Alex Callinicos: Guide to Reading on the Russian Revolution (November...

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Alex Callinicos
Guide to Reading:

Russian Revolution
(November 1977)
From International Socialism (1st series), No.103, November 1977, p.13. Transcribed & marked up by Einde O Callaghan for the Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism On-Line (ETOL).

There is no doubt about what book heads this reading list. Trotskys History of the Russian Revolution, republished this autumn by Pluto Press (5.00), is the book to read on this subject. If you havent already, read it now. John Reeds eyewitness account of the actual seizure of power in November 1917, Ten Days that Shook the World (Penguin 1.00), is vivid, exciting, moving. Again its a must. The second volume of Tony Cliffs Lenin, All Power to the Soviets (Pluto 3.60), concentrates on Lenins role in 1917, filling a gap left in Trotskys History from which, as Cliff puts it, the party, alas, is almost absent. Two other books add to our understanding of Lenin and the Bolsheviks in 1917. The Bolshevik Central Committee minutes for the period August 1917-February 1918, published by Pluto in The Bolsheviks and the October Revolution (2.70), give us the atmosphere of muddle, and argument in which the vital decisions were taken. There is also Marcel Liebmans interesting study, Leninism under Lenin (Allen Lane 12.00), although its price makes it something to read in a library rather than to buy. Trotskys autobiography, My Life (Penguin 1.25), fills in aspects of his role in 1917 omitted from his History. 1905 (Penguin 75p), apart from its account of the first Russian revolution and the first Soviets, contains the finest of Trotskys analyses of the driving forces of the revolution, which provided the basis for his theory of permanent revolution. The first three volumes of E.H. Carrs History of Soviet Russia, The Bolshevik Revolution 1917-23, scrupulously assemble many useful facts. Unfortunately, the heart of the matter the working class is missing. Victor Serges Year One of the Russian Revolution (Allen Lane 3.75) describes the immediate aftermath of the revolution. As to its fate, Chris Harmans pamphlet, How the Revolution was Lost, is unfortunately out of print. Cliffs State Capitalism in Russia (Pluto 1.50) is indispensable. For an interesting discussion of the early years of the Soviet state, written

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Alex Callinicos: Guide to Reading on the Russian Revolution (November...

http://www.marxists.org/history/etol/writers/callinicos/1977/11/russrev.htm

from a sophisticated Maoist point of view, read Charles Bettelheims Class Struggles in the USSR (Harvester 12.50). Hopefully Volume 3 of Cliffs Lenin will fill an important gap the international impact of the October revolution. New Park have done a useful service by publishing the proceedings of the vital Second Congress of the Communist International (2 volumes, each 3.50). Top of page
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