Steve Ellner, Associate Managing Editor of Latin American Perspectives and a retired professor of the Universidad de Oriente in Venezuela, speaks to Federico Fuentes about the need to prioritise the struggle against United States imperialism and the challenges for international solidarity.
Vladimir Lenin
The legacy of Vladimir Lenin, one of the most prominent and influential figures in the history of the labour movement and revolutionary praxis, remain valid 150 years after his birth, writes Julian Coppens.
One hundred years ago this month, workers, peasants and soldiers in Russia overthrew the corrupt government that had led the country into a disastrous war and established the Soviet Socialist Republic.聽
It seemed that, for once, the people had won. Socialism had gone from theoretical possibility to practical reality.
One hundred years ago, the Russia Revolution rocked the world, first with the overthrow of the Tsar in February and then with the Bolshevik-led taking of full power by the soviets (elected councils of workers, soldiers and peasants) in October.
Lenin on the Train
Catherine Merridale
Allen Lane, 2016, 354 pages
The German 鈥渟ealed train鈥 that gave Vladimir I Lenin safe passage from exile in Switzerland through wartime Germany to Russia in April 1917, in the aftermath of the overthrow of Russia鈥檚 monarchy that had exiled the Russian revolutionary leader, was historically pivotal.
Unfinished Leninism
By Paul Le Blanc
Haymarket Books, 2014
237 pp., $23.00
This collection of 12 essays rests comfortably alongside Lars Lih鈥檚 Lenin Rediscovered and Canadian socialist John Riddell鈥檚 huge work in translating the proceedings of the first four congresses of the Comintern, the international organisation set up by the Bolsheviks in 1919.
These works are part of the renewed interest in the 鈥渞eal鈥 Lenin 鈥 separate from the mausoleum that Stalinism built and pro-capitalist commentators鈥 slander.