Building the Party. Lenin 1893-1914

The Russian Revolution of 1917 was one of the pivotal events in world history, and the Russian Bolshevik Party played a central role in that revolution. This book by British socialist Tony Cliff (1917-2000) traces the building of that party and, in particular, the work of its main architect, Lenin.

Cliff chronicles Lenin's battle to turn Marxist ideas about socialist revolution into practical daily action. And he shows Lenin's constant efforts to lean from insights gained from every contact with workers in struggle -- no matter how fleeting.

Most importantly, Building the Party shows that Lenin's ideas about party organization didn't spring fully formed from his head, but were political conclusions drawn from the experience of the Russian working-class movement -- a movement that both made the Bolshevik Party and was in turn influenced by it.

By bringing to life the events that formed the backdrop to the Russian Revolution, the reader learns alongside Lenin about the challenges and opportunities that confront revolutionaries of any era.
About the Author

Tony Cliff was a lifelong organizer within the international socialist movement. His groundbreaking work established the unique interpretation of the Soviet Union as a bureaucratic, state-centered version of capitalism, rather than a workers' state. His many works include State Capitalism in Russia and the volume that follows-up from this book, All Power to the Soviets, about Lenin's political leadership from 1914 to 1917.