Lenin : Volume 2, All Power to the Soviets

In this authoritative volume of his magisterial biography of Lenin, Tony Cliff describes how Lenin shepherded his party through the crucial years of the first World War, steering the working class safely between the Scylla of premature adventurist insurrection and Charybdis of opportunist compromise with the Bourgeouis Liberal factions of February revolution. As this volume deals with the "art of revolution" specific to the power struggle in a unique time and place, it perhaps offers fewer generalizable lessons than Cliff's account of the building of a Democractic-Centralist party in the first volume, and Lenin's ultimately futile struggles in the transitional period to communism after the October revolution in the final volume. Nevertheless Volume 2 is a fascinating case study of the art of revolution, as Lenin charts the course to power through the complex terrain of classes, competing revolutionary parties, and intra-party machinations.