The Vperyod Faction | |
Auhtor: Vladimir Ilyich Lenin | |
| Language: english Published: 1903 Genres:political, revolutionary, social historyDownloads: 20 eBook size: 267Kb Review by Dr. Bojan Tunguz, June 2010 Rating: (*****) Copyright: Public Domain in the U.S. Please check the copyright status in your country. | |
Summary of the Book 'The Vperyod Faction':
Over the next twelve years bolshevism which had begun as a faction within the Russian Social-Democratic Workers party gradually emerged as an independent party that had cut its ties with all other Russian Marxists. The process involved long and bitter arguments against Mensheviks as well as against all those who worked to reunite the factions. It involved fights over funds struggles for control of newspapers the development of rival organizations and meetings of rival groups. Disputes concerned many questions about the goals and strategies of Marxism and the role of national (rather than international) struggles within Marxism.
Since about 1905 the international socialist movement had begun also to discuss the possibility of a major war breaking out among European nations. In 1907 and 1912 members met and condemned such wars in advance pledging not to support them. Lenin had wanted to go further than that. He had urged active opposition to the war effort and a transformation of any war into a proletarian revolution. When World War I (19141918 a conflict involving most European nations as well as Russia the United States and Japan) broke out most socialist leaders in the countries involved supported the war effort. For Lenin this was proof that he and the other leaders shared no common aims or views. The break between the two schools of Marxism could not be fixed.
During World War I (191418) Lenin lived in Switzerland. He attended several conferences of radical socialists opposed to the war. He read a large amount of literature on the Marxist idea of state government and wrote a first draft for a book on the subject The State and Revolution. He also studied literature dealing with world politics of the time and wrote an important book Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism in 1916. By the beginning of 1917 he had fits of depression and wrote to a close friend that he thought he would never see another revolution. This was about a month before the overthrow of the Russian czar in the winter of 1917 which marked the beginning of the 1917 Russian Revolution.
Excerpts from the Book 'The Vperyod Faction':
... FACTION ? Sotsial-Demokrat No. 15-16, August 30 (September 12), 1910 Published according to the text in Sotsial-Demokrat, First published ...
... platform is so unclear and confused that it can only be described as an adaptation to the otzovist ideology. Thirdly, and lastly, the platform emphatically ...
... ideology and policy. The Vperyod symposium shows vividly what products can result from such a mixture. ? ? The author of the leading article ...
... that are incorrect and harmful to the proletariat. . .? ? ? The dots are Maximov's. We do not know if they are meant to signify a shamefaced ...
... ideology. Freedom of thought (read: freedom of the press, speech and conscience) we demand from the state (not from a party) together with freedom ...
... what does complete freedom of revolutionary thought really mean? Nothing but freedom for otzovist and other semi-anarchist ideas. In other words, ...
... ? tunities and the Duma tribune. The Social-Democrats, writes Rabochy Ar., must combat those who are carrying on agitation [but who is carrying ...
... those friends of yours, those Vperyodists who once passed a resolution, for instance, to boycott a congress of factory doctors - and covering ...
... separate fund and secretary. Money was received from abroad. In Moscow . . . - then follows the name of a person who is very close to one of the most ...
... Rabochy Ar. declares that the Bureau of the Central Committee in Russia is not doing a damned thing (these words of course are ascribed to a Leninist ...
... Note: See Lenin's Conference of the Extended Editorial Board of Proletary. - DJR] ? Committee). And now all these Vperyodists are shedding crocodile ...
... here. ? ? That is just how it is printed. Nobody will understand. ? ? It is written by members of that same Vperyod group which ...
... workers a deliberate untruth, that nobody will understand what kind of trustees these are, and so on. And these gentlemen beat their breasts and ...
... to utter in print through an anonymous hack in a popular symposium a deliberate untruth about the Central Committee to the effect that nobody ...
... these political conditions will not come to a halt bewildered, mystified and downcast at the merely superficial aspect of the matter, at the mass ...
... author, lawyer, economic theorist, political philosopher, creator of the Soviet Communist Party, leader of the 1917 October Revolution, and founder of ...
... do the job their supporters expected them to do. Their key demands were that the socialists break with the Kadets and take political power into their ...
... an external student in 1891. He moved to St Petersburg and became a professional revolutionary. Like many of his... >>read more<