"Left-Wing" Communism: An Infantile Disorder (
Russian: Детская болезнь "левизны" в коммунизме;
Transliteration: Detskaya Bolezn' "Levizny" v Kommunizme) is a work by
Lenin attacking assorted critics of the
Bolsheviks who claimed positions to their left. Most of these critics were proponents of ideologies later described as
left communism.
The book was written in 1920 and published in
Russian,
German,
English and
French later in the year. A copy was then distributed to
each delegate at the
2nd World Congress of the Comintern, several of whom were mentioned by Lenin in the work.
: Lenin Works Archive
Lenin's manuscript was
subtitled "A Popular Exposition of Marxist Strategy and Tactics", but this was not applied to any edition brought out during his lifetime.
:
Foreign Languages Press,
Peking (1970)
The book is divided into ten chapters and an appendix.
The Bolsheviks
Lenin begins with an introduction to the work. He claims that the
Russian Revolution has considerable international significance, and criticises the leaders of the
Second International, including
Karl Kautsky, for failing to appreciate this. To illustrate their supposed move away from
revolutionary politics, he supplies a quote from a 1902 work of Kautsky which concludes that "Western Europe is becoming a bulwark of reaction and absolutism in Russia."
Lenin claims that in a
war against the...
Read More