Karl Kautsky was known as the Pope of Marxism in the early 20th century, but until recently he appeared to have been almost forgotten.1 He was the leading theorist of the German Social Democratic Party (SPD), a nominally Marxist mass… Continue Reading
A review of August H Nimtz, Lenin’s Electoral Strategy from Marx and Engels through the Revolution of 1905: The Ballot, the Streets—or Both and Lenin’s Electoral Strategy from 1907 to the October Revolution of 1917: The Ballot, the Streets—or Both… Continue Reading
A review of Tariq Ali, The Dilemmas of Lenin: Terrorism, War, Empire, Love, Revolution, Verso (2017), £16.99 Can we rescue Lenin for the 21st century? In this the year of the centenary of the 1917 Russian Revolution we have to… Continue Reading
I shall never forget that thunder-like speech, which startled and amazed not only me, a heretic who had accidently dropped in, but all the true believers. I am certain that no one had expected anything of the sort. It seemed… Continue Reading
A review of Tamás Krausz, Reconstructing Lenin: An Intellectual Biography (Monthly Review Press, 2015), £25 Reconstructing Lenin is a thoughtful and compelling study of Lenin. Tamás Krausz reveals Lenin as an activist revolutionary whose thoughts were shaped by immediate political… Continue Reading
What, if anything, do modern day socialists have to learn from Lenin? Capitalism is mired in its deepest and longest crisis since the 1930s, producing bitter discontent that in places overflows into mass resistance and even revolutions. With Stalinism all… Continue Reading
The proletarian vanguard has been won over ideologically… But that is still quite a long way from victory. Victory cannot be won with a vanguard alone. To throw only the vanguard into the decisive battle…would be…criminal. Propaganda and agitation are… Continue Reading
In Tony Cliff’s original four-volume series on Lenin published in the 1970s, the second volume was entitled All Power to the Soviets and the third Revolution Besieged.1 Besieged may not mean destroyed, but the civil war, which began in May… Continue Reading