Product Overview
What Is to Be Done? has long been interpreted as evidence of Lenins elitist attitude toward workers. Lih uses a wide range of previously unavailable contextual sources to fundamentally overturn this reading of historys most misunderstood revolutionary text. He argues that Lenins polemic must be seen within the context of a rising workers movement in Russia, and shows that Lenins perspective fit squarely within the mainstream of the socialist movement of his time.
Rather than the manifesto of an authoritarian leader, Lih reveals a guide to action to help cohere and strengthen a promising movement, which still maintains remarkable relevance to todays world.
Clearly written, well-reasoned, and effectively documented, it is a work that no scholar seriously examining the life and thought of Lenin will be able to ignore.
Paul Le Blanc, author of Marx, Lenin, and the Revolutionary Experience: Studies of Communism and Radicalism in the Age of Globalization
If we are honestly to assess the lessons of the Russian Revolution, then it is essential that we unpick the real Lenin from this shared Stalinist and liberal myth of Leninism. It would be difficult to praise too highly Lars Lihs contribution to such an honest reassessment of Lenins thought. At its heart, Lihs book aims to overthrow, and succeeds in overthrowing, what he calls the textbook interpretation of Lenins What is to be done? Lih thus adds to and deepens the arguments of those who have sought to recover the real Lenin from the Cold War mythology.
Paul Blackledge, author, Historical Materialism and Social Evolution
Rather than the manifesto of an authoritarian leader, Lih reveals a guide to action to help cohere and strengthen a promising movement, which still maintains remarkable relevance to todays world.
Clearly written, well-reasoned, and effectively documented, it is a work that no scholar seriously examining the life and thought of Lenin will be able to ignore.
Paul Le Blanc, author of Marx, Lenin, and the Revolutionary Experience: Studies of Communism and Radicalism in the Age of Globalization
If we are honestly to assess the lessons of the Russian Revolution, then it is essential that we unpick the real Lenin from this shared Stalinist and liberal myth of Leninism. It would be difficult to praise too highly Lars Lihs contribution to such an honest reassessment of Lenins thought. At its heart, Lihs book aims to overthrow, and succeeds in overthrowing, what he calls the textbook interpretation of Lenins What is to be done? Lih thus adds to and deepens the arguments of those who have sought to recover the real Lenin from the Cold War mythology.
Paul Blackledge, author, Historical Materialism and Social Evolution
