lenin

For Comrade Lenin on his 150th Birth Anniversary

Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (1870–1924) was known by his pseudonym—Lenin. He was, like his siblings, a revolutionary, which in the context of tsarist Russia meant that he spent long years in prison and in exile. Lenin helped build the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party both by his intellectual and his organizational work. Lenin’s writings are not only his own words, but the summation of the activity and thoughts of the thousands of militants whose paths crossed his own. It was Lenin’s re[...]

Reading Lenin by Vijay Prashad

In March this year, after winning the Tripura assembly elections, BJP cadres demolished the statue of Vladimir llyich Lenin in the Belonia town in south Tripura. Lenin was not only a supporter of worker-peasant movements but also a supporter of anti-colonial struggles. 'Liberation of all colonies' and 'liberation of all dependent, oppressed and unequal nations' was at the heart of the programme of the Bolshevik Party. The statue demolition galvanized the farmers in the Kisan Long March organi[...]

Activist Arrests in India Are Part of a Dangerous Global Trend to Stifle Dissent

On Tuesday morning, the police from the Indian city of Pune (in the state of Maharashtra) raided the homes of lawyers and social activists across India and arrested five of them. Many of them are not household names around the world, since they are people who work silently on behalf of the poor and oppressed in a country where half the population does not eat sufficiently. Their names are Gautam Navlakha, Sudha Bharadwaj, Vernon Gonsalves, Arun Ferreira and Varavara Rao. What unites these peop[...]

LeftWord Recommends: Books on Russian Revolution

It's been hundred years of the Russian Revolution. In all these years, countless books have been written on the revolution, its aftermath and its impact on numerous first world and the third world societies. This reading list is an exploration of the events that changed the course of history and their effects on the world. Note: All these books are available at our bookstore. We only have single copies of the titles from foreign independent publishers. The LeftWord titles are also available at [...]

The Revolution of 1917

Today – November 7, 2017 – is the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution of 1917. In February of that year, the working class and peasantry – along with the soldiers – overthrew the Tsar’s regime. That October (November in our calendar), led by the Bolshevik party, the workers and peasants completed their social revolution by overthrowing the conciliatory government of the bourgeoisie led by Alexander Kerensky. Lenin, who had returned to Russia from exile, saw that behind Kerensky[...]