Lenin Selected Writings: On Imperialist War

by Vladimir Lenin

This volume is a collection of Lenin's writings on the crucial question of the position of revolutionary Marxists towards war and, more specifically, in relation to the First World War.

When the war broke out in 1914, the Socialist International betrayed its own anti-war resolutions and gave wholehearted support to the imperialist slaughter.

Lenin started a battle, against the stream, to defend the working-class principles of internationalism, explaining that the war was an imperialist one and therefore the main enemy of the workers was at home. War eventually gave way to revolution and ultimately to the foundation of a new, Communist International.

Lenin's writings on the struggle against the imperialist war are a vital resource for revolutionary activists today.

This is the first of a series of thematic collections of Lenin's writings by Wellred Books, published to mark the centenary of his death in 2024.

462 pages, Paperback

Published May 30, 2024

About the author

Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, better known as Vladimir Lenin, was a Russian revolutionary, leader of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (Bolsheviks), statesman and political theorist. After the October Revolution he served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 until his death in 1924 and of the Soviet Union from 1922 until his death in 1924.

Reviews

[Rob James · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very well put together collection, timely and highly relevant for our war-infested age.

[Cillian O'Reilly · Rating 4 out of 5]

'Millions of men have fallen into their graves. Millions of families are obliged to mourn. Millions of women and children have been turned into widows and orphans. Ruins have been piled on top of ruins, while irreplaceable cultural monuments have been destroyed. And after all this, the war has reached a dead end.'
These prophetic words may well have been written today. The horror in Gaza, the slaughter house in Ukraine. The specter of war haunts all corners of the globe.
The book itself is fantastic, Lenin's writings are a must for all Marxists. However, I don't believe the book goes far enough into how imperialism, with its superprofits 'can economically bribe the upper strata of “its” workers', creating the basis for opportunism and the implications of this to the movement today. One of Lenin's seminal works 'Imperialism and the Split in Socialism' was unfortunately not included in the print.
As previously said, Lenin's writings on imperialist war, are crucial for all communists today, and this book is a welcomed addition.

[Adriana Di · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tremendamente attuale