This commentary to Lenin's landmark "What is to be Done?" (1902) provides hitherto unavailable contextual information about Lenin's outlook and aims that undermines previous interpretations. It challenges established views about Marxism, 'revolutionary Social Democracy' and Bolshevism.

After Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) is the man most associated with communism and its influence and reach around the world. Lenin was the leader of the communist Bolshevik party during the October 1917 revolution in Russia, and he subsequently headed the Soviet state until 1924, bringing stability to the region and establishing a socialist economic and political system. In Lenin, Lars T. Lih presents a striking new interpretation of Lenin’s political beliefs and strategies. Until now, Lenin has been portrayed as a pessimist with a dismissive view of the revolutionary potential of the workers. However, Lih reveals that underneath the sharp polemics, Lenin was actually a romantic enthusiast rather than a sour pragmatist, one who imposed meaning on the whirlwind of events going on around him. This concise and unique biography is based on wide-ranging new research that puts Lenin into the context both of Russian society and of the international socialist movement of the early twentieth century. It also sets the development of Lenin’s political outlook firmly within the framework of his family background and private life. In addition, the book’s images, which are taken from contemporary photographs, posters, and drawings, illustrate the features of Lenin’s world and time. A vivid, non-ideological portrait, Lenin is an essential look at one of the key figures of modern history.

This groundbreaking comparative study rediscovers the socialists of Russia’s borderlands, upending conventional interpretations of working-class politics and the Russian Revolution. Researched in eight languages, Revolutionary Social Democracy challenges long-held assumptions by scholars and activists about the dynamics of revolutionary change.

Helen Rappaport's Conspirator is a vivid account of Vladimir I. Lenin's years of exile in Europe, showing that this often-overlooked period shaped the life of one of the 20th century's most important figures. In the years leading up to the Russian Revolution, Lenin traveled between the capital cities of Europe, developing a complex network of collaborators and co-conspirators that would play a significant role in the struggle to come. Rappaport sheds a rare light onto Lenin's early life, describing his relationship with his wife, Nadezhda Krupskaya, and his extraordinary and unexpected love affair with beautiful activist Inessa Armand. In a riveting narrative, Conspirator describes the courage and the comedy, the setbacks, schisms and disappointments, the extreme persistence and the ruthless dedication that carried Lenin and his colleagues along the inexorable path to the Russian Revolution.

Translated from the original German Lenin Neuentdecken and available in English for the first time, this volume rediscovers Lenin as a strategic socialist thinker through close examination of his collected works and correspondence. Brie opens with an analysis of Lenin's theoretical development between 1914 and 1917, in preparation for his critical decision to dissolve the Constituent Assembly in January 1918 in a struggle for power. This led from the dialectics of revolutionary practice and social analysis to a new understanding of socialism, which is compared and contrasted to the alternative Marxist ideas and conceptions of the state posited by Karl Kautsky and Rosa Luxemburg. Rediscovering Lenin then moves to 1921, when Lenin begins a new stage of his theoretical development concerned with resolving the reversal of the revolution’s aims and its results. This process remains unfinished, and the questions raised a hundred years ago remain: How can one intervene successfully and responsibly in social and political crises? What role do social science theories, ideological frameworks, and other practices play in transforming the economic, political and cultural power structures of a society? Brie concludes with a retrospective on the ideas developed by Marx and in the Second International, and their impact on Lenin’s strategic thinking. Placing Lenin's writing itself in the foreground and arguing from inside his own self-learning, Rediscovering Lenin focuses on the reflective relationship between ideology, theory, and practice. ​

From the moment of Lev Trotsky's sensational and unannounced arrival in Oslo harbor in June 1935 he became the center of controversy. Although it was to be the shortest of his four exiles, this period of his life was a significant one. From Norway he increased his effort to create a Fourth International, encouraging his international followers to challenge Stalin's dominance over world communism. In Norway Trotsky wrote his last major book, The Revolution Betrayed, in which he presented himself as the true heir to the Bolshevik Revolution, maintaining that Stalin had violated the Revolution's ideals. His efforts to threaten Stalin from outside of Russia created international repercussions. At first, Trotsky lived peacefully, without a guard and enjoying more freedom in Norway than he experienced in any other country following his expulsion from the USSR. Then, at the first Moscow show trial of August 1936 he was accused of being an international terrorist who organized conspiracies from abroad with the intention of murdering Russian leaders and destroying the Soviet state. Wishing to maintain good relations with its powerful neighbor, the Norwegian cabinet placed Trotsky under house arrest. Internment soon followed. He became the subject of political dispute between the socialist Labor Party government that had granted him asylum and opposition parties from the extreme right to the extreme left. In the national election of October 1936 the issue appeared to threaten the very existence of Norway's first permanent socialist administration. After the election, the Labor government was determined to expel him. No European country would allow him entry, and when Mexico proved willing to offer a final refuge, Trotsky was involuntarily dispatched under police guard to Tampico on board a Norwegian ship. Trotsky in Norway presents a fascinating account—the first complete study in English—of Trotsky's asylum in Norway and his deportation to Mexico. Although numerous biographies of Trotsky have been published, their coverage of his Norwegian sojourn has been inadequate, and in some cases erroneous. A revised and updated edition of Hoidal's highly regarded Norwegian study, published in 2009, this book incorporates information that has since become available. In highly readable prose, Hoidal presents new biographical details about a significant period in Trotsky's life and sheds light on an important chapter in the history of international socialism and communism.