Revolution, Democracy, Socialism: Selected Writings

by Vladimir Lenin

Part of Pluto's 21st birthday series Get Political, which brings essential political writing in a range of fields to a new audience. This is an entirely new collection of Lenin's writing. For the first time it brings together crucial shorter works, to show that Lenin held a life-long commitment to freedom and democracy. Le Blanc has written a comprehensive introduction, which gives an accessible overview of Lenin's life and work, and explains his relevance to political thought today. Lenin has been much maligned in the mainstream, accused of viewing "man as modeling clay" and of "social engineering of the most radical kind." However, in contrast to today's world leaders, who happily turn to violence to achieve their objectives, Lenin believed it impossible to reach his goals "by any other path than that of political democracy." This collection will be of immense value to students encountering Lenin for the first time, and those looking for a new interpretation of one of the 20th century's most inspiring figures.

Genres: Politics, Lenin, Philosophy

376 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 2008

About the author

Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, better known as Vladimir Lenin, was a Russian revolutionary, leader of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (Bolsheviks), statesman and political theorist. After the October Revolution he served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 until his death in 1924 and of the Soviet Union from 1922 until his death in 1924.

Reviews

[Janine Gertz · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Here are ten good reasons for not reading Lenin:
1. The world is as it should be and all is going well.
2. Freedom, creative opportunities, and community exist for all.
3. Each person has a decisive say in decisions affecting his or her life.
4. Oppression and exploitation do not exist.
5. The unequal structure of wealth and power in our society and in our world has nothing to do with the problems of humanity.
6. It is easier to figure out how to make the world a better place
7. The history of struggles by workers and oppressed people is a waste of time.
8. The popular revolution of 1917 in Russia was a meaningless diversion
9. It’s good just to rely on what others say about someone as complex as Lenin.
10. Realities of the present and possibilities for the future have nothing to do with what happened in the past. “

[Seán · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was difficult and slow to get through, I’ve been reading it almost since early January. I can’t remember the last time I spent so much time with a book. With that said, it was at times a rewarding and thought provoking read. I learned a lot that I didn’t know about Russian history, especially those times relating to the tsar losing power.

Part of the difficulty for me was understanding Lenin’s comprehensive and exact writing, and often his political intellect soared far over my head instead of sinking in. With Lenin’s impressive ability to be exact, I was glad that each chapter opened with a few some paragraphs from the editor giving context for the writings selected for each time period. Without this background information I would have been truly lost and honestly feel like I would have been largely wasting my time with this work.

As a whole, these writings sum up the difficulty of revolutionary action and the background, backroom war that started long before the fighting. These pieces show that some revolutionaries have ideals in mind long before the violence and anger start bubbling over.

I am certainly glad to be finished, and I will not read this again in its entirety. It’s too detailed and too dense for me to extract enough understanding from it to justify the struggle and time commitment. But I am glad to have engaged with such a political text as a challenge to myself, even if my impatience to get into the next book marred my enjoyment somewhat.

I’ll be less harsh on myself the next time I go to pick up a historical summary or brief account of someone’s writings rather than the larger, denser first hand account. As with the journals of Lewis and Clark, which I read last year , there’s a lot to be gleaned from a first hand account, but oftentimes the law of diminishing returns is apparent. I must ask myself why I’m reading, or trying to read a book that is too difficult or too narrowly focused. Is it for the sake of pride or genuine scholarly interest?Sometimes I’d be better prescribing myself a condensed or reworked version first, so that if I go on to read the original text, then I will have more context, understanding and appreciation for what I have before me, rather than a feeling of helplessness and frustration as the arcane, dense writing puts me to sleep. With this said, it’s no surprise that the parts of this book that I enjoyed most were the opening summary of Lenin’s life and the introduction of each chapter, where his writings were summarised and placed in the context of their time.

Unless you already have strong interest or knowledge on Lenin and the Russian revolution of this time, I’d recommend you start with something easier and more approachable than this work. If you choose to start with this, I’m sure you will enjoy some aspects as I did, but don’t be surprised if you find yourself slogging through at least some of the 350 or so pages here.

I’ve given 4 starts because I don’t think there’s much wrong with the book. As far as I’m aware this is an accurate and well edited selection of Lenin’s wiring. And a fascinating introduction to the man and his political beliefs at that. My only issues were related to my own expectations and perhaps naïvety assuming that I could waltz into such dense political writing with little to no context and enjoy it entirely for what it is, like some sort of paperback novel.

[DJ · Rating 5 out of 5]

A solid intro to Lenin's thought, that dispels some of the commonly held notions about him.

[Zac Denman · Rating 4 out of 5]

5 stars for Lenin, 1 star for the parts that weren't written by Lenin

[Amid]

Mola.