The Russian Revolution: A View from the Third World

by Walter Rodney, Jesse Benjamin (Editor), Robin D.G. Kelley (Editor)

In his short life, Guyanese intellectual Walter Rodney emerged as one of the foremost thinkers and activists of the anticolonial revolution, leading movements in North America, Africa, and the Caribbean. Wherever he was, Rodney was a lightning rod for working-class Black Power organizing. His deportation sparked Jamaica’s Rodney Riots in 1968, and his scholarship trained a generation how to approach politics on an international scale. In 1980, shortly after founding the Working People’s Alliance in Guyana, the thirty-eight-year-old Rodney was assassinated.

Walter Rodney’s Russian Revolution collects surviving texts from a series of lectures he delivered at the University of Dar es Salaam, an intellectual hub of the independent Third World. It had been his intention to work these into a book, a goal completed posthumously with the editorial aid of Robin D.G. Kelley and Jesse Benjamin. Moving across the historiography of the long Russian Revolution with clarity and insight, Rodney transcends the ideological fault lines of the Cold War. Surveying a broad range of subjects—the Narodniks, social democracy, the October Revolution, civil war, and the challenges of Stalinism—Rodney articulates a distinct viewpoint from the Third World, one that grounds revolutionary theory and history with the people in motion.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Politics, Russia, Theory, Africa, Soviet Union

336 pages, Paperback

First published July 10, 2018

About the author

In his short life, the Guyanese intellectual Walter Rodney emerged as one of the leading thinkers and activists of the anticolonial revolution, leading movements in North America, the African continent, and the Caribbean. In each locale, Rodney found himself a lightning rod for working class Black Power. His deportation catalyzed twentieth-century Jamaica’s most significant rebellion, the 1968 Rodney riots, and his scholarship trained a generation how to think politics at an international scale. In 1980, shortly after founding of the Working People’s Alliance in Guyana, the 38-year-old Rodney was assassinated.

Reviews

[Carlos Martinez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant and nuanced analysis of the Russian Revolution (from the late 19th century up until the start of the Second World War) by the Guyanese radical intellectual Walter Rodney, best known for his essential study of European colonialism in Africa, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa.

The book has been pieced together from lecture notes compiled while Rodney was working in Dar es Salaam. It wasn't meant for publication in book form (at least not without a lot more work, which was rudely interrupted by Walter Rodney's 1980 assassination at the hands of the Guyanese state). As such, it isn't a comprehensive study of all things Soviet, but rather a collection of notes and ideas, exploring some key concepts of Soviet historiography. Even so, given Rodney's extraordinary grasp of political science and his firmly third-worldist and pan-African standpoint, the insights offered by this book are hugely valuable.

Robin Kelley makes an important point in the preface: whereas Rodney's close friend CLR James was more critical of the Soviet experience (and more open to the Trotskyist assessment of it), Walter Rodney's direct experiences of the problems of trying to build actually-existing socialism in Tanzania made him much more understanding of the flaws of Soviet socialism. He knew from first hand experience just how difficult it was to build something new and positive in the face of systematic destabilisation from the major capitalist powers.

[Tanroop · Rating 4 out of 5]

Admittedly, this wasn't what I expected. The title prepared me to read something along the lines of Vijay Prashad's Red Star Over the Third World. However, the third world doesn't really come up here until the very end. The "view from the third world", in fact, refers to Rodney's intellectual grounding. He was a Pan-African revolutionary, and wrote this work in Tanzania while that society attempted to build socialism. This meant Rodney had an affinity and sympathy for the Soviet Experience which was, and is, quite rare in the West.

This book is a collection of Rodney's lecture notes, as he undertook a broad survey of the historiography on the Russian Revolution. Written decades ago, some of the works he refers to are quite dated and some of his rebuttals can be questionable. However, a great deal of the book feels quite recent- the criticisms he tries to debunk will likely seem familiar to readers today. It is also engaging throughout, and deals with important aspects of Soviet history.

I feel this book helped me clarify my own thinking in certain respects, and left me excited to look into further reading on topics I now have more questions about. As always, I was struck by the readability of Rodney's work- he had a gift for communication, one that I think many academics and intellectuals are sorely lacking.

[lexluvsb00ks · Rating 5 out of 5]

a MUSTTTTTTT read!!! idk why this text isn’t recommended more often but it’s a great analysis of the russian revolution and the establishment of the USSR. walter rodney is BRILLIANT, his language is extremely accessible, and i finished the whole text within a day. he tackles popular bourgeois accusations and narratives as well, proving the superiority of socialism in many respects. reading history is sometimes difficult but the way he writes makes it easy to digest and engage in what feels like a conversation. 10000/10

[JRT · Rating 5 out of 5]

The story of how this book came together posthumously is remarkable in itself and is a testament of the scope of the great Walter Rodney’s reach. Rodney, via the editing skills of Robin D.G. Kelley and Jesse Benjamin, tells the story of the Russian Revolution from the perspective of the colonized African / Third Wordlist (in contrast to the Bourgeoise perspective that dominates the literature). Rodney contends that a Third World / African interpretation of Russia’s revolutionary history was necessary in order to sift through the lies told about this period by Euro-American colonizers, and to better situate the Russian Revolution in a frame that decolonial Africa and Latin America could understand and relate to.

