From Lenin to Stalin [Paperback]

Victor Serge (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 2000

Eyewitness account of the rise of Stalinism.

Notes, index.

Product Details

• Paperback: 202 pages
• Publisher: Pathfinder Press (NY); 2nd edition (April 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0873488849
• ISBN-13: 978-0873488846
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.2 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,824,426 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent introduction to early USSR history., December 26, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: From Lenin to Stalin (Paperback)

This book is an excellent introduction to what happened from the Lenin to Stalin years in the USSR. Anyone who's curious how a country meant to turn into a Socialist Democracy became a Totalitarian Tyranny will want to read this book! This book enlightens the reader on how that country was corrupted by Stalin, and it also attacks some of the myths spread about the Bolsheviks which are still propagated today ( the German gold idea, for instance ). For those who think that Stalinism is the natural outcome of Bolshevism, read this book; It dispels the myth. This book should be complemented later by books by Trotsky and Isaac Deutscher's biographical trilogy about Lenin's second-in-command as well, but all in all, a great book to start with for understanding the Russian Revolution.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Russian Revolution---what happened?, February 28, 2005

By 

Barbara J. Greemway (Maryland) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: From Lenin to Stalin (Paperback)

This is one book title that really gives the reader an accurate picture of its contents! Once again, Pathfinder Press has given the interested reader and student of history a first person account filled with primary source materials of a revolution. The author, Victor Serge, was a contemporary revolutionary of Lenin and Leon Trotsky and watched the counter-revolution of Stalin from the inside.

As Serge says, "Everything has changed." He takes us from the days of the textile workers strike in Petrograd on the eve of the Russian Revolution to the debates over strategies and tactics of the Spanish Civil War. One of the most compelling essays is The Condition of Women." Here Serge details the lot of thousands of young women as prostitutes, and the anti-woman legislation of the Stalinist Soviet Union. Serge writes, "the freedom of abortion, a capital conquest of the revolution, ceased to exist in the summer of 1935."

This book is a unique look at the Russian Revolution and its betrayal. It is well worth picking up.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Workers and Peasants to Bureaucrats, February 13, 2005

By 

Andrew Pulley (Earlham, IA US) - See all my reviews

This review is from: From Lenin to Stalin (Paperback)

From internationalism, working people's democracy and revolution to nationalism, bureaucratic totalitarianism, and counter-revolution: in essence, that was the difference in the system of Lenin and that of Stalin.

The revolution's rise, stagnation, and betrayal come to life in this remarkable book by Victor Serge, a participant and leader of the 1917 revolution. Working people and those favoring the interests of humanity's exploited classes can learn much.