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2. Prelude to Bolshevism
3. The Russian Situation
4. The Revolution in Russia
5. A Socialist View of Bolshevik Policy
6. The Super Opportunists
7. The Passing of Lenin
8. Trotsky states His Case
9. Russia: Land of High Profits
10. Changing Russia
11. The “Terrorist” Trial
12. The New Constitution
13. Birds of a Feather
14. War Overtakes Russia
15. Inglorious End of the Comintern
16. Is Russia Socialist?
17. “Local Boy Makes Good”
18. Russia and Democracy
19. From Comintern to Cominform
20. The Daily Worker and Lenin on Equal Pay
21. Russian Imperialism
Postscript
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This pamphlet consists of articles published originally on the Socialist Standard. It is a record, in collected form, of the attitude of the Socialist Party of Great Britain to events in Russia since 1917. In March of that year the Czarist regime collapsed and was followed, after short-lived stop-gap Ministry, by the Kerensky Government which was a coalition of various reformist parties. This Government was opposed by the Bolsheviks who, under the leadership of Lenin and Trotsky, overthrew it and seized power in October, 1917.
In the articles themselves, no attempt has been made to interfere with the original texts. The articles stand just as they were written.
We have nothing to fear from letting our original words stand. There are, it is true, passages in some of the earlier articles which, were we writing to-day in the light of information now available, we would phrase differently; but these are points of detail. In essentials, these articles stand as overwhelming testimony to the soundness of the Marxist position, the position of the Socialist Party of Great Britain.
A word of explanation may be needed about the first of the articles reprinted below – “A Russian Challenge.” In February, 1915, a conference was called by the social-democratic parties of the Allied countries, then at war with Germany and her partners, for the purpose of discussing war aims and the prosecution of the war. The Russian Social Democratic Labout Party (Bolshevik Party), which opposed the war, was not invited. Unable to get their views published in the journals of the parties supporting the war, they approached the S.P.G.B., and their statement appeared in the Socialist Standard of March, 1915. It is reproduced here as an indication that our opposition to Bolshevik policies was not the outcome of prejudice; we were at all times ready to give them credit when their actions in line with the interests of the working class.
Under each title the date of publication in the Socialist Standard is given in brackets.
The Executive Committee of the
Socialist Party of Great Britain
June, 1948