The Preobrazhensky papers
Historians generally recognise Preobrazhensky as the most famous Soviet economist of the 1920s. English-language readers know him best as author of The New Economics and co-author (with Bukharin ) of The ABC of Communism. The documents in this volume, many newly discovered and almost all translated into English for the first time, reveal a Preobrazhensky previously unknown, whose interests ranged far beyond economics to include not only party debates and issues affecting the lives of workers and peasants, but also philosophy, world events, and Russian history, culture and politics.
La du Oktobroj: Petro Arĉinof
Eseo sur la temo de la Oktobro Rusa Revolucio, kaj la kontraŭrevolucian rolon de la bolŝevisto partio.
Nestor Makhno: the man and the myth
Submitted by Steven. on Oct 14 2016 18:37
A short biography of Nestor Makhno by historian Paul Avrich.
Reconstructing Lenin - Tamás Krausz
In 'Reconstructing Lenin', four decades in the making, Tamás Krausz, makes a major contribution to a growing field of contemporary Lenin studies. This rich and penetrating account reveals Lenin busy at the work of revolution, his thought shaped by immediate political events but never straying far from a coherent theoretical perspective. Krausz balances detailed descriptions of Lenin’s time and place with lucid explications of his intellectual development, covering a range of topics like war and revolution, dictatorship and democracy, socialism and utopianism. 'Reconstructing Lenin' will change the way you look at a man and a movement.
Revolution, defeat and theoretical underdevelopment - Loren Goldner (2016)
Essays written over 2010–14, collected here, deal with the legacy bequeathed to the contemporary revolutionary left by four key historical experiences: the Russian Revolution, the Comintern’s first experiment in ‘anti-imperialism’ in the early years of the Turkish Communist Party (1917–25), the failings of anarchism in the Spanish Revolution/Civil War (1936–9) and the failure of the Trotskyist Fourth International in the run-up to the Bolivian Revolution (1952) and beyond. In short, they probe the theoretical and practical legacies bequeathed to us as Leninism, anti-imperialism, anarchism and official Trotskyism, as it evolved after Trotsky’s assassination in 1940.
The agrarian question in the Russian revolution: from material community to productivism, and back - Loren Goldner
Buried under almost a century of ideology, "the Russian question," the historical meaning of the defeat of the Russian revolution, is the question that will not go away. This essay is an attempt to answer it.
Lenin rediscovered: what is to be done? in context - Lars T. Lih
Lars T. Lih challenges the conventional interpretation of V. I. Lenin’s classic text, included here is an authoritative new translation. What Is to Be Done? has long been interpreted as evidence of Lenin’s “elitist” attitude toward workers. Lih uses a wide range of previously unavailable contextual sources to fundamentally overturn this reading of history’s most misunderstood revolutionary text. He argues that Lenin’s polemic must be seen within the context of a rising worker’s movement in Russia, and shows that Lenin’s perspective fit squarely within the mainstream of the socialist movement of his time.
The Bolshevik Party in Conflict: the Left Communist Opposition of 1918 - Ronald I. Kowalski
Submitted by Craftwork on Aug 29 2016 16:34
1991 book examining the part played by the left communists following the Russian revolution, and their positions on a number of key issues.
The Left Communists' Theses on the Current Situation (Russia, 1918)
Submitted by Red Marriott on Aug 28 2016 21:57
Published by the academic journal Critique, Glasgow, in 1977, this text has long been unavailable in print and apparently never before freely available online. A very important document of the Russian Revolution, showing the divisions within the Bolshevik Party in their early days in power.
A documentary history of communism in Russia - Robert V. Daniels
Submitted by Craftwork on Aug 28 2016 15:35
A valuable collection of nearly 300 documents (from 1894-1991) on Russia and socialism, from a variety of contributors - e.g. Lenin, the Russian left communists, Luxemburg.
