Bolshevism

The Road To Revolution

Alan Woods

Hardcover

978-93-50020-12-8

Aakar Books, 1999

Language: English

636 pages

INR 0.00

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LWB416

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There have been many books and potted histories of Russia, either written from an anti-Bolshevik perspective, or its Stalinist mirror image, which paint a false account of the rise of Bolshevism. For them, Bolshevism is either an historical 'accident' or 'tragedy', or it is portrayed erroneously as the work of one great man (Lenin) who marched single-mindedly towards the October Revolution. Alan Woods, in rejecting these 'theses', reveals the real evolution of Bolshevism as a living struggle to apply the method of Marxism to the peculiarities of Russia.

The author deals with the birth of Russian Marxism and its ideological struggle against the Narodniks and the trend of economism. The book looks at the development of Russian Social Democracy, from its real founding congress in 1903, which ended up with the split between Mensheviks and Bolsheviks, through to the 'dress rehearsal' of the 1905 Revolution. Alan woods traces the ebb and flow of the party and the role of Lenin as its principle guiding force.

The author then explores the eventual revival of the party's fortunes from 1910 onwards, the isolation of Marxism during the First World War. The final section of the book deals with the Bolsheviks' emergence during the February Revolution and, after a deep internal struggle, under the leadership of Lenin and Trotsky, the party's eventual conquest of power in October.

Alan Woods

Alan Woods (born 23 October 1944) is a Trotskyist political theorist and author. He is one of the leading members of the International Marxist Tendency (IMT), as well as its British affiliate group Socialist Appeal. He is political editor of the IMT's In Defence of Marxism website. Woods was a leading supporter within the Militant tendency within the UK Labour Party and its parent group the Committee for a Workers' International until the early 1990s. A series of disagreements on tactics and theory led to the expulsion of Woods and Ted Grant from the tendency, who founded the Committee for a Marxist International (soon renamed International Marxist Tendency) in 1992. They continued with the policy of entryism into the Labour Party. Woods has been particularly vocal in his support for the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela, and repeatedly met with the socialist Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez, leading to speculation he was a close political adviser.