October Readings: the development of the concept of Permanent Revolution

by Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky

The Russian revolution in October 1917 gave the workers', soldiers' and peasants' soviets full state power. It swept away the bourgeois state. Subsequent successful seizures of power in the name of the workers have involved either peasant armies led by working class political nuclei or, disastrously, the occupation of countries by the forces of the Russian workers' state. The bureaucratic leaders of European workers thwarted the spread of the revolution. The isolated Stalinist bureaucracy produced a consolatory myth: that Russia did not need such foreign victories because it would achieve 'Socialism in one Country'. To defy this myth, this book brings together documents by Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky illustrating the real history of the strategy that won the Russian revolution and can win future working class seizures of power. Inside, readers will find Marx and Engels' "Address to the Communist League", Lenin's "April Theses" and "The Tasks of the Proletariat in the Present Revolution", Trotsky's "The Character of the Russian Revolution" and Mandel's "What is Trotskyism?"

112 pages, Paperback

First published October 31, 2010

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

[Grant Stover · Rating 3 out of 5]

Three stars for the original writings, and Mandel’s speech is a great overview of Trotskyism. But the editors introductions and the actual editing of this book are terrible. Go elsewhere for the original writers.

[Sathish · Rating 4 out of 5]

With exception of introductions and the last essay from renegades of Marxism, everything is great.