A People's History of the Russian Revolution (Left Book Club)

The Russian Revolution was an explosion of mass democracy from below. It transformed the people who took part and inspired tens of millions across the world. Its global impact shook the capitalist system to its foundations and came close to bringing it down. But in the end, the revolutionary movement was destroyed by the most murderous counter-revolutionary terror in history. And because the real history of the revolution is so subversive of class rule everywhere? East, West, and South? it has been buried under a mountain of lies, distortions, and denials. This book sets out to nail every bogus argument about the Russian Revolution? from Tories, Stalinists, and sectarians? and to present the living reality of a mass movement of millions, organised in participatory assemblies, mobilised for militant action. The Russian Revolution may well be the most misunderstood event in modern history. In A People's History of the Russian Revolution, Neil Faulkner sets out to debunk the myths. In this fast-paced introduction to the tumultuous events, the Russian people are the heroes. Faulkner shows how a mass movement of millions, organised in democratic assemblies, mobilised for militant action, destroyed a regime of landlords, profiteers and warmongers. He rejects caricatures of Lenin and the Bolsheviks as authoritarian conspirators, 'democratic-centralists' or the progenitors of Stalinist dictatorship. He argues that the Russian Revolution was an explosion of democracy and creativity - and that it was crushed by bloody counter-revolution and replaced with a monstrous form of bureaucratic state-capitalism. Laced with first-hand testimony, this history seeks to rescue the democratic essence of the revolution from its detractors and deniers, offering a perfect primer for the modern reader