Written by . B. Mitin and published in 1949, this reprint helps the reader see the true Soviet democracy. The question of democracy, of how it is to be correctly understood, of the fundamental distinction between Soviet socialist democracy and bourgeois democracy is a highly important question of our time. Since the Great October Socialist Revolution there have been revealed to the full the great advantages possessed by Soviet socialist democracy, and the decay, crisis and utter decline of bourgeois democracy. The Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union against Hitler Germany showed the invincible strength of the Soviet social and state system. The war showed that .".".the Soviet social system is a better form of organization of society than any non-Soviet social system."" The war showed that the Soviet system of state is the best state system ever known to history.

A devastating challenge to the idea of communism as a 'great leveller', this extraordinarily original, rigorous, and ambitious book debunks Marxism-inspired accounts of its equalitarian consequences. It is the first study systematically to link the genesis of the 'bourgeoisie-cum-middle class' – Imperial, Soviet, and post-communist – to Tzarist estate institutions which distinguished between nobility, clergy, the urban merchants and meshchane, and peasants. It demonstrates how the pre-communist bourgeoisie, particularly the merchant and urban commercial strata but also the high human capital aristocracy and clergy, survived and adapted in Soviet Russia. Under both Tzarism and communism, the estate system engendered an educated, autonomous bourgeoisie and professional class, along with an oppositional public sphere, and persistent social cleavages that continue to plague democratic consensus. This book also shows how the middle class, conventionally bracketed under one generic umbrella, is often two-pronged in nature – one originating among the educated estates of feudal orders, and the other fabricated as part of state-induced modernization.

"The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky," is an influential work where Vladimir Lenin defended the Bolsheviks against criticisms made against them by Karl Kautsky. Lenin's pamphlet was part of an ongoing debate between different Bolshevik leaders and the social democrat Kautsky about the function of democracy and force in the transition to socialism.

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin is among the most enigmatic and influential figures of the twentieth century. While his life and work are crucial to any understanding of modern history and the socialist movement, generations of writers on the left and the right have seen fit to embalm him endlessly with superficial analysis or dreary dogma. Now, after the fall of the Soviet Union and “actually-existing” socialism, it is possible to consider Lenin afresh, with sober senses trained on his historical context and how it shaped his theoretical and political contributions. Reconstructing Lenin, four decades in the making and now available in English for the first time, is an attempt to do just that. Tamás Krausz, an esteemed Hungarian scholar writing in the tradition of György Lukács, Ferenc Tokei, and István Mészáros, makes a major contribution to a growing field of contemporary Lenin studies. This rich and penetrating account reveals Lenin busy at the work of revolution, his thought shaped by immediate political events but never straying far from a coherent theoretical perspective. Krausz balances detailed descriptions of Lenin’s time and place with lucid explications of his intellectual development, covering a range of topics like war and revolution, dictatorship and democracy, socialism and utopianism.Reconstructing Lenin will change the way you look at a man and a movement; it will also introduce the English-speaking world to a profound radical scholar.

One of the key questions in social science is the role of the bourgeoisie in creating a democracy. An important issue in contemporary international politics is the trajectory of the current Russian political system. This book brings these questions together by exploring the role played by the bourgeoisie in shaping political outcomes in five countries: contemporary Russia, and industrial revolution Britain, France, Germany and the USA. Its main focus is the way the different new business classes have been integrated into the political system, and the implications this had for the political trajectories of the respective countries. The contemporary Russian experience is thrown into relief by comparison with the national experiences of the other four countries, enabling conclusions to be drawn about both the general question of the historic role of this class in democratisation and the more specific question of its role in Russia today.