In telling this story, Rodney meticulously analyzes and dismantles the Bourgeois view of the Revolution, which he claims is highly subjective, unable to acknowledge social contradictions, and generally demeaning of the movement and agency of the masses of people. Throughout the book Rodney pushes back against Bourgeois attempts to individualize certain aspects of the Revolution (both good and bad). He also pushes back against various distortions and half-truths about the Bolshevik Party, including that they were a manipulative minority that subverted Marxist thought and imposed a dictatorship on the backward / non-revolutionary peasant class of Russia (Rodney vehemently disputes these assertions). Rodney sets the stage by detailing the history of Russian serfdom and Tsarism, and compares and contrasts the competing factions and organizations leading up to the 1905 and 1917 Russian Revolutions, including the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks. He also highlights the ideological disagreements between Lenin, Karl Kautsky, Rosa Luxemburg, and the many Bourgeois academics who have revised history.

Admittedly, anybody from the West who reads this book will likely feel some internal contradictions with many of Rodney’s conclusions and assertions, especially given the constant negative propaganda about the Revolution that comes from Western Nations. However, Rodney does a good job noting the negative aspects and failures of the Revolution without giving credence to the false narratives that the imperialist countries have propagated. Rodney critiques the violence that took place during Stalin’s “forced collectivization” of agriculture, noting that revolutionary violence is only a means to expropriate power from the ruling class, not to impose socialism from above onto the masses. He also acknowledges the truth of the shortcomings (some of which were tragic and brutal) of Stalin and the Communist Party, while refraining from individualizing them. Critics might push back against Rodney’s attempts to explain Stalin and the Communist Party’s actions from the mid-1930s onward with regard to secret police, Gulags, executions, etc. Rodney contends that to a degree, the Soviet state needed to retain the repressive apparatus of the state due to the reactionary forces that proliferated the country (and who were supported and funded by Western capitalists). However, Rodney does indeed acknowledge that many mistakes occurred, and that contrary to Soviet propaganda, socialism was not yet achieved (despite great progress in that direction). Rodney further pushes back against the notion that socialism in general should be defined by the excesses and repression that existed in Soviet Russia, brilliantly demonstrating how those same tactics and outcomes are fundamental features of the capitalist social order.

Ultimately, this book is Rodney’s passionate defense of socialist revolution and anti-capitalism. Rodney produced the rough draft of this work while living and teaching in revolutionary Tanzania, and references to the Tanzanian situation are littered throughout the book. This—along with the editors’ forwards—gives us some insight into what kind of application Rodney believed the Russian Revolution had in Africa and the Third World. Rodney’s insights on Russian imperialism pre-revolution, class solidarity among different factions of the dispossessed classes (peasants and the proletariat, in this case), and the failures and excesses of the Revolution are lessons for revolutionary nationalists of Rodney’s time, and today.

[Karlo Mikhail · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a posthumously mashedup collection of Guyanese revolutionary scholar and martyr Walter Rodney's lecture notes on the Russian Revolution. A fascinating critique of Cold War anti-communist scholarship and accounting of the relevance of the Soviet experience for Third World revolutionaries, this is the first book I read by Walter Rodney. Mildy critical of the Soviets though not as sharp as the Maoists, the book features some studied defense of #Stalin and the Marxist-Leninist "Socialism in One Country" line and some savage takedowns of Trotsky's Eurocentrism and Rosa Luxemburg on the national question.

[noam · Rating 5 out of 5]

this was a super easy read, as well as a very sharp and principled history and analysis of the russian revolution. while not accepting every aspect of the soviet experience, rodney leaves us off by saying that, with the correct view, the soviet revolution and subsequent construction of socialism are very positive historical experiences that the colonized and formerly colonized, Black Africans, and workers and peasants or intellectuals with roots in said classes can take a great deal from in their own respective struggles to build socialism.

[Luke · Rating 5 out of 5]

Walter Rodney really is a fascinating writer. In this book he has analysed the Russian revolution and the large range of scholarship around the issue.
As a student I appreciate this book a lot as it has helped me critically analyse other's works and how to bring them together to understand the world better. I have added several books he has analysed here from other authors. It has also given me an interesting insight into the Cold War world, with the capitalist side, soviet side and unaligned third world.
Although Walter Rodney clearly presents socialist revolution as the step forward for the colonised world, he is critical yet admiring of soviet communism as a great experiment in constructing socialism. He lays out the many successes and failures during and after the revolution and has made this book an amazing starting point in learning more about the USSR.

