Lenin and Trotsky – What they really stood for
Lenin and Trotsky – What they really stood for

Author: Alan Woods

Publisher: Wellred Books

Published:

Total Pages: 304

ISBN-13:

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The ideas of Lenin and Trotsky are without doubt the most distorted and slandered ideas in history. For more than 100 years, they have been subjected to an onslaught from the apologists of capitalism, who have attempted to present their ideas – Bolshevism – as both totalitarian and utopian. An entire industry was developed in an attempt to equate the crimes of Stalinism with the regime of workers' democracy that existed under Lenin and Trotsky. It is now more than fifty years since the publication of the first edition of this work. It was written as a reply to Monty Johnstone, who was a leading theoretician of the Communist Party of Great Britain. Johnstone had published a reappraisal of Leon Trotsky in the Young Communist League's journal Cogito at the end of 1968. Alan Woods and Ted Grant used the opportunity to write a detailed reply explaining the real relationship between the ideas of Lenin and Trotsky. This was no academic exercise. It was written as an appeal to the ranks of the Communist Party and the Young Communist League to rediscover the truth about Trotsky and return to the original revolutionary programme of Lenin. Also included in this new edition is Monty Johnstone's original Cogito article, as well as further material on Lenin's struggle with Stalin in the last month of his political life. The foreword is written by Trotsky's grandson, Vsievolod Volkov.

The Oxford Handbook of the History of Communism
The Oxford Handbook of the History of Communism

Author: S. A. Smith

Publisher: OUP Oxford

Published: 2014-01-09

Total Pages: 834

ISBN-13: 0191667528

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The impact of Communism on the twentieth century was massive, equal to that of the two world wars. Until the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, historians knew relatively little about the secretive world of communist states and parties. Since then, the opening of state, party, and diplomatic archives of the former Eastern Bloc has released a flood of new documentation. The thirty-five essays in this Handbook, written by an international team of scholars, draw on this new material to offer a global history of communism in the twentieth century. In contrast to many histories that concentrate on the Soviet Union, The Oxford Handbook of the History of Communism is genuinely global in its coverage, paying particular attention to the Chinese Revolution. It is 'global', too, in the sense that the essays seek to integrate history 'from above' and 'from below', to trace the complex mediations between state and society, and to explore the social and cultural as well as the political and economic realities that shaped the lives of citizens fated to live under communist rule. The essays reflect on the similarities and differences between communist states in order to situate them in their socio-political and cultural contexts and to capture their changing nature over time. Where appropriate, they also reflect on how the fortunes of international communism were shaped by the wider economic, political, and cultural forces of the capitalist world. The Handbook provides an informative introduction for those new to the field and a comprehensive overview of the current state of scholarship for those seeking to deepen their understanding.

Death by Government
Death by Government

Author: R. J. Rummel

Publisher: Transaction Publishers

Published: 2011-12-31

Total Pages: 522

ISBN-13: 1412821290

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This is R. J. Rummel's fourth book in a series devoted to genocide and government mass murder, or what he calls democide. He presents the primary results, in tables and figures, as well as a historical sketch of the major cases of democide, those in which one million or more people were killed by a regime. In Death by Government, Rummel does not aim to describe democide itself, but to determine its nature and scope in order to test the theory that democracies are inherently nonviolent. Rummel discusses genocide in China, Nazi Germany, Japan, Cambodia, Turkey, Yugoslavia, Poland, the Soviet Union, and Pakistan. He also writes about areas of suspected genocide: North Korea, Mexico, and feudal Russia. His results clearly and decisively show that democracies commit less democide than other regimes. The underlying principle is that the less freedom people have, the greater the violence; the more freedom, the less the violence. Thus, as Rummel says, “The problem is power. The solution is democracy. The course of action is to foster freedom.” Death by Government is a compelling look at the horrors that occur in modern societies. It depicts how democide has been very much a part of human history. Among other examples, the book includes the massacre of Europeans during the Thirty Years' War, the relatively unknown genocide of the French Revolution, and the slaughtering of American Indians by colonists in the New World. This riveting account is an essential tool for historians, political scientists, and scholars interested in the study of genocide.

In Defence of Lenin
In Defence of Lenin

Author: Rob Sewell

Publisher: Wellred Books

Published: 2024-01-11

Total Pages: 771

ISBN-13:

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John Reed, the author of Ten Days that Shook the World, once said that Lenin was the most loved and the most hated person alive. He was loved by tens of millions who wanted to change society, but hated by the ruling class and their apologists. As the leader of the Russian Revolution, Lenin was a man who changed the world. A convinced Marxist, he created the Bolshevik Party, the most revolutionary party in history. Lenin translated the ideas of Marxism into reality. It is now one hundred years since his death. The bourgeois historians continue to slander him and his ideas. The task of this book is to explain his real life and ideas, and to draw out the significance of Lenin. Given the ongoing capitalist crisis, his ideas are gaining an increasingly wide echo. In so many ways, Lenin is more relevant today than ever before. Over two volumes, this book traces Lenin’s life and explains his ideas, drawing on the colossal heritage of what he actually wrote and did. This book also features an appendix of Krupskaya’s writings on Lenin, a chronology and over 250 images.

