V.I. Lenin

'Globalisation' is the buzzword of the 1990s. VI Lenin's Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism was one of the first attempts to account for the increasing importance of the world market in the twentieth century. Originally published in 1916, Imperialism explains how colonialism and the First World War were inherent features of the global development of the capitalist economy. In a new introduction, Norman Lewis and James Malone contrast Lenin's approach with that adopted by contemporary theories of globalisation. They argue that, while much has changed since Lenin wrote, his theoretical framework remains the best method for understanding recent global developments.

The Highest Stage of Capitalism

Imperialism

Karl Marx

Friedrich Engels

A new beautiful edition of the Communist Manifesto, combined with Lenin’s key revolutionary tract It was the 1917 Russian Revolution that transformed the scale of The Communist Manifesto, making it the key text for socialists everywhere. On the centenary of this upheaval, this volume pairs Marx and Engels’s most famous work with Lenin’s own revolutionary manifesto, “The April Theses,” which lifts politics from the level of everyday banalities to become an art-form. The Communist Manifesto “Oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes.” The Communist Manifesto is the most influential political text ever written—few other calls to action have stirred and changed the world. Now, in the wake of a punishing financial crisis, in a world built on regimes of permanent austerity, each rife with horrific disparities in wealth, this short book remains a reference point for those trying to understand the transformations being wrought by capitalism and its concomitant forms of exploitation. This centenary edition includes a new introduction by Tariq Ali, contextualizing the period—the eve of the 1848 revolutions—in which Marx and Engels penned their masterpiece and argues that it desperately needs a successor. “The April Theses” “The chain breaks first at its weakest link.” In Lenin’s “April Theses,” written in 1917, he presented his ten analytical maxims, outlining a programme to accelerate and complete the revolution that had begun in February of that year. Now, on the revolution’s centenary, Verso presents them here alongside Lenin’s ‘Letters from Afar’, written in exile that March and addressed to his comrades in Petrograd. In these missives, he offers advice and instruction to comrades pushing ahead with their ideals in the aftermath of the February revolution. The introduction by Tariq Ali traces The Communist Manifesto’s influence on Lenin’s “April Theses,” the text that brought the manifesto to life and made it one of the most widely read books in history. For Lenin, writes Ali, it was the birth of imperialism, the legitimate offspring of capitalism, that signalled the end of the latter’s “progressive capacities.”

The Communist Manifesto / The April Theses

“The pamphlet… outlined a broad plan of organisation in which everyone would find a place for himself, become a cog in the revolutionary machine, a cog, which, no matter how small, was vital to the working of the machine. The pamphlet urged the necessity of intensive and tireless efforts to build the foundation that had to be built if the Party was to exist in deeds and not in words…” (Nadezhda Krupskaya, Reminiscences of Lenin.) First published in early 1902, What Is to Be Done? remains a classic of Marxism on the building of the revolutionary party, which sets out the party’s role as the organiser and director of the revolution. The pamphlet was written as part of a conflict with the opportunism of the Economists, who emphasised ‘bread and butter issues’ rather than theory. Lenin uses the book to explain the necessity of creating a centralised group of professional and dedicated revolutionary cadres before the “times of explosion and outbursts.” The history of the past 100 years has proven Lenin right: time and again, the masses have been ready to struggle, but let down by their leadership. Today, many working-class people are beginning to reject the status quo and are looking to socialist ideas as an alternative. It is the duty of Marxists to build an organisation capable of offering a way forward, and What is to Be Done? represents an excellent guide as to how to do this. With a new introduction by Rob Sewell.

What is to be done?

A new look at the essence of Marxist theory, questioning the interpretations made by Engels and Lenin.

Selected Writings

Revolution, Democracy, Socialism

Bemyndigad översättning från ryskan

Revolutionen och staten

In this classic text, Lenin brilliantly explains the fundamental principles of the materialist philosophy of Marxism. He defends them against idealist attacks from the subjective idealism of Machism, a philosophical trend, which at Lenin's time was becoming very fashionable, even within the workers' movement. Step by step, layer by layer, quoting at length from the many trendy philosophical and scientific publications of the day, the book exposes idealism in all its guises. The aim was very simple: to bring out in the open the real difference between Marxist dialectical materialism and subjective idealism, which in the last instance always leads to some form of religious world outlook. Analysing the different shades and expressions of Machism internationally, Lenin stressed that "in every philosophical question raised by the new physics, we [trace] the struggle between materialism and idealism." And he showed that: "Behind the mass of new terminological devices, behind the litter of erudite scholasticism, we invariably discerned two principal alignments, two fundamental trends in the solution of philosophical problems. Whether nature, matter, the physical, the external world should be taken as primary, and consciousness, mind, sensation (experience - as the widespread terminology of our time has it), the psychical, etc., should be regarded as secondary - that is the root question which in fact continues to divide the philosophers into two great camps."

V.I. Lenin

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