[Soph Nova · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was my first exposure to Walter Rodney - I'm also very glad I read it directly after finishing Deutscher's Trotsky trilogy, as it provides an alternative perspective on Soviet state building. His language + theoretical concepts are super accessible, and it was a great conclusion to a set of books on the history of the Russian Revolution I've been reading since November 2017. Would not read this if you haven't read any other history though, as it rushes through some of the historical events.

[Adrián Mandeville · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is by far the best book on the subject. Walter Rodney takes you step by step through the Russian Revolution with a critical eye.

[Matthew Sun · Rating 5 out of 5]

extremely readable and rigorous in its analysis; comprehensive in its overview of the perspectives of western bourgeois, Soviet, and Marxist historiography w.r.t. to the Russian revolution. a lot of the points raised here helped me rethink some of my own fundamental assumptions about comparing capitalism to communism that I've inherited by growing up in the US. loved this and will likely revisit in the future as well!

[Don · Rating 3 out of 5]

Walter Rodney’s most important contribution to Marxist thinking about emergence of global capitalism will forever be How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, also published by Verso as a companion to this volume. With the advantage of his own roots in Caribbean society he was able to understand the phenomenon of under-development as the outcome of the aggressive, profit-seeking regimes imposed on his home region, rather than the inherent backwardness of the its people.

His analysis added to the sketches of the role that capitalist imperialism played in transferring resources, entrenching poverty in one place and pooling prosperity in others which had been provide by Marx, Engels and Lenin. Dealing with the concrete example of Africa, Rodney laid bare the processes through which exploitation worked to extract value from the labouring classes in colonial and post-colonial societies and facilitated its appearance in the developed nations, not just as profit, but also as higher wages and social welfare and security for their working class citizens.

But in addition to what might be thought of as scholarly work primarily intended to develop a line of argument, Rodney was also an activist who looked for opportunities to work alongside to with others struggling for liberation, across the Caribbean region, the United States, and Africa.

The Russian Revolution: A View from the Third World emerged from a series of lectures given by Rodney during the five years when he was resident in Tanzania and working at the University of Dar es Salaam between 1969 and 1974. At that time the newly independent country was trying to forge a version of socialism that was relevant to its circumstances with a predominantly rural population engaged in subsistence agriculture. The experiment with cooperative, ujamaa village structures was seen by Rodney as being analogous to the efforts made by the Soviet Union to solve the problem of the backwardness of its own rural sector during the 1920s and 30s. Working with students expected to play a role in sealing the success of the Tanzanian model, Rodney sought to provide them with a broader context rooted Marxism which would help the young country along its socialist path.

Much of the content of the early lectures deals problems of histography. How does the researcher access ‘the truth’ about a particular historical event? How much is decided by the inevitable bias, forged by culture, class and prejudice which any individual will bring to the inquiry? Is there a reliable way to check the tendency towards subjectivity? Rodney’s confidence in dialectical materialism as a thoroughly scientific approach to the study of his history sets the scene for a scrutiny of the revolution which devolves on what is claimed to be the objective fact of struggle between social classes.

For the basic material of what constitutes the ‘facts’ of the two revolutions of 1917 – March and October – Rodney draws on an extensive list which consists of the works of the officially approved Soviet historians whose work circulated outside the country after the 1930s, contrasted with a wide range of non-Soviet accounts, most of which are hostile to the claims made for the achievements of the Bolsheviks. In a chapter devoted to a discussion of Trotsky’s three volume history Rodney clearly finds the account he finds most congenial, explaining as it does how a contest between the classes in a country conventionally presented as backward could lay the basis for a socialist society based on the authority of the working class.

All of this must have been encouraging for the cadre of future leaders of their country that Rodney was addressing back in the early 1970s. The bigger problem was how to account for the development of Soviet society in the decades after the enthusiasm for socialist change immediately after 1917. The view that the state built by the revolution had degenerated into an oppressive bureaucracy pursuing its own interests – essentially Trotsky’s interpretation from the mid-1930s onwards – is inimical to Rodney’s own wish to demonstrate the continued viability of the Soviet socialist road. Criticism of the disastrous effects of the collectivisation of agriculture, the extensive use of forced labour, as well as the sublimation of worker-led challenges to capitalism to the task of supporting the ‘socialist motherland’, is muted in the final lectures in the series.

Despite these failings Rodney himself continued to pursue a revolutionary socialist line which led to his role in founding the Working People’s Alliance in his native Guyana months before his assassination in 1980. His death at the tragically early age of 38 concluded the activism of a formidable Third World intellectual who sought always to develop his work in the service of social movements struggling for liberation.

