Lars T Lih
After receiving a BA from Yale (1968) and a B. Phil. from Oxford (1971), Lars T. Lih worked six years in the office of US Representative Ronald V. Dellums (D-California). He then returned to academia and got his Ph.D. in Political Science from Princeton (1984). After teaching at Duke University and Wellesley College, he moved to Montreal, Quebec, where he now lives. He is an Adjunct Professor at the Schulich School of Music, McGill University, but writes on Russian and socialist history on his own time.
Latest articles by Lars T Lih
A hundred years is enough
Three books, all published in 1924, laid the ideological groundwork for a Lenin cult, which is still responsible for the confessional sects and academic historians alike getting the Bolsheviks and the Russian Revolution so wrong. Lars T Lih shows that there was no Hegel moment, no April theses break, no conversion to Trotsky’s theory of permanent revolution. Lenin and the Bolsheviks consistently upheld revolutionary social democracy
Supplement: Back to Nevsky!
Lars T Lih uses an eyewitness account to dispose of some old myths and to show how, if they were to rewin their majority, the Bolsheviks had to adjust to the shock of finding themselves in a minority
For or against ‘AGREEMENTISM’?
In his third and final article in this series Lars T Lih analyses the duel over support for the Provisional Government that divided the Bolsheviks from the Mensheviks before Lenin’s return from exile in Switzerland
Lenin in his own words
Consistent Bolshevik message
Did Lenin’s April theses lead to a complete change of policy? Lars T Lih continues his series, arguing that the opposite is the case
One-liners
Lev Kamenev in March-April 1917
A curious case
Were the Bolsheviks under the leadership of Kamenev supporters of the Provisional Government and hostile to soviet power? Lars T Lih puts the story straight
The centrality of hegemony
150 years after his birth, how to evaluate Lenin and his ideas? Lars T Lih emphasises his consistency
Supplement: Biography of a sister slogan
The demand for the ‘publication of the secret treaties’, which represented a key turning point in support for the Bolsheviks, predated the April theses by several weeks, writes Lars T Lih. This is the seventh and concluding part of the series, ‘All power to the soviets!’
The character of the Russian Revolution
This article by Lev Trotsky was first published in August 1917 as part 5 of his pamphlet What next?
Supplement: Trotsky 1917 vs Trotsky 1924
Did the Bolsheviks believe the Russian Revolution to be ‘bourgeois-democratic’ or ‘socialist’? asks Lars T Lih in part 6 of his series, ‘All power to the soviets!’
Lenin refutes a misreading of the April theses
Reproducing a historic polemic
Lenin glosses the April theses
In this fifth part of his series, Lars T Lih focuses on Lenin’s April 21 1917 Pravda article, ‘A basic question’
Supplement: Thirteen to two?
Did the Petrograd Bolsheviks overwhelmingly reject Lenin’s April theses when they were first proposed? The records show otherwise, argues Lars T Lih
First stage of the first revolution
Lenin’s ‘Letter from afar’, as printed in Pravda, March 21 and 22 1917
Corrections from up close
Censorship or retrofit? In the third part of the series, ‘All power to the soviets’, Lars T Lih looks at Lenin’s ‘Letters from afar’ and the reaction of the Bolsheviks
‘All power to the soviets!’
In the second article in the current series, Lars T Lih demonstrates that the Bolshevik strategy of a revolutionary alliance between the proletariat and peasantry was upheld by Karl Kautsky
Draft of a mandate
For use in electing delegates to the Soviet of Worker and Soldier Deputies
‘All power to the soviets!’
