Arthur Rosenberg 1934
Source: Book published by Oxford University Press, London, 1934.
Translated from the German by Ian FD Morrow.
Scanned and prepared for the Marxist Internet Archive by Paul Flewers.
Preface to the English Translation
Chapter I: Marx to Lenin, 1843–1893
Chapter II: Revolution in Russia, 1893–1914
Chapter III: The World War, August 1914 to February 1917
Chapter IV: The Third International, August 1914 to February 1917
Chapter V: March to October 1917
Chapter VI: The Bolshevik Revolution and Wartime Communism, 1917–1921
Chapter VII: The Third International at the Height of its Revolutionary Power, 1919–1921
Chapter VIII: The Great Change: NEP and the Third World Congress, 1921
Chapter IX: Lenin’s Testament, 1922–1924
Chapter X: Stalin Versus Trotsky, 1924–1927
Chapter XI: ‘Socialism in a Single Land’, 1927–1932
This translation of the original German edition of my Geschichte des Bolschewismus (published in 1932) is an exact rendering and does not contain any alteration of any kind whatsoever. Events that have occurred since the appearance of the German edition fully confirm the views expressed in these pages. The collapse of the KPD without any show of resistance proved that the Communism of the Third International could no longer be looked upon as a living revolutionary force. The ruin of the KPD sealed the fate of the Third International, which has ceased, together with its affiliations in Czechoslovakia, France, etc, to be a factor in international politics. Moreover, the attitude displayed by the Soviet government towards Hitlerite Germany shows that Stalin is no longer interested in the so-called world revolution. The Soviet government did not in its negotiations with Nazi Germany allow itself to be actuated by any other consideration than that of self-interest, and displayed no regard whatever for the German Communists or the Communist International. Stalin thus indirectly proclaimed the dissolution of the Third International as an independent and active labour movement. In Soviet Russia the course followed by events has been that indicated in the original German edition. At the same time the Soviet government has revealed itself powerless to resolve the glaring contradictions in its governmental system.
Arthur Rosenberg
Zürich, August 1933
Last updated on 27 December 2019