[pattan · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very readable analysis of the conditions underlying the Russian revolutions of 1905 and 1917, the subsequent struggles in the building of the socialist state -- why they happened, why they happened the way they did --, and of their historiography.

A View from the Third World?

I read the Editors' Introduction first, but even then I was taken aback by how little Rodney's grounding in Third World Marxist decolonial revolutionary politics presented itself in this work. This grounding doesn't feature nearly as prominently as one might expect or hope given the title of this work and the initial emphasis (in Ch.1) of an "African perspective." The most this Third World perspective comes through is in the occasional mentioning of the role of imperialism and colonial extraction's role in the economic development of capitalist states before the early 20th century.

One would've hoped that a book with the title The Russian Revolution: A View from the Third World would contain some analysis of USSR's relationship with global decolonial movements, or at least other socialist revolutions in "backward" nations. As the Introduction says, the silence on the role of the Comintern in anti-colonialism is quite curious.

That's probably the biggest criticism I have of this.

So yea, definitely read the Introduction by the Editors first if you intend to read this book.


Otherwise

The why they happened/why they happened the way they did is specifically in Rodney's contextualisations of pre- and post-revolutionary history under the particular material conditions of Russia, with attention to how the Bolsheviks adapted their materialist analysis and revolutionary action based on these contexts. Rodney's counterarguments to the "undemocratic" nature of Bolshevik rule -- in the Bolshevik dissolution of the Constituent Assembly, the attempt to impose a dictatorship of the proletariat in a Russia primarily made up of peasantry --, and his explanation of the party and later state's orientations toward the peasantry -- whether they possess revolutionary potential, why their interests had to be catered to despite class contradictions between proletariat and peasants -- are worth going back to.

In terms of historiography, something that makes me appreciate the presentation in this work is the way Rodney takes pains to fully outline the arguments of others (bourgeois historians as well as Marxist writers like Trotsky and Luxemburg) before he counters them. Definitely made all the more valuable because this is the first work of analysis of the Russian revolution I've read, unfamiliar as I am with the divisions between bourgeois historians and Soviet historians, the divergences between official Soviet history and Trotsky's/Trotskyites' assessments, and the earlier divergences between Menshevik historians and Soviet historians. Relatedly Rodney provides convincing arguments for the categorical separation between bourgeois historiographies and Marxist historiographies (Ch.1).

Rodney is largely sympathetic to the Soviet socialist state building project, and for the most part he provides good justifications for that (the strongest parts relevant to this are when he deals with counterrevolution, the intertwined expansion of the imperialist states, and the aforementioned critique of "undemocratic" nature of the Soviet state and the treatment of the peasantry). His grounding at the time of writing in a Tanzania undergoing their own experiment with actually existing socialism is apparent in this understanding of concrete conditions the Bolsheviks had to contend with in Russia.

But sometimes his analysis in this regard left a lot to be desired. While not entirely uncritical of the Stalinist period, at the worst of times Rodney's writing here can read like post-hoc justifications of all the elements of Soviet state-building, one who's conclusions should not I think be dismissed entirely but isn't one that Rodney always argues comprehensively (or maybe unable to, given the lack of information he may have had at the time).

[Faaiz · Rating 4 out of 5]

A book, constructed from lecture notes, published posthumously 38 years after the assassination of its author, the scholar-activist Walter Rodney of Guyana. In it, he surveys the Russian Revolution through a comparison of the historiographies advanced by the "bourgeois"/Western historians as well as the Soviet and other Marxists historians (strictly, not just historians but also economists, sociologists, and other related inter/multi-disciplinarian social scientists). The focus of the book is the Russian Revolution of 1917, the historical conditions preceding it, the events that unfolded, and the aftermath of it. Contextualizing this book is very important: these were essentially lecture notes for a course he was teaching in a university in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania in the 70's about the Russian Revolution with a particular outlook towards what it meant for them, as citizens of Third World, non-aligned, post-colonial African nation(s). They may or may not have been published as a book had Rodney not been murdered.

The book surveys side by side what the "bourgeois" historians have to say about various aspects of the revolution and how the Marxist/Soviet historians rebut their arguments and claims. Rodney is good in that he does not only rely on the official soviet accounts, but also draws out the contradictions among the various "bourgeois" authors themselves to highlight inconsistencies. He also attempts to take a critical look at the Soviet accounts as well as other Marxist accounts - both contradicting and agreeing with the Soviet accounts - engaging with them. What this conveys is a scholarly effort to engage critically with multiple highly politically charged publications and viewpoints at the backdrop of an intense Cold War - not an easy feat. Rodney is also helpful in framing and contextualizing the motivating factors behind the "bourgeois" historians attacks on socialism and communism and in that regard, he sets out to arm the young scholar of Marxism with the tools to keep an eye out for a range of tendencies that are just as pertinent today as they were at the height of the Cold War. Some examples are below:

bourgeois scholarship always pretends to hold a monopoly of truth and reason; and most bourgeois writers fall over themselves to stress that they approach issues open-mindedly and dispassionately. According to that line of argument, the Marxist has prejudged issues, has a closed mind and is partisan. It would therefore be unwise for the bourgeois scholar to expose his own set of assumptions—thereby revealing that he and the Marxist are following the same pattern of arguing from established premises, but that the premises are different and the very methodology of analysis is different. Such an exposure and revelation would force one to reconsider the relative premises and methodologies; and it is clear that the bourgeois scholar is afraid of just that.

