!