This concise monograph traces Russian Marxism from its beginnings to mid-1977, shows how and why the party achieved power, how it has strengthened its position, and how it has undertaken to remold the country and to solve its internal problems. Wesson's study is the only up-to-date party history currently available. The book opens with background material on Russian discontent and endeavors to analyze the fundamental nature of Communist Party rule, taking into account new perspectives in Lenin's revolution, the Stalinist period, and the Khrushchev years, as well as the latest period not covered in earlier accounts. It treats the rise of Lenin, the struggle for power after Lenin and after Stalin, and the consolidation of Brezhnev's authority. As the most recent history of communism in the Soviet Union, it has great topical interest and is clearly written for the benefit of the student and general reader as well as the professional.

This concise monograph traces Russian Marxism from its beginnings to mid-1977, shows how and why the party achieved power, how it has strengthened its position, and how it has undertaken to remold the country and to solve its internal problems. Wesson's study is the only up-to-date party history currently available. The book opens with background material on Russian discontent and endeavors to analyze the fundamental nature of Communist Party rule, taking into account new perspectives in Lenin's revolution, the Stalinist period, and the Khrushchev years, as well as the latest period not covered in earlier accounts. It treats the rise of Lenin, the struggle for power after Lenin and after Stalin, and the consolidation of Brezhnev's authority. As the most recent history of communism in the Soviet Union, it has great topical interest and is clearly written for the benefit of the student and general reader as well as the professional.

The secret life of the man who reshaped Russia Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, leader of the October 1917 uprising, is one of the most misunderstood leaders of the twentieth century. In his own time, there were many, even among his enemies, who acknowledged the full magnitude of his intellectual and political achievements. But his legacy has been lost in misinterpretation; he is worshipped but rarely read. On the centenary of the Russian Revolution, Tariq Ali explores the two major influences on Lenin’s thought—the turbulent history of Tsarist Russia and the birth of the international labour movement—and explains how Lenin confronted dilemmas that still cast a shadow over the present. Is terrorism ever a viable strategy? Is support for imperial wars ever justified? Can politics be made without a party? Was the seizure of power in 1917 morally justified? Should he have parted company from his wife and lived with his lover? In The Dilemmas of Lenin, Ali provides an insightful portrait of Lenin’s deepest preoccupations and underlines the clarity and vigour of his theoretical and political formulations. He concludes with an affecting account of Lenin’s last two years, when he realized that “we knew nothing” and insisted that the revolution had to be renewed lest it wither and die.

Following the work of John Lewis Gaddis, historians have been reassessing the legacy of the Cold War and producing a 'New Cold War History'. Alexander Trapeznik and Aaron Fox (an independent historian based in New Zealand) hope to introduce the 'New Cold War' historiography to the context of New Zealand through the presentation of these ten papers. Beginning with Gaddis' own observations on the overall questions of the project, papers proceed to discuss New Zealand's Cold War defence policy, the relationship of Communist Party of New Zealand with their Australian counterparts and the Comintern, the response of New Zealand's labour movement to international communism, New Zealand-China relations, and Soviet views of New Zealand.

The first biography of the Soviet founder based on full access to the newly opened Russian archives. This compelling story of Lenin and the system he created demonstrates that many of the characteristics of so-called Stalinism were firmly laid down in Lenin's lifetime, usually on Lenin's direct orders. 8-page photo insert.

The idea of a Lenin renaissance might well provoke an outburst of sarcastic laughter. Marx is OK, but Lenin? Doesn’t he stand for the big catastrophe which left its mark on the entire twentieth-century? Lenin, however, deserves wider consideration than this, and his writings of 1917 are testament to a formidable political figure. They reveal his ability to grasp the significance of an extraordinary moment in history. Everything is here, from Lenin-the-ingenious-revolutionary-strategist to Lenin-of-the-enacted-utopia. To use Kierkegaard’s phrase, what we can glimpse in these writings is Lenin-in-becoming: not yet Lenin-the-Soviet-institution, but Lenin thrown into an open, contingent situation. In Revolution at the Gates, Slavoj Žižek locates the 1917 writings in their historical context, while his afterword tackles the key question of whether Lenin can be reinvented in our era of “cultural capitalism.” Žižek is convinced that, whatever the discussion—the forthcoming crisis of capitalism, the possibility of a redemptive violence, the falsity of liberal tolerance—Lenin’s time has come again.

This volume brings together anthropologists, historians and political scientists from around the world to reflect on how to build up empirical and juridical statehood, how to forge a nation after colonial divide-and-rule, and how to position themselves in an international order not of their making.

Victor Sebestyen's riveting biography of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin—the first major biography in English in nearly two decades—is not only a political examination of one of the most important historical figures of the twentieth century but also a fascinating portrait of Lenin the man. Brought up in comfort and with a passion for hunting and fishing, chess, and the English classics, Lenin was radicalized after the execution of his brother in 1887. Sebestyen traces the story from Lenin's early years to his long exile in Europe and return to Petrograd in 1917 to lead the first Communist revolution in history. Uniquely, Sebestyen has discovered that throughout Lenin's life his closest relationships were with his mother, his sisters, his wife, and his mistress. The long-suppressed story told here of the love triangle that Lenin had with his wife, Nadezhda Krupskaya, and his beautiful, married mistress and comrade, Inessa Armand, reveals a more complicated character than that of the coldly one-dimensional leader of the Bolshevik Revolution. With Lenin's personal papers and those of other leading political figures now available, Sebestyen gives is new details that bring to life the dramatic and gripping story of how Lenin seized power in a coup and ran his revolutionary state. The product of a violent, tyrannical, and corrupt Russia, he chillingly authorized the deaths of thousands of people and created a system based on the idea that political terror against opponents was justified for a greater ideal. An old comrade what had once admired him said that Lenin "desired the good . . . but created evil." This included his invention of Stalin, who would take Lenin's system of the gulag and the secret police to horrifying new heights. In Lenin, Victor Sebestyen has written a brilliant portrait of this dictator as a complex and ruthless figure, and he also brings to light important new revelations about the Russian Revolution, a pivotal point in modern history. (With 16 pages of black-and-white photographs)