Against Lenin: The Pre-Bolshevik Writings (Paperback)
Trotsky’s earliest interventions into the Russian socialist movement brought together for the first time in English
Written in the last years before the explosion of the 1905 revolution, the texts collected together and introduced by Tariq Ali here are among Trotsky’s most vigorous polemics. Exiled from Russia for his revolutionary activities, these essays portray some of the young socialist’s reflections on the early Russian left. His divergences with Lenin, the problems with liberalism, the state of the workers’ movement and the organizational debates tearing through Russian social-democracy are just some of the themes dealt with in this volume, which includes some translated for the first time in English.
Written in the last years before the explosion of the 1905 revolution, the texts collected together and introduced by Tariq Ali here are among Trotsky’s most vigorous polemics. Exiled from Russia for his revolutionary activities, these essays portray some of the young socialist’s reflections on the early Russian left. His divergences with Lenin, the problems with liberalism, the state of the workers’ movement and the organizational debates tearing through Russian social-democracy are just some of the themes dealt with in this volume, which includes some translated for the first time in English.
Leon Trotsky was a Marxist writer, theorist and leader. He organised the insurrection of the October Revolution in Russia in 1917 and then was the commander of the Red Army in the subsequent civil war. After Lenin’s death, Trotsky led the Left Opposition against Stalin’s bureaucratic counterrevolution and was exiled in a series of countries before being assassinated in Mexico in 1940.