Did Lenin’s April theses mark a fundamental change in Bolshevik strategy? In this series of articles Lars T Lih demonstrates that this was not the case
Only one path to socialism
Translation of Grigorii Zinoviev’s review of Path to power
A perfectly ordinary, highly instructive document
Lars T Lih introduces Zinoviev’s review of Kautsky’s 1909 book, Path to power
Bolshevism was fully armed
Were Lev Kamenev and Pravda ‘semi-Menshevik’ before Lenin’s return to Russia in April 1917? Lars T Lih looks at what they were saying a month earlier
The strange case of the closeted Lenin
According to comrades in the Socialist Workers Party, Lenin was a hypocrite who did not say what he thought. In this article, based on a speech to a London Communist Forum, Lars T Lih puts the record straight
True to revolutionary social democracy
It is sometimes claimed that Lenin retired from political activity at the start of World War I in order to rethink the foundations of Marxism. In this extract from his contribution to a book to be published later this year, Lars T Lih argues that nothing could be further from the truth
The 'new era of war and revolution'
Did the outbreak of World War I cause Lenin to break with the ‘Marxism of the Second International’? In this extract from his contribution to a book to be published later this year, Lars T Lih argues that the opposite was the case
Democratic centralism: Further fortunes of a formula
While the emphasis inevitably shifted according to circumstances, writes Lars T Lih, for the Bolsheviks democracy was just as vital as centralism
Democratic centralism: Fortunes of a formula
How did 'democratic centralism' become 'democratic centralism'? Lars T Lih looks at the changing use of the phrase by the Bolsheviks
April theses: Before and after April 1917
The April theses represented Bolshevik continuity rather than a break, argues Lars T Lih. This is an edited version of a speech given to a London Communist Forum
Bolshevism and revolutionary social democracy
Lars T Lih completes his series of articles on Lenin's view of the party question by examining the context in 1920 of 'Leftwing' communism
How Lenin's party became (Bolshevik)
Did Lenin seek to exclude Mensheviks from Russia's revolutionary organisation in order to forge a 'party of a new type'? Lars T Lih looks at the reality
A faction is not a party
Did the Bolsheviks seek to create a 'party of a new type' in 1912? Lars T Lih looks at the historical record
SUPPLEMENT: Falling out over a Cliff
Was Lenin a lying manoeuvrer? Were the Bolsheviks a cult led by an all-knowing leader and staffed by narrow-minded minions? Lars T Lih joins in the debate over Tony Cliff's biography and debunks some myths held by both left and right
Lenin, Kautsky and the 'new era of revolutions'
Lenin's vision of world revolution at the turn of the 20th century was inspired by Karl Kautsky, writes Canada-based scholar Lars T Lih
The book that didn't bark
Independent scholar Lars T Lih introduces excerpts from Karl Kautsky's 'Republic and social democracy in France', published in English for the first time
Zinoviev and the Halle Congress
Zinoviev's largely forgotten speech and Martov's counterblast for the first time in English, plus introductory essays by Ben Lewis and Lars T Lih
The ironic triumph of 'old Bolshevism'
Using new archival research, Canadian scholar Lars T Lih spoke to a London Communist Forum meeting about the 'April debates' and their impact on Bolshevik strategy through to October 1917
Scotching the myths
Historian Lars T Lih dissects one of Lenin's most famous but most misunderstood pamphlets, 'What is to be done?'
'April theses': myth and reality
Many on the left see Lenin as undergoing a conversion to Trotskyism in 1917. Lars T Lih takes on this myth and reveals a Lenin, who while converging with Trotsky in certain respects, still has a different strategy. There is also the possible influence Kautsky exerted on Lenin
Light and air of political freedom
North American scholar Lars T Lih explores the varying attitude of Marxists towards universal suffrage, freedom of the press and freedom of association
SUPPLEMENT: Kautsky, Lenin and the 'April theses'
Could Karl Kautsky - the 'pope' turned 'renegade' of orthodox Marxism - have influenced Vladimir Ilych's 'April theses'? Here we print a Karl Kautsky article from April 1917, translated into English for the first time by Ben Lewis. It is introduced by Lars T Lih, a historian based in Canada, who has been at the forefront of re-examining the complex relationship between these two widely misunderstood figures of the 20th century workers' movement
The four wagers of Lenin in 1917
The Bolshevik decision to make revolution was based on four key predictions, or wagers, says Lars T Lih: international revolution, soviet democracy, peasant followership and progress towards socialism. This is an edited version of the third speech he gave to the CPGBs Communist University
Lenin, Kautsky, and 1914
In the second of his talks to the CPGBs Communist University, Lars T Lih takes a closer look at Lenins reaction to the betrayal of German social democracy at the outbreak of World War I
VI Lenin and the influence of Kautsky
In the first of three talks given at the CPGBs Communist University, historian Lars T Lih discussed the relationship between two great Marxists. This is an edited version of his speech dealing with the period 1894-1914