The 1917 Russian revolution was the greatest event in political history so far – the first time working class people took political power and held it for years. Yet the real history, uncovered here, is buried under myths: both anti-socialist and Stalinist.
Get this discounted in combination with The Fate of the Russian Revolution Vols 1 & 2:
The Russian Revolution was a great emancipatory event for the working-class until the Stalinist counter-revolution crushed it. But the real histories of (1) the revolution; (2) those who made it and then fought Stalinism until it killed them; and (3) attempts to understand an evolving Stalinism and USSR, and to build a non-Stalinised labour movement — are all hidden. They are buried beneath both Stalinist and anti-socialist lies. These two books uncover the first two of these histories respectively.
These histories are vital for understanding how the left got to where it is, how we can purge Stalinism from our movement and rebuild an authentic socialism, and how we should think about socialist revolution.
This discounted combination comes with a paper study guide for each of the books. You can also get them in combination with Vol 2, which covers the third of the hidden histories listed above.
See also In Defence of Bolshevism, plus more content on the Russian Revolution and its fate.
The Russian Revolution was a great emancipatory event for the working-class until the Stalinist counter-revolution crushed it. But the real histories of (1) the revolution; (2) those who made it and then fought Stalinism until it killed them; and (3) attempts to understand an evolving Stalinism and USSR, and to build a non-Stalinised labour movement — are all hidden. They are buried beneath both Stalinist and anti-socialist lies. These three books uncover these histories, respectively.
The history described is vital for understanding how the left got to where it is, how we can purge Stalinism from our movement and rebuild an authentic socialism, and how we should think about socialist revolution.
This discounted bundle comes with a paper study guide for each of the three books. Two book combinations are also available for the first or last pairs in this set of three.
See also In Defence of Bolshevism, plus more content on the Russian Revolution and its fate.
The 1917 Russian revolution was the greatest event in political history so far – the first time working class people took political power and held it for a decade. Yet the real history is buried under myths. Many Western academic accounts portray 1917 as a mutiny of peasant soldiers leading ultimately to a coup d’état, led by a small group of fanatics who established a Stalinist totalitarian state.
Worse, the mirror image of 1917 became the foundation myth of the Stalinist state: the 1917 revolution was used both in Russia and across the world by ‘Communist’ parties to glorify the terrible Stalinist regime that endured after workers’ self-rule was extinguished in the twenties. The original, liberatory working class essence of the original revolution was lost.
Since the 1960s – and especially since the opening of archives in Russia from the 1990s, much more is known about the Russian revolution and the events of October 1917. This book aims to bring original Marxist perspectives together with a wide range of scholarship. It is written from what Lenin and Trotsky called the ‘third camp’ independent working class socialist perspective.
This book explains some irreplaceable ideas developed a century ago – uneven and combined development, permanent revolution, democratic centralism, soviets (councils), workers’ control, consistent democracy, socialist feminism, transitional demands, the united front and the workers’ government. These ideas are highly relevant to students and activists in today’s struggles.
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