Alongside the Russian workers' attempts to create socialism not as some abstract far-off utopia in a political party program, but through confronting and changing the concrete reality of their everyday life were the activities of socialist parties, supposedly sympathetic to working class aspirations. This pamphlet tells the story of the Russian workers' struggle, in particular the efforts of the factory committees.
Can Leninists explain the Russian Revolution and its lessons for today? My new book Revolutionary Social Democracy: Working-Class Politics Across the Russian Empire, 1882-1917 marshals extensive new primary data from across the Russian Empire to challenge longstanding myths about the Russian Revolution and to challenge unhelpful Leninist (aka “revolutionary socialist”) political strategies based on these myths.
Alongside the Russian workers' attempts to create socialism not as some abstract far-off utopia in a political party program, but through confronting and changing the concrete reality of their everyday life were the activities of socialist parties, supposedly sympathetic to working class aspirations. This pamphlet tells the story of the Russian workers' struggle, in particular the efforts of the factory committees.