Bolshevism: The Road to Revolution
Bolshevism: The Road to Revolution

Author: Alan Woods

Publisher: Wellred Books

Published:

Total Pages: 829

ISBN-13: 1900007851

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There have been a multitude of histories of Russia, either written from an anti-Bolshevik perspective, or its Stalinist mirror image, which both paint a false image of Bolshevism. For them, the Russian Revolution was either an historical ‘accident’ or ‘tragedy’, or is presented as the work of one great man (Lenin), who marched single-mindedly towards October. Using a wealth of primary sources, Alan Woods reveals the real evolution of Bolshevism as a living struggle to apply the method of Marxism to the peculiarities of Russia. Woods traces this evolution from the birth of Russian Marxism, and its ideological struggle against the Narodniks and the trend of economism, through the struggle between the two strands of Menshevism and Bolshevism, and up to the eventual seizure of power. 'Bolshevism: The Road to Revolution' is a comprehensive history of the Bolshevik Party, from its early beginnings through to the seizure of power in October 1917. This important work was first published in 1999, with material collected by the author over a thirty year period, and was republished to mark the centenary of the Russian Revolution. It represents the authoritative work on the building of the Bolshevik Party and can be used as a handbook for those involved in the movement today.

Lenin, Trotsky and the Theory of the Permanent Revolution
Lenin, Trotsky and the Theory of the Permanent Revolution

Author: John Peter Roberts

Publisher: Wellred Books

Published: 2014

Total Pages: 323

ISBN-13: 1900007525

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Today, yet again, from Latin America to Nepal, in India and the Middle East, the question of which strategy the masses should adopt to take control of their own lives is being posed. Without exception the leaders of the mass workers’ parties urge class-collaboration as the way forward. Actively supported by the national Communist Parties and even Maoist guerrilla groups a petty-bourgeois amalgam proposes collaboration with the so-called national bourgeoisie as the only path to national independence and democracy. In the century since the Russian Revolution, the first modern, popular revolution to succeed in throwing out the imperialists, much time and effort has been spent, especially by the former Soviet bureaucracy, in neutering Lenin – praising him while tearing out the revolutionary heart of his theories. This book demonstrates that the Russian Revolution, a model for a victorious, popular revolution in a semi-colonial country in the era of imperialism, required not a bourgeois-democratic, but a socialist revolution for the people to take power. The old regime had to be destroyed and the state and governmental power seized by the working classes before it was possible to achieve national independence and carry though any meaningful agrarian reform for the benefit of the peasantry. Lenin’s close collaborator in October 1917 was Leon Trotsky and the success of that revolution was due to the combination of the discipline and organisation of Lenin’s Bolshevik Party and Trotsky’s political theory of the permanent revolution. This book goes back to basics, critically analysing and comparing Lenin’s and Trotsky’s own writings, which are sited in their source and inspiration - the Russian Revolution of 1905. It is shown that Lenin, in October 1917, adopted the perspectives of Permanent Revolution: that to finally rid Russia of autocracy, and legitimise the peasants’ seizure of the land, the Russian Revolution required the introduction of the dictatorship of the proletariat, and the first steps towards the collectivisation of the means of production. Those who attack the theory of Permanent Revolution never challenge the correctness of its basic concept, that the international socialist revolution could begin in semi-feudal Russia. Instead, in the guise of anti-Trotskyism, they deny the validity of Lenin’s struggle for a socialist revolution in October 1917.

Lenin on the Train
Lenin on the Train

Author: Catherine Merridale

Publisher: Metropolitan Books

Published: 2017-03-28

Total Pages: 385

ISBN-13: 1627793011

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"A gripping, meticulously researched account of Lenin's fateful rail journey from Zurich to Petrograd, where he ignited the Russian Revolution and forever changed the world. In April 1917, as the Russian Tsar Nicholas II's abdication sent shockwaves across war-torn Europe, the future leader of the Bolshevik revolution Vladimir Lenin was far away, exiled in Zurich. When the news reached him, Lenin immediately resolved to return to Petrograd and lead the revolt. But to get there, he would have to cross Germany, which meant accepting help from the deadliest of Russia's adversaries. Germany saw an opportunity to further destabilize Russia by allowing Lenin and his small group of revolutionaries to return. Now, drawing on a dazzling array of sources and never-before-seen archival material, renowned historian Catherine Merridale provides a riveting, nuanced account of this enormously consequential journey--the train ride that changed the world--as well as the underground conspiracy and subterfuge that went into making it happen. Writing with the same insight and formidable intelligence that distinguished her earlier works, she brings to life a world of counter-espionage and intrigue, wartime desperation, illicit finance, and misguided utopianism. This was the moment when the Russian Revolution became Soviet, the genesis of a system of tyranny and faith that changed the course of Russia's history forever and transformed the international political climate"--

The History of Philosophy
The History of Philosophy

Author: Alan Woods

Publisher: Wellred Books

Published:

Total Pages: 346

ISBN-13:

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Alan Woods outlines the development of philosophy from the ancient Greeks, all the way through to Marx and Engels who brought together the best of previous thinking to produce the Marxist philosophical outlook, which looks at the real material world, not as a static immovable reality, but one that is constantly changing and moving according to laws that can be discovered. It is this method which allows Marxists to look at how things were, how they have become and how they are most likely going to be in the future, in a long process which started with the early primitive humans in their struggles for survival, through to the emergence of class societies, all as part of a process towards greater and greater knowledge of the world we live in. This long historical process eventually created the material conditions which allow for an end to class divisions and the flowering of a new society where humans will achieve true freedom, where no human will exploit another, no human will oppress another. Here we see how philosophy becomes an indispensable tool in the struggle for the revolutionary transformation of society.