Revolutionary Collective: Comrades, Critics, and Dynamics in the Struggle for Socialism

by Paul Le Blanc

This book surveys revolutionary socialist ideas and engages a gallery of contentious political thinkers, offering an indispensable assessment of the place of revolutionary collectives in this radical tradition.

Beginning with a broad and informative survey of scholarship on V.I. Lenin and “Leninism,” Le Blanc goes on to explore the multifaceted “collective” qualities of the Russian Bolshevik organization. He then turns his attention to several of its central figures as well as a rich variety of activist-intellectuals who in one way or another continued to engage with Lenin’s perspectives after his death, including Leon Trotsky, Alexander Bogdanov, Georg Lukács, Antonio Gramsci, Rosa Luxemburg, Karl Korsch, and Daniel Bensaïd.

The volume concludes by considering related questions which have more recently posed problems within left-wing organizations, gesturing toward the dynamics and needs of future struggles.

Genres: History, Politics

244 pages, Paperback

First published December 7, 2021

About the author

Paul Le Blanc is an American historian at La Roche University in Pittsburgh as well as labor and socialist activist who has written or edited more than 30 books on topics such as Leon Trotsky and Rosa Luxemburg.

Le Blanc was born in 1947 in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania and spent his childhood in Clearfield, Pennsylvania. His parents, Gaston Le Blanc and Shirley Harris, were labor activists; he has two sisters. He studied at the University of Pittsburgh, focusing on history and receiving a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1971, a Master of Arts degree in 1980, and a Doctor of Philosophy degree in 1989.

Reviews

[Hugh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some good general reference, some timely reflections. Sometimes general to its detriment. But useful nonetheless