Russian Revolution

Today, 22 April, marks the 150th birthday of Vladimir Lenin, the great revolutionary leader. Whilst the bourgeois historians and liberals slander him, we celebrate the life and ideas of Lenin – ideas that are more relevant now than ever.

The history of Bolshevism from the very early days right up to the Russian revolution contains a wealth of lessons on how it is the class struggle that provides the final answer to the women’s question. In this article Marie Frederiksen looks at the approach of the Bolshevik Party to the women’s question from its early days, right through to the revolution and after taking power. Originally published 8 March 2017.

Today is the 140th birthday of Ioseb Jughashvili, also known as Koba, but best known as Joseph Stalin: figurehead of the Soviet bureaucracy that seized control of Russia following the degeneration of the Bolshevik regime. We publish here a review (first released on John Riddell's blog) of the new, updated edition of Trotsky's biography of Stalin, originally published in 2016. In his review, John explains how the expanded and revised edition of this biography (edited by Alan Woods) "provides a more satisfactory picture of Stalin’s character" than any previous version. Although we do not agree with all of the ideas presented in the review, we publish it as it would be of interest for our readers. 

7 November is the anniversary of the 1917 Russian Revolution, which altered the entire course of human history. The below article by Alan Woods gives an excellent overview of the revolution as well as highlighting its main lessons. If you want to learn even more, check out our special page www.bolshevik.info for detailed analysis, reading guides, videos and much more about this momentous event.

Today marks the anniversary of Leon Trotsky’s assassination. Struck down 78 years ago by an ice-pick to the head from a cowardly Stalinist assassin, he soon fell into a coma and died the following day, 21^st August 1940. Here we republish an article from the anniversary in 2012, the fight for Trotsky's ideas remain as relevant as ever and we commemorate the life and ideas of this inspiring revolutionary, theoretician and leader.

We publish Rob Sewell's introduction to Lenin's 1902 pamphlet, What is to be Done? Rob (editor of Socialist Appeal, the IMT's British paper) explains the importance of this text, in which Lenin rebuked reformist and opportunist trends in the Russian Social Democracy, and argued for building a committed party of professional revolutionaries to lead the working class to power. It bears huge relevance for Marxists striving for revolution today.

Fyodor Fyodorovich Raskolnikov was a key Bolshevik activist and a principal organiser amongst the Kronstadt Sailors, who would prove so pivotal in the Bolsheviks' seizure of power. In these remarkable memoirs, which cover the period between the February and October Revolutions in 1917, Raskolnikov gives a first-hand account of how the Bolsheviks built their forces in the navy, describes the setbacks of the July Days (during which he, alongside Trotsky, was imprisoned by Kerensky's Provisional Government), and paints a vivid picture of the October insurrection and its immediate aftermath.

We republish a pamphlet (first released in 1987, during the twilight of the Soviet regime), which serves as an invaluable introduction to the events from the October Revolution to the rise of Stalinism in Russia ‒ from which innumerable lessons can be drawn for the class struggle today. It was written by George Collins, then a member of the South African section of the Committee for a Workers’ International.

We publish here a series of essential texts on the subject of women and the Russian Revolution by the likes of Lenin, Trotsky and leading female Bolsheviks like Krupskaya and Kollontai.

As expected, the centenary of the October 1917 Revolution has been greeted with a cacophony of distortions and slanders, especially against Lenin and the Bolsheviks. Hundreds of newspaper articles, books as well as TV and radio documentaries, have been produced with this express purpose in mind, all of which talk of coups and the Bolsheviks being German agents.

The following manifesto, written by Lenin and introduced by Anatoly Lunacharsky at the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets in October 1917, announces the takeover of power by the Soviets, endorses the revolutionary overthrow of the Provisional Government in Petrograd; and calls on transfer of land to the peasants, bread to the cities and democratic control of production to the working class. Long live the October Revolution!

No other event in human history has been the subject of more distortions, falsehoods and fabrications the Russian Revolution. We publish here Alex Grant's complete list of the 10 biggest downright lies about the Bolsheviks and October...