The Ballot, the Streets―or Both: From Marx and Engels to Lenin and the October Revolution

by August H. Nimtz Jr.

August Nimtz uncovers attempts to chart a course between plain opportunism and anarchist rejections of the electoral arena. Instead, electoral campaigns are seen as crucial for developing political education and organization, and as a key way to measure your forces and communicate with the wider population. As radical left reformist projects, exemplified by Sanders and Corbyn, once again become a political force and the left has to think about what it means to run for office in a capitalist state, it's a good time to look back at how the left has historically conducted such debates.

Genres: History, Politics, Nonfiction, Russia

540 pages, Paperback

Published November 5, 2019

About the author

August H. Nimtz is Professor of Political Science and African American and African Studies and Distinguished Teaching Professor at the University of Minnesota, USA. He is the author of Marx and Engels: Their Contribution to the Democratic Breakthrough (2000), Marx, Tocqueville, and Race in America: The 'Absolute Democracy' or 'Defiled Republic' (2003), and a number of related articles in edited volumes and journals.

Reviews

[Soph Nova · Rating 4 out of 5]

A bit of a messily formatted book, with some outdated contemporary analysis for its 2019 release date, given that it’s actually a combined release of two books published in 2013/14; but, those qualifications aside, this was a great dig into little known history of Lenin’s work between the revolutions in 1905 and 1917 that detail his in-depth work in parliamentary politics - and his commitment to doing so as an expression of his revolutionary Marxism.

“Not only could elections be useful for propaganda purposes, to disseminate revolutionary ideas, but they offered revolutionaries an excellent opportunity to count preferences in order to determine the most propitious moment for actually taking power - “for storming the winter palace”.

[Luke Pickrell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Indispensable for an understanding of Lenin's electoral strategy (grounded in Marx, Engels, and the social democracy of the Second International) and the success of the Bolshevik party during the Russian Revolution.

[Toby Crime · Rating 5 out of 5]

Re-reading this book with close note taking has unsurprisingly been hugely strategically insightful

[Lucien Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nimtz tracks the most consequential events of the Russian Revolution, linking them to the concurrent sections of the Lenin corpus. He asserts that Lenin’s writing places a strong emphasis on democratic power in preparation for the revolution, and that this was reflected in the historical record of the Dumas and other revolutionary body, AND that these were instrumental to the Revolution’s success. Nimtz’s absolution of Lenin for the crimes of the Soviet Union will be controversial and in far from qualified to make any judgments of that, but his main point is that Lenin’s writing can still inform political process today. When so many Americans—particularly on the left—feel that government policy bears little resemblance to their own needs and interests, Lenin’s analysis of using the established political process to organize and critique the state itself can’t be completely irrelevant.

[Jacob Woocher · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a really good and thorough look at Lenin's approach to electoral politics. Anyone on the left seeking to engage in electoral politics, or wondering whether to engage, should read!

[Freya Olivia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sharp, insightful exploration of how Marx, Engels, and Lenin balanced electoral politics with mass struggle. Meticulously researched and urgently relevant.