History of CPSU (Bolsheviks), Short Course, 1939, International Publishers

[3A CCCP]

History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks), Short Course, 1939, International Publishers

If anyone is interested in reading a history of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks) beginning from 1883 with Plekhanov's struggle against the Narodniki going up to 1939 this a great textbook.

The book was authorized by the Central Committee of the C.P.S.U. (Bolsheviks) in 1939 and is a wonderful source of information. This is a perfect textbook for any student of Marxism-Leninism. The link is:

http://www.marx2mao.com/Other/HCPSU39NB.html

The book is called the "short course," but it is anything but short. However, it is well written, interesting, and chock full of information.

3A CCCP!
Mikhail

[BobKKKindle$]

The Short Course exhibits a clear bias in favor of Stalin, because it was written with an ideological purpose. Trotsky is presented as always in opposition to Lenin (even though Trotsky and Lenin were in agreement on the issue of historical stages and the need to spread the revolution abroad) and his important theoretical contributions are not given the recognition they deserve. The Short Course also excludes a detailed description of Lenin's testament, because Lenin recommended that Stalin be deprived of his official posts and replaced with a more suitable party member. For a more balanced account of the history of the Bolshevik Party, Socialists should read John Reed's Ten Days that Shook the World which was given Lenin's official approval as a reliable narrative.

[The Author]

CPSU Short Course is an interesting book that explains in summary the history of the class struggles and the political and economic problems of the USSR pre-revolution and all the way up to 1939. Good summary for more in-depth material written from Lenin and Stalin. Plus, it does not harp on the concept of "Stalin, Great Leader and Teacher" like the Stalin Short Biography did. This is because Stalin was partially involved in editing CPSU Short Course and due to his anti-cult stance, stopped this tendency from overwhelming the book.

I have also glanced through the Khrushchevite 1962 edition of this book. This edition takes every single mistake the party made and blames it on the "Stalin Personality Cult." It seeks to denigrate Comrade Stalin, and follows Trotskyist theories such as Tukhachevsky having no involvement in an attempted coup in the 1930s against the USSR. It also made the bold, and very erroneous claim that Stalin had Kirov murdered and that the 22nd Congress of the Party was investigating the matter. This edition is a very poor sequel to the original, better quality 1939 edition.


For a more balanced account of the history of the Bolshevik Party, Socialists should read John Reed's Ten Days that Shook the WorldAlso good reading material, but this covered the events of the October Revolution, not the history of the Bolshevik Party as a whole.

[Die Neue Zeit]

In the late 1930s, the Soviet government issued a fundamental textbook of party history usually referred to as the Short Course. The sections on the Iskra period are by Stalin personally...

As for WITBD, it 'brilliantly substantiated the fundamental Marxist thesis that a Marxist party is a merger of the worker movement with socialism.' Stalin knew perfectly well that Karl Kautsky was the one who formulated this fundamental Marxist thesis, since he cited Kautsky's formula as the epigraph for his 1905 article...

Thus I stand with Stalin against the academic and activist consensus. This is no doubt rather embarrassing - but for whom? For me, because I find myself on the same side with a man not known for scrupulous history-writing? Or for advocates of the textbook interpretation, who are wrong when even Stalin (because of his roots in prewar Russian Social Democracy) was right?

Lenin Rediscovered, p. 31 and 32

http://books.google.ca/books?id=8AVUvEUsdCgC&pg=PA75&lpg=PA75&dq=kautsky+lih+erfurt&source=web&ots=5i1r8pwQVn&sig=t9_FW7BRQj38p96eH7QpR5NsaJo&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result#PPA32,M1