It should be noted that within revolutionary historiography, the conservative historians always expose themselves by their contemptuous attitude to the common people.

Another bourgeois approach that can be quite effective is the subjectivist one, which does not start by examining reality as it exists but rather puts forward for the reader a set of evocative images that come from his own mind—words such as “dictatorship,” “terror,” and even “communist” are used to convey the required impressions.

As the editors remind the reader, that Rodney did not have access to the Soviet archives post Soviet collapse, some of his views and arguments may not exactly stand the test of time, additional evidence and data. Rodney fumbles a bit in the last chapter where he sets out to critique Stalinism and is even chided by the editors a couple of times. Yet, at the end of the day for Rodney what matters is that despite the excesses of Stalinism, the socialist experiment and all its achievements were still an unimpeachable force of good that blasted off the Russian nation out of backwardness, servility towards Western imperial interests, and imperialist and colonialist impositions of its own, among others.

[Jock Reznor · Rating 5 out of 5]

This collection of historical analyses is not only useful in its own right, but as a plain example of how to study and dissect history using the approach of a historical materialist , much like Rodney's most famous work HEUA.

It's for that reason I've come to view Rodney as one of the best candidates for intermediate political education among socialists today. His mid-century point of view and role as a lecturer make complex analysis easy to digest and apply oneself.

The bulk of this work is the dissection of various bourgeois and marxist scholarship on the USSR, and he takes great pains to explain what he means by that at the outset, and to announce that he is not impartial but comes to his analysis from an ideological stance, something which many liberals have not learned to practice, and likely never will. Although he is not always in agreement with Soviet historians, he spends most of the time dissecting the often more outrageous, bad faith, and ideologically motivated historical claims of the bourgeois scholars.

He also holds a certain credibility as a serious anti-colonial revolutionary, who was assassinated in the course of struggle due to the danger he represented to the ruling class of Guyana. His practical viewpoint and firsthand experience in viewing socialist development in Tanzania allows him to soberly assess what is necessary in a revolutionary movement, and give due consideration and respect to the progress made by the USSR in advancing socialism in practice. Throughout, he stresses a common theme in his belief that universality is limited and that each people to some extent must discover and wage struggle against their own unique local conditions, having the benefit in this time period of incorporating some observations of maoist philosophy.

At the same time, his ability to write and criticize outside the influence of the USSR means that his scholarship was not unduly influenced by party line. He is one of the view socialist writers I've read who seem able to dispassionately assess both Trotsky and Stalin's role in the history of the USSR.

[Merricat Blackwood · Rating 3 out of 5]

I agree with Rodney’s criticism of bourgeois historians who primarily source their writing from the personal documents of aristocrats, but I also have a problem with how much of this book is sourced from books published by Soviet state presses. Maybe this makes me a bourgeois but there has to be a middle ground! I’m really not sure how to feel about this book because in some places Rodney is working with what seem to be widely agreed-upon facts and his analysis seems interesting and persuasive, but in other places he says things like the estimation of two million dead in the process of collectivizing agriculture is an exaggeration, which it is just not. (Also strangely in that section he puts a lot of emphasis on mob violence against landowners in the process of collectivization, but very little on famine, which was the far more significant cause of death. I guess it’s possible this is a product of the time period when he was writing; I really don’t know what the state of available scholarship on the 1930s famines was in 1970.) There is undeniably a lot of interesting analysis here about the “readiness” of Russia for revolution, the scale of mobilization of the working class, the way that class consciousness intersected with nationalism. The book is also just a very interesting historical document of a time when the Soviet Union was perceived throughout much of the world as a successful example of an alternative to capitalism, a time period that feels hard to imagine today. However, I can’t get around the feeling that what Rodney leaves out here--a serious treatment of the terror of the purges, almost anything about the secret police, any discussion of the 1930s famines other than a brief statement that capitalist neighbors like Romania and Bulgaria suffered famine at the same time--constitutes a very serious moral failure.

[Jenny · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good corrective to false narratives about the the Russian Revolution that has me interested to read more from Rodney. I would suggest skipping the introduction tacked on by Verso that seems designed to inoculate the reader against actual socialism. I would also warn that the book does assume a little bit of knowledge on the part of the reader, which isn't necessarily a mark against it - it was originally intended to be a series of lectures, not an exhaustive history.

