Left-Wing Communism, an Infantile Disorder

Originally published in 1940, "Left-Wing" Communism, An Infantile Disorder is a popular essay in Marxian strategy and tactics. Vladimir Ilich Lenin (1870-1924) was the founder of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks), inspirer and leader of Bolshevik Revolution (1917), and the architect, builder, and first head (1917-24) of the Soviet State. He was the founder of the organization known as Comintern (Communist International) and the posthumous source of "Leninism," the doctrine codified and conjoined with Marx's works by Lenin's successors to form Marxism-Leninism, which became the Communist worldview. If the Bolshevik Revolution is - as some people have called it - the most significant political event of the 20th century, then Lenin must for good or ill be regarded as the century's most significant political leader. Not only in the scholarly circles of the former Soviet Union but even among many non-Communist scholars, he has been regarded as the greatest revolutionary leader and revolutionary statesman in history, as well as the greatest revolutionary thinker since Marx.