There have been a multitude of histories of Russia, either written from an anti-Bolshevik perspective, or its Stalinist mirror image, which both paint a false image of Bolshevism. For them, the Russian Revolution was either an historical ‘accident’ or ‘tragedy’, or is presented as the work of one great man (Lenin), who marched single-mindedly towards October.
Using a wealth of primary sources, Alan Woods reveals the real evolution of Bolshevism as a living struggle to apply the method of Marxism to the peculiarities of Russia. Woods traces this evolution from the birth of Russian Marxism, and its ideological struggle against the Narodniks and the trend of economism, through the struggle between the two strands of Menshevism and Bolshevism, and up to the eventual seizure of power.
'Bolshevism: The Road to Revolution' is a comprehensive history of the Bolshevik Party, from its early beginnings through to the seizure of power in October 1917. This important work was first published in 1999, with material collected by the author over a thirty year period, and has been republished here to mark the centenary of the Russian Revolution. It represents the authoritative work on the building of the Bolshevik Party and can be used as a handbook for those involved in the movement today.
Available from Wellred in paper copy and as an ebook
Table of Contents
- The Death of an Autocrat
- ‘Going to the People’
- ‘Land and Freedom’
- The Birth of Russian Marxism
- The Emancipation of Labour Group
- Combined and Uneven Development
- The Period of Small Circles
- From Propaganda to Agitation
- The Jewish Workers’ Movement
- The Petersburg League of Struggle
- ‘Legal Marxism’
- Lenin and the Group for the Emancipation of Labour
- The Economist Controversy
- Rabochaya Mysl’
- Bernstein’s Revisionism
- The First Congress of the RSDLP
- Rabocheye Dyelo
- The Birth of Iskra
- What Is To Be Done?
- A New Awakening
- Tensions on the Editorial Board
- The Economists in Retreat
- The Second Congress
- The Real Meaning of the 1903 Split
- Confusion in the Ranks
- Rosa Luxemburg
- War with Japan
- Trotsky’s Break with the Mensheviks
- 9 January, 1905
- ‘Zubatovism’
- Father Gapon
- The Putilov Strike
- Bloody Sunday
- Revolution Begins
- The Shidlovsky Commission
- Lenin and the ‘Committeemen’
- The Third Congress
- How the Party Financed Itself
- Revolutionary Flood Tide
- The Bulygin Duma
- The October Strike and the Soviet
- The Bolsheviks and the Soviet
- ‘Nicholas the Bloody’
- Opening up the Party
- The Party Press
- Trotsky in 1905
- The Moscow Uprising
- Defeat
- ‘Woe to the Vanquished’
- The Struggle Against Unemployment
- Revolutionary Tactics
- Reunification
- The Debate on the Land Question
- Bolshevism and Menshevism
- The Peasants’ Revolt
- To Boycott, or Not to Boycott?
- Parliamentary Illusions
- The Duma Dissolved
- The Question of Guerrilla War
- Lenin’s Attitude to Guerrillaism
- The Stolypin Reaction
- The Fifth (London) Congress
- The Debate on the Bourgeois Parties
- The Permanent Revolution
- The 3 June Coup
- Liquidationism and Otzovism
- Mood of the Intelligentsia
- The Bolsheviks Split
- The Pro-Party Mensheviks
- Tensions in Proletary
- Trotsky and Conciliationism
- The January Plenum
- ‘Unity’ Breaks Down
- On the Eve
- A Brief Interregnum
- Mass Work Under Conditions of Reaction
- The Prague Conference
- The Provocateur Malinovsky
- After the Conference
- A New Awakening
- Lenin and Pravda
- Elections to the Fourth Duma
- Bolsheviks in the Duma
- Tactics in the Duma
- Revolutionary Upswing
- ‘The Masses Have Now Grown Up’
- Split in the Duma Group
- The National Question
- Lenin on the National Question
- The Balkan Wars
- The Gathering Storm
- The Bolsheviks’ Influence Grows
- The Bolsheviks on the Eve of the War
- The Collapse of the Second International
- The Social Roots of Chauvinism
- Tendencies in Russian Social Democracy
- Lenin’s Position
- The Mood of the Working Class
- The Party Decimated
- The Duma Fraction
- Vacillations Among the Bolsheviks
- The ‘Left’ Bolsheviks
- Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism
- The Trial of Bolshevik Duma Deputies
- Closed Frontiers
- German Intrigues
- How Did the Party Survive?
- Catastrophe at the Front
- Bolsheviks in the Armed Forces
- The Liberals Begin to Stir
- The Turn of the Tide
- Crisis of Tsarism
- Change of Mood
- Work Among Women
- Pacifist Gestures
- The Zimmerwald Conference
- The Kienthal Conference
- The February Revolution
- The Bolsheviks in February
- The Mensheviks and the February Revolution
- The Bolsheviks and the Provisional Government
- Lenin and Trotsky in 1917
- Lenin Rearms the Party
- The First Coalition
- ‘All Power to the Soviets’
- The June Days
- The July Days
- After the July Events
- Lenin Changes His Mind
- Trotsky and the Bolshevik Party
- The Kornilov Rebellion
- The Struggle for the Masses
- Tactics of the Insurrection
- Crisis of Leadership
- The Question of the Soviet Congress
- The Final Chapter
- The Seizure of Power
- Was October a Coup?
- The Triumph of Bolshevism
- The Struggle at the Congress