[Dante · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall, the book thoroughly refutes bourgeois histories of the Russian Revolution, with most attention paid to the early years. Interestingly, Rodney argues for the necessity to realize "(1) the superiority of materialism over idealism, and (2) that materialist views are partial and do not take African perspectives into account", and ends the book by saying "what we [the colonized and formerly colonized] need to do is define our own stand first and see where it coincides. Assuming a view springing from some Socialist variant not necessarily Marxist but anti-capitalist, assuming a view that is at least radical humanist--then the Soviet Revolution of 1917 and the subsequent construction of socialism emerges as a very positive historical experience...". Throughout the book, Rodney also looks at many revisionist "Marxist" takes and rightly points out their errors, but considers them all to be Marxist. I think this has produced the confusing premise and conclusion quoted above, where Marxism and Revisionism are part of one "Marxist" whole, leading, instead of a defense of Marxism against all strains of revisionism, to the idea that colonized peoples, and Africans in particular, must generate their own, distinct worldview, which is inspired by Marxism/dialectical materialism, but essentially different. This is also noticeable by the omission of writing on the ideological or material differences in the USSR and China after 1956, when the USSR embarked on social imperialism and enshrined this betrayal ideologically. I also want to say that this book was compiled from lecture notes. So it is certainly possible that the academics who "filled in" the original lecture notes to make them publishable (and who wrote a terrible revisionist introduction that advances multiple incorrect/anti-dialectical-materialist arguments exposed as such by Rodney in this very book) inadvertently distorted the source material in this very key way.

[Efrén Ayón · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incluso en su estado como proyecto a medio terminar (Rodney fue asesinado cuando apenas estaba trabajando en este libro, recopilando clases y conferencias suyas), estamos ante una obra maestra. Lo recomiendo incluso aunque la revolución de octubre no te interese específicamente, es así de bueno. Desafía visiones hegemónicas occidentales fraguadas en plena guerra fría acerca los sucesos de 1917, claro, pero también da claridad a las condiciones previas y al desarrollo tortuoso posterior de la Unión Soviética, utilizando a la perfección un método de análisis materialista que te será útil para encontrar paralelos en cualquier otra historia que se te ocurra. El único problema que tengo con él es que ahora el resto de libros con inclinaciones burguesas me parecerán una pila pestilente de basura en comparación.

[Brinda Gurumoorthy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a good dissection of different historical perspectives (Rodney distinguishes between bourgeois and Soviet historians) on the Russian revolution, and how we can use Marx's ideas to process/learn from these events. I think it brought some clarity to my understanding of socialism, imperialism, and revolution more broadly. It's incomplete and ends sort of abruptly (but because of the assassination of the author, so it's not like it was his fault).

[Dan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rodney's observations and analysis on the historiography of the Russian Revolution provide a very valuable perspective from outside the Western or Soviet world. He was operating with incomplete information, but makes some very good points. However, the work likely would've been better had he had the time to flesh it out fully into a real text. And the editors have provided quite a bit of editorializing that was unwarrented and detracts from the work.

[Adam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rodney is a very talented writer and scholar, as is evident in the way in which this book - which is focused on the historiography of the Russian revolution rather than a narrative of the events themselves - engages with and dismantles many of the intellectually vacuous authors and myths which have become (predictably, given the state of western academia and journalism) stuck forever orbiting the revolution and its key figures such as Lenin. Rodney does all of this in a way that remains witty and convincing throughout while still being emminently relevant to discussions today.

A surprisingly helpful introduction to the Russian revolution, but chiefly a great introduction to decolonial Marxist thinking and the work of Walter Rodney.

[Daniel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Insightful and engaging. I think the compiled nature of the book, and the relatively unfinished state, keeps it from being a more impactful work - hardly a fault of Rodney’s, but it still drags the work down a notch or two.

[Lentšik Tiiger Linin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Poggers

[Ben Rowe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Can’t believe this all came from unfinished lecture notes! Brilliant

[Twain · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolute banger.

Intro does a great job explaining Walter Rodney, the process of building the book, his inside-outside approach to academia, the historical traditions and political moment (and political movements) Rodney found himself in, and does a great introduction into the Russian Revolution.

Then Rodney starts cooking. He goes off on western non-Marxist historians, who pretend to be apolitical (whereas they pretend Marxist historians to be political) but these western historians often give away their ideology by showing incredible contempt for the masses or peasants or workers, thereby showing that their work is just as ideological as the Marxists, just dressed up in a different way. Western bourgeoisie writers use buzzwords and words they know will scare the reader in order to direct them towards a conclusion, and they are highly subjective in the sense that there is much more focus on individuals and great men than on social forces.

