Gregory Zinoviev
History of the Bolshevik Party
The Russian Communist Party is not just any party. History decreed that the R.C.P was to become a mighty instrument of human progress and a major instrument of the world revolution. Its importance is great and immeasurable in the history not only of Russia but also in that of the whole world. So it is not accidental that the course of development of the R.C.P is studied today by the best minds of the international workers’ movement. And so, the more is it the duty of each one of us who has to live and fight in the ranks of the R.C.P. to know its history and to study each of the steps along its difficult road to victory and the smallest episodes of its heroic struggle for the cause of the liberation of the proletariat.
The following six lectures which I read on the eve of the 25th anniversary of our party afford only a most cursory sketch of its history. The five years after 1917 on their own would require several books. My lectures are but preliminary drafts which only serve as a brief introduction to the history of our party. I am presenting them here upon the insistence of comrades and only because the literature of the history of the R.C.P. is as yet very poor. In view of this paucity, my sketches might possibly be of some use.