Marx and Russia

This fascinating study should be read by students and scholars of modern Russian history and those with an interest in Marx. Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty. * CHOICE *
This is a lucid, well-informed, conceptually nuanced, and sensible study of a topic on which these qualities are often in short supply ... This is a fine book, which will be interesting both to specialists and to students seeking a reliable guide to the ways in which Marx's work was understood and misunderstood in Russia. * The Russian Review *
By building on his years of research ... White has produced the best account to date of how Marxist ideas reached and developed in Russia ... Despite the large amount of material written on Lenin, Trotsky and, to a lesser extent, Plekhanov, White's straightforward analysis and lucid writing style keep his discussions of these towering individuals fresh and engaging. * European History Quarterly *
In this beautifully written and thoroughly researched tour de force, White presents the findings of a whole life's work on several connected themes: Marx's thought, Marx and Russia, Marx's reception in Russia, the Russian and European revolutionary movement, and the Russian Revolution. With characteristic clarity and wit, White demonstrates how inopportune deaths (Marx, Sieber), left the field open for a fundamental misconception of Marx's work to take hold in Russia via Engels, Plekhanov and Lenin. * Ian D. Thatcher, Professor of History, Ulster University, UK *
White is a master of lucid presentation of complex ideas. His new book discusses Karl Marx's (and Friedrich Engels's) thinking on Russia and how the main Russian Marxists (Plekhanov, Lenin, Bogdanov, Trotsky and others) picked up his ideas while providing them with their own twist. The book is packed with new insights and original ideas. It convincingly shows the centrality of Russia in Marx's thought. The study of Russian conditions finally forced him to abandon the idea of capitalism as a universal system destined to absorb the world. The book continues with an elegant expose of the main tenets of the Russian Marxists on workers and intelligentsia; permanent revolution; imperialism; state and democracy; and dialectical philosophy. No doubt, this is the best and most complete introduction to Marxism and Russia in existence. * Erik van Ree, Assistant Professor of European Studies, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands *
James White's Marx and Russia is a major and indispensable contribution to the topic of whether the Soviet Union was "Marxist". In easy prose, the author provides the reader with the fate of a doctrine in one country that has worldwide implications to this day. * Paul Zarembka, Professor of Economics, State University of New York, USA *