Discusses the biases of western universities given that they are a part of the superstructure of capitalism and of knowledge production and the role the university plays in reproducing capitalism. Universities and professors often receive funding from the rich, which they would not receive if they were doing work hostile to the rich. Universities like Harvard also admit their closeness to the US Government, their professors and students often go from researching Russia at the university into government research posts. This would be impossible if your ideological view of Russia was markedly different from that of the United States government. Looks at some think tanks at universities funded by the Carnegies or founded by OSS agents and argues that deeply ideological work will always come out of these institutions because that is why they are founded in the first place.

Goes through a lot of critiques of the Soviet revolution by emigres and bourgeoise scholars and dismisses them point by point.

Looks at Marx’s thoughts on a revolution in Russia, as well as a synthesis of historical Russian thinkers and revolutionaries with Marxism. In the 1800s when Russia was very agrarian and lacking in class consciousness, the revolutionaries were trying to forcibly drag the peasants through to a revolution. The Bolsheviks seeing the failure of this approach focused more on organization and propaganda than terrorist violence. But ultimately, what is happening in Russia in the lead up to the revolution is a mass intensification of capitalism, which creates the societal conditions for a proletariat, and once they exist in that context the thinkers take on a much more Marxist tone. Instead of Berdyaev’s theory the Russian revolution has more to do with their history of revolutionaries than Marxism because the bolsheviks occasionally agree with one of those revolutionaries here and there, what actually happens is intensification of capitalism changes social conditions which drastically changes the thought and approach of the new generation of revolutionaries.

Gets into the Bolshevik Menshevik debate. Argues that the particularities of the Russian bourgeoisie was much more engrained and financially benefitting from feudalism than say France or England, so the Mensheviks were kidding themselves that those capitalists would have ushered in a capitalist revolution. They were actually much more likely to be reformist and likely to be crushed by a tsarist counterrevolution. Therefore, the Menshevik line that they should have stopped at capitalism and the bourgeoisie revolution does not make much sense because the timid capitalist class probably would not have ended feudalism and the tsarists would have regained power. The only two real options on the table to the the particulars of Russian society were socialism or feudalism.

Because Russia industrialized late, it industrialized quickly. Unlike Western Europe, it did not go from small to medium to large factories it jumped straight to large. There was a large amount of foreign capital invested there, there was a growing tradition of scientific socialist and Marxist thought by the time the classes formed (whereas the previous century’s French proletariat only had vaguer ideas of utopian socialism). And the bourgeoise was not located in the city centers, so it could not claim power over essential industries, which was the case in France. So ultimately, the Mensheviks are looking at Marx’s analysis of Western Europe and just trying to copy and paste it to Russia, when the specific case of Russia was very different than Western Europe. He then gets into the historical analysis done by Trotsky, which is very impressive.

Reviews the Lenin-Kautsky debate over Bolshevism vs Menshevism. Goes through the Menshevik arguments and the particular realities of Russia that made it unrealistic if not impossible.

Goes into a lot of western critiques of the Soviet economy and what they get right and wrong from a third world perspective. A decent portion of the one chapter kinda reads like Bad Samaritans with more juice. Gets into uneven development and the law of comparative advantage and stuff like that.

Looks at a lot of vulgar Marxist arguments made by Marxist’s and non-marxists alike like “oh the Soviet Union skipped capitalism and went straight to socialism the communist manifesto says that’s not how it’s supposed to work” and takes a much wider look at Marx’s and Engels writing on Russia and the world more broadly to discredit such a crude and narrow point.

A lot of good stuff on the historian tendencies to focus on great individuals and either show incredible contempt for or just totally ignore the masses of people.

Some really good footnotes on omissions Rodney made or information that was not available at the time he wrote this that came to the fore after his death accompanied by suggested reading material which is really cool.

Ends with a light critique of Trotsky and more serious critique of Stalin (which the critique of Stalin is more of a critique of the Communist Party as a whole under his leadership). Gets into how after Lenin dies a lot of old Bolsheviks get replaced with Stalins sycophants and by 1936 Stalin is the only member of the old guard and how that did a lot to hurt the party by replacing ideologically mature marxists with power hungry loyalists.

His ability for history and foresight is incredible. There are times where he is talking about colonialism and the footnote discusses how at the time of his death the field was relatively unexplored and comparable scholarship to what he was writing here did not happen for another couple years. The amount of stuff he had to read just to be able to cite this work is also incredible. A phenomenal read and a phenomenal work from the people who were able to track down all of his citations years later and build in the context of the decades after his death and fill in the blanks. Just marvelous work

Certainly makes some defenses of Stalin and the Soviet Union that people would not make today, but some of that can be attributed to what he didn’t know at the time or was more contended under Cold War partisanship.

