Marx, Lenin, and the Revolutionary Experience offers a fresh look at Communism, both the bad and good, and also touches on anarchism, Christian theory, conservatism, liberalism, Marxism, and more, to argue for the enduring relevance of Karl Marx, and V.I. Lenin as democratic revolutionaries. It examines the "Red Decade" of the 1930s and the civil rights movement and the New Left of the 1960s in the United States as well. Studying the past to grapple with issues of war and terrorism, exploitation, hunger, ecological crisis, and trends toward deadening "de-spiritualization", the book shows how the revolutionaries of the past are still relevant to today's struggles. It offers a clearly written and carefully reasoned thematic discussion of globalization, Marxism, Christianity (and religion in general), Communism, the history of the USSR and US radical and social movements.

Brief collection of the basic ideas of Marx, Engels, Lenin.

This study is a contribution to the debate, begun just after the October Revolution, concerning the relationship between Marx's project and Soviet society. It focuses, however, only on the political aspects of the matter: to what extent was early Soviet authoritarianism the necessary outcome of Marx's works? Since Lenin's practice and theory largely determined and justified the early political character of the Soviet state, we may ask whether Lenin was implementing Marx's project or a project of his own design. Lenin, influenced by debates within Social Democracy and by the experience of the Russian revolutionary tradition, used a one-sided interpretation of Marx's work to build and defend a 'transition' which was fundamentally authoritarian. Marx was not causally responsible for the theoretical foundation of Soviet authoritarianism.

One of the pre-eminent scholars in the history and theory of European socialism, John Kautsky in this volume develops the argument that Marxism and Leninism are two quite different ideologies. He counterposes this view with the commonly accepted one of Leninism as simply one form that Marxism took in the course of its evolution. The easy identification of Marxism and Leninism with each other has been responsible for great confusion in the realm of both scholarly and political discourse. Kautsky develops his position within the tradition of the sociology of knowledge, by the close examination of the different meanings of the Marxist vocabulary as it was used by Marxists and Leninists. His frame of reference turns on the position of labor in turn-of-the-century industrial Europe and the role of modernizing intellectuals in underdeveloped countries. While the vocabulary used was often common to Marx and Lenin, Marxism was explicitly concerned with appeals to workers in industrial nations such as Germany and Austria, whereas Leninism appeals to revolutionaries in underdeveloped nations such as Russia and China. Whatever be the current assessment of the future of socialism and communism, Kautsky holds that it is important to study the core structure of both Marxism and Leninism, since they were major phenomena that powerfully affected the world in the twentieth century. Beyond that, in dealing with how different ideologies can be ensconced within the same rhetoric, the book offers an outstanding entrance into the sociology of knowledge as a tool for political analysis. This is a unique work in the function of language no less than the nature of ideology. The work is divided into five parts: Two environments, two ideologies, one terminology. The evolution of Marxism, its appeals in the German Empire. The evolution of Leninism, its appeals to strata involved in making modernizing revolutions. The differential outcomes of Marxism in the East and Leninism in the West. And finally, an examination of why Marxism and Leninism have been seen as a single ideology. In a new essay prepared for this new edition, Kautsky provides important autobiographical as well as historical reflections on how this book fits into the overall pattern of the author's work.

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.

Back in print with a comprehensive new introduction by the author, Lenin, Hegel, and Western Marxism is the classic account of Lenin's extensive writings on Hegel in relationship to his theorization of imperialism, the state, and revolution.

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin is among the most enigmatic and influential figures of the twentieth century. While his life and work are crucial to any understanding of modern history and the socialist movement, generations of writers on the left and the right have seen fit to embalm him endlessly with superficial analysis or dreary dogma. Now, after the fall of the Soviet Union and “actually-existing” socialism, it is possible to consider Lenin afresh, with sober senses trained on his historical context and how it shaped his theoretical and political contributions. Reconstructing Lenin, four decades in the making and now available in English for the first time, is an attempt to do just that. Tamás Krausz, an esteemed Hungarian scholar writing in the tradition of György Lukács, Ferenc Tokei, and István Mészáros, 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; it will also introduce the English-speaking world to a profound radical scholar.

Whether it is brutal murders by the police, the injustices perpetrated everyday in the legal and prison system, or the military interventions around the globe-the state remains a topic of utmost importance for today's revolutionaries. In the everyday struggles of working class and oppressed people the state often presents itself as the main enemy. Can anything be done to change this reality? Is this just the way it is and always will be? This volume answers the question of why the capitalist government and its enforcers are set up against the people, and why, in order to win radical change, we need a revolution that builds a new state on new foundations. Revolution Manifesto revisits the theories of the state first developed by Marx, Engels and especially Lenin in his groundbreaking work "The State and Revolution." Nearly a century later, Lenin's analysis on the class nature of the state, and the need to overthrow it, has been proven true time and again. Examining the historical experience of revolutions in France, Russia and Cuba, as well as precolonial Indigenous societies, the book asks: do we even need a state? What are the possibilities for revolutionary states to "wither away" completely? As struggles against exploitation and oppression continue to heat up, this book is a must read for all those serious about understanding and resolving the serious injustices facing our world. This publication reflects the views of the Party for Socialism and Liberation. "Anyone who aspires ... to understand the theory of modern communism must study Lenin's pamphlet "The State and Revolution." ... The book's primary objective was to rescue Marxism from its devolution into a doctrine of reform, to restore Marxism as a doctrine of revolution." -From Revolution Manifesto