Russia From Proletarian Revolution To State Capitalist Counter Revolution

Russia: From Proletarian Revolution to State-Capitalist Counter-Revolution. Selected writings of Raya Dunayevskaya presents the significance of this proletarian revolution, analyzes its transformation into state-capitalism, traces rebellion within Russia and East Europe, and sums up the global meaning of these events.

Over sixty years ago, C.L.R. James and a small circle of collaborators making up the radical left Johnson-Forest Tendency reached the conclusion that there was no true socialist society existing anywhere in the world. Written in collaboration with Raya Dunayevskaya and Grace Lee Boggs, this is another pioneering critique of Lenin and Trotsky, and reclamation of Marx, from the West Indian scholar and activist, C.L.R. James. Originally published in 1950, this definitive edition includes the original preface from Martin Glaberman to the third edition, C.L.R. James’ original introductions to three previous editions and a new introduction from James’ biographer Paul Buhle.

From Workers' State to State Capitalism.

The October Russian Revolution, led by Lenin and Trotsky, swept away landlordism and capitalism and placed the working class in power for the first time. It transformed the idea of socialism from theory into practice. From this point of view, the Bolshevik revolution can be considered the greatest event in history. The revolution changed the course of world history and the last century has been dominated by its consequences. Ted Grant’s book traces the evolution of Soviet Russia from the Bolshevik victory of 1917, through the rise of Stalinism and the political counter-revolution, its emergence as a super-power after the Second World War, and the crisis of Stalinism and its eventual collapse. The book, which was first published in 1997, has been updated and edited in the light of new developments and the subsequent re-establishment of capitalism in Russia. Grant based his analysis on that of Leon Trotsky, who first analysed Stalinism in his Revolution Betrayed. While the counter-revolution has attempted to bury the memory of October, the new crisis of world capitalism has led to a revival of interest in Marxism and the significance of Bolshevism. The republication of Ted Grant’s book in this centenary year of the revolution therefore comes at a fitting time.