The Bolshevik Party in Conflict: the Left Communist Opposition of 1918 - Ronald I. Kowalski
Submitted by Craftwork on Aug 29 2016 16:34
1991 book examining the part played by the left communists following the Russian revolution, and their positions on a number of key issues.
The Left Communists' Theses on the Current Situation (Russia, 1918)
Submitted by Red Marriott on Aug 28 2016 21:57
Published by the academic journal Critique, Glasgow, in 1977, this text has long been unavailable in print and apparently never before freely available online. A very important document of the Russian Revolution, showing the divisions within the Bolshevik Party in their early days in power.
On the construction of socialism - Nikolai Osinsky (Valerian V. Obolensky)
In this text first published in the journal of the Bolshevik left communists, The Communist, in April 1918, Osinsky attacks Lenin’s economic policies (which he attributes to Lenin’s erroneous support for the Brest-Litovsk Peace Treaty) from a “left” perspective that champions working class supremacy in the “organization of production” (in the economic councils, etc.), advocates a policy of rigorous nationalization and promotion of “heavy industry” (coal, steel, railroads), and concludes that economic reconstruction cannot be directed towards Russian “self-sufficiency”, but must be oriented towards the goal of the victory of the international proletarian revolution.
