We publish here a series of essential texts on the subject of women and the Russian Revolution by the likes of Lenin, Trotsky and leading female Bolsheviks like Krupskaya and Kollontai.

As expected, the centenary of the October 1917 Revolution has been greeted with a cacophony of distortions and slanders, especially against Lenin and the Bolsheviks. Hundreds of newspaper articles, books as well as TV and radio documentaries, have been produced with this express purpose in mind, all of which talk of coups and the Bolsheviks being German agents.

In his latest video outlining the key events of 1917, Alan Woods - author of "Bolshevism: the Road to Revolution" - discusses the October Revolution, when the workers and peasants of Russia seized power. Alan looks at the build up to the insurrection, which took place exactly 100 years ago on 7 November (25 October, old calendar), and explains the historic significance of the Bolshevik revolution on this centenary anniversary.

The following manifesto, written by Lenin and introduced by Anatoly Lunacharsky at the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets in October 1917, announces the takeover of power by the Soviets, endorses the revolutionary overthrow of the Provisional Government in Petrograd; and calls on transfer of land to the peasants, bread to the cities and democratic control of production to the working class. Long live the October Revolution!

No other event in human history has been the subject of more distortions, falsehoods and fabrications the Russian Revolution. We publish here Alex Grant's complete list of the 10 biggest downright lies about the Bolsheviks and October...

The following series of articles provides in-depth analyses and first-hand accounts of the events immediately preceding, during and after the greatest event in human history: the October Revolution, in addition to reflections on its aftermath.

To mark the centenary of the Russian Revolution, we present this original documentary celebrating the life and accomplishments of one of the revolution’s main leaders: Leon Trotsky.

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the October Revolution in Russia, and unsurprisingly, has produced some mainstream media content dealing with these events. One of them was the Cal Seville’s Russian Revolution documentary, currently available on Netflix.

Socialist Appeal (British section of the International Marxist Tendency) will hold its October Revolution festival in one week. Don't miss out on this incredible celebration of Marxist ideas on the centenary of the Russian Revolution.

This year is the 97th anniversary of the 1920 Kiev Offensive by the Polish Army and the decisive defeat of the Soviet troops at the Battle of Warsaw: an event of great historic importance that marked a turning point in the course of the European revolution. This front of the Russian Civil War was a grave and important test for the Bolshevik Party, sparking daily and intense debate throughout its ranks.

Tsarist Russia was known as the "prison house of nations". More than half of the its population was composed of different oppressed nationalities. In this speech from the Summer School of the International Marxist Tendency, Jorge Martin explains the role of national question during the Russian Revolution and how the Bolsheviks approached the question.

Following the July days, Russia entered a period of reaction. The Bolsheviks were arrested in the hundreds and the advanced workers were under attack. Meanwhile the bourgeoisie regained its confidence and took an ever more open counterrevolutionary position. This mood began to galvanise around the commander-in-chief, general Kornilov, a cossack general determined to drown the revolution in blood.

In this latest video from our series on the 1917 Russian Revolution, Alan Woods - author of "Bolshevism: from Revolution to Counter-Revolution" - discusses the failed coup attempt by General Kornilov and the impact this had on the political consciousness of the masses.

World War One broke the 2nd International, as most of the workers' parties supported their own ruling class and the war effort. Lenin and the Bolsheviks maintained a class position, opposing the war, even after the February Revolution, when many former opponents of the war became supporters. The Bolshevik war policy became a key pillar of the party's programme as it led the working masses to victory in October 1917.

On 21 August 1940, Leon Trotsky, the great revolutionary leader of the October Revolution, died in Mexico, murdered by a Stalinist agent. We publish his autobiography with forewords by In Defence of Marxism editor, Alan Woods, and Trotsky's grandson, Esteban Volkov.

After Lenin returned to revolutionary Petrograd in April 1917, events themselves quickly took several decisive turns. By the end of the month, Alexander Kerensky, the only workers’ representative in the bourgeois Provisional Government, was reporting to the Soviet Executive Committee that the government had effectively ceased to function amid ongoing economic crisis and Soviets around the country were taking matters into their own hands.

Acest an marchează aniversarea a 100 de ani de la revoluția din octombrie. Apologeții capitalismului, împreună cu răsunarea lor loială din mișcarea muncitorească, încearcă să se consoleze cu ideea colapsului URSS-ului semnificând decesul socialismului. Însă ceea ce a eșuat în Rusia nu a fost socialismul, dar o caricatură a socialismului. Contrar defăimărilor des repetate, regimul Stalinist a fost în antiteză cu regimul democrat stabilit de către bolșevici în 1917.

R.H. Bruce Lockhart was a British Government agent in Russia before and after the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. He met all the main leaders of the Tsarist regime, the Provisional Government as well as the Soviet leaders, Lenin and Trotsky. His first-hand experiences and lucid observations were published in his remarkable book entitled Memoirs of a British Agent in 1932. It became an instant best-seller in Britain and America. Although it presents things from the standpoint of a staunch supporter of the British establishment, it is nevertheless a fascinating account.

One hundred years ago, Leon Trotsky, the great Russian revolutionary and leader of the October Revolution in 1917, left the Amherst concentration camp in Nova Scotia where he had been detained for almost a month. The story of the time that Trotsky spent in Canada, while not that well known, is a very interesting episode in Trotsky's road to revolutionary Russia, where he would aid the Russian working class in taking power later that year.

When the Russian Revolution broke out in early 1917, Vladimir Ilych Ulyanov – better known as Lenin – the leader of the Bolshevik faction of the RSDLP, was exiled in Zurich, Switzerland. As the first reports arrived of these extraordinary events, Lenin’s excitement was coupled with exasperation that he himself was separated from them by thousands of miles. “I am beside myself that I cannot go to Scandinavia!!” he complained bitterly, in a letter to his friend Inessa Armand. “I will not forgive myself for not risking the journey in 1915!”