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Rating: In a period like this one, where parliamentary left-wing parties struggle to find a point of contact with their traditional electoral base, leaving room for right-wing populism, it is interesting to retrace the origins of the communist left in V.I. Nevskij's book "History of the Bolshevik Party. From the origins to 1917," published by Pantarei. Nevskij, an early Bolshevik executed during the years of the Stalinist counter-revolution, offers a work "intended for students," with the aim of bringing the reader closer not only to Marxist science and how it developed in Russia, but also to accurately describe the historical and social conditions that allowed the success of the October Revolution of 1917.
The work, almost a choral novel, is not excessively long and, thanks to a rather simple writing style, can be read without particular difficulties, despite the subject not being the "lightest." Nevskij presents the various events chronologically, starting from the birth of the Russian working class and the first socialist-inspired movements up to the final Revolution, passing through the foundation of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (POSDR) and the various internal splits within the Russian left. What surprises the less informed reader the most is indeed the enormous number of currents and organizations present at the time, each distinguishing itself from the others with analyses and stances that today, especially with parliamentary transformism, with parties moving from one coalition to another depending on the occasion, might be difficult to understand. Besides the "historical" opposition between the two main currents of Russian social democracy, Mensheviks and Bolsheviks, the presence of revolutionary socialists and populists was also significant, not to mention the multitude of publications, many of which had an ephemeral publication duration, that animated the political life of the period. The work is also enriched with excerpts from letters written by the protagonists of the period (Lenin, Martov, Plechanov) and extracts from newspapers like Iskra and Pravda. Beyond the numerous divisions, however, it should also be highlighted one of the main reasons that led to the victory of the social democrats, namely the enormous work carried out among the people, in the countryside as well as in the factories, what today would be defined as a "widespread presence on the territory," thanks to which the thought of Marx and Engels did not remain pure theory for salon intellectuals but demonstrated its validity in a real context.
Nevskij's work, written in 1925, could, from this point of view, even prove enlightening for some administrators of the current Italian left, today too engaged in speaking to themselves or engaging in endless discussions about nothing (I am reminded of the recent summer saga on whether or not to call themselves "comrades"), making them understand the importance of a close, constant, and widespread relationship with the popular masses that they would like to represent. Although it is, of course, a biased work, I still feel it is worth recommending to everyone, especially those who would like to delve deeper into such an intense and fascinating historical period.
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