THE BEST SOURCE OF INFORMATION about the Russian Revolution is the first-hand information contained in the works of Lenin and Stalin. Lenin’s Selected Works, in twelve volumes, are now being published by Lawrence & Wishart at 5s. each (with a special Left Book Club edition at 3s. 4d.). Stalin’s Leninism, published in two volumes by Allen & Unwin, Volume I at 7s. 6d., Volume II at 7s. 6d., has to be supplemented (until the third volume appears) by sundry pamphlets containing writings and speeches from the end of 1931 onwards a list is obtainable from the Workers’ Bookshops, Collett’s Bookshops, etc. For a fuller understanding of the Russian Revolution it is indispensable to read Marx and Engels; for which, to begin with, procure the Handbook of Marxism (1,088 pp.), edited by Emile Burns, and published by Victor Gollancz Ltd. at 5s., with a special Left Book Club edition at 2s. 6d.: a similar Handbook of Leninism is shortly to be published. A History of the Civil War is being published this year. Otherwise there is no trustworthy history available in English; for Trotsky’s “three-decker” is Trotskyist propaganda in disguise. Pokrovsky’s Short History of Russia has the defect of stopping after 1905
Of books written in England, the most authoritative is Soviet Communism, by Beatrice and Sidney Webb, written from the Fabian standpoint and now published in a cheap edition for the Left Book Club at 5s.