[Sylvia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent look at the history of the Russian Revolution from Walter Rodney here. The numerous people who helped produce this book should be acknowledged, gathering Rodney's lecture notes on this topic whilst teaching at the University of Dar es Salaam into a published book is no easy feat.

This felt very much like revising my knowledge on the Russian Revolution(s), however Rodney's added analysis and knowledge also brings about a nuanced socialist approach, a 'view from the third world,' that surprisingly holds up despite newer Soviet/Russian historiographies emerging since alongside the optimisms of the time of the potentials of socialism, seeming strange yet hopeful to us now.

A lot of this book focuses on the different socio-historical approaches at the time on the Russian revolutions: Bourgeois, Marxist, Trotskyist and Soviet historians are all considered here. In regards to Tanzania itself at the time, Rodney doesn't make too many comparisons until the final two chapters. My only criticism is probably wanting more of Rodney's interpretations of this in relation to Tanzania (and elsewhere). Still, Rodney's writing/lecturing is enjoyable to read as well as having the rare skill as an academic/scholar-activist of presenting theories, histories and their various interpretations in an accessible, engaging manner.

I really enjoyed this book. It's a must-read and a wonderful introduction to Walter Rodney.

[Sugarpunksattack Mick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Walter Rodney's 'The Russian Revolution: A View From the Third World" is an excellent addition to the study of the Russian revolution. The book itself constituted by unpublished lectures and corresponding notes that Rodeny had prepared and given while alive, but never turned into a proper book. The book then is the result of the editing work of Robin Kelly and Jesse Benjamin whose introduction are crucial not only to the text, but for the revolution itself.
Rodney is most concerned with working through the historiography at the time (1960-70s) and illuminating the debates between marxists and bourgeois writers, or between Socialists and non-socalists. For the uninitiated reader in the revolution discourse, this is the perfect book though obviously a little dated. Rodney is a bit too sympathetic to the Soviet Union to the point of making glaring omissions and errors. That said, given the state of historiography at the time and even to this day the book acts as an antidote to much disinformation couched in anti-communism.

My biggest criticism of the book is that it does not really offer a third (world) view in any robust way. In stead it is just a hashing out of all the ongoing debates around the historiography. I was looking for a decolonial perspective (perhaps in the vein of Fanon), but it never really arrives in any robust manner.

[Reuben Woolley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rodney’s lectures themselves are mired in 20th-century didacticism around the USSR, and have to be read in the context of a concerted and direct effort to organise political uprising in his own surroundings and challenge preconceptions among both a liberal western audience and Tanzanian (and other African) student activists. He was also writing with access to considerably less evidence than the modern Russian historian has, and it shows. Even with this in mind, there are parts of what he says that are at times considerably more nuanced and intelligent than expected, and at times less than what I was hoping for. That said, the verso edition is possibly the best piece of editing, footnoting and supporting text I’ve ever read with anything, and does an incredible piece of academic and historical work in situating Rodney’s arguments in the contexts they were formed in, critiquing him where he required critiquing and providing updates on the political and historical debates he references right up to the 2010s. The lectures on their own wouldn’t be a very useful read for a modern leftist without specific interest in the history of the russian revolution, but the book as a whole definitely is.

[authorial · Rating 5 out of 5]

Even though it is unfinished, Rodney's work on the Russian Revolution and the subsequent formation of the Soviet Union is so damn refreshing. I appreciate his principled positions. Third Worldism and Pan-Africanism have unique (and in my experience, the most interesting) views to offer on the Cold War and it shines a whole new light on the importance of revolutions and state socialism for these newly independent former colonial states.

When reflecting on this book, this is what I think about the most: Rodney wrote this in the 70s, at the pinnacle of socialist victories, so he has a triumphalist tone in his writings. I wonder how he would write about the same subject now, in 2020, when capitalism is an unchallenged globalized system that dominates every place on earth and every aspect of our social lives.

P.S.: the editors' need to be definitively anti-Stalinist was noticeable and quite comical because it so clearly exposes the paradigms of dominant ideology. Rodney was cool and has stood the test of time precisely because he did not succumb to that.

[Matthew John · Rating 5 out of 5]

The story behind this volume being compiled is almost more interesting than the content itself. Rodney was assassinated around 1980 (likely by elements of the Guyanese government) and some of his close colleagues later spent years going through his lecture notes and other writings to eventually "finish" this book for him. Rodney's overall perspective could be described as pan-African, Marxist, and anti-colonialist (his more famous work concerns European colonialism in Africa). I'd say Rodney was a Marxist-Leninist (not sure if he specifically identified this way), which is the same as my personal political tendency, so I generally agree with his analysis of the the underlying proletarian nature of the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 and the subsequent socialist project of the USSR. And, despite the lack of academic and archival information available to him at the time, there are lots of profound insights. I highly recommend it.