Taking into account their place in the history of the international labor movement, studying the Russian revolution and the Leninist legacy remains a necessity for those who want to keep on with the socialist struggle. We hope that we brought an element of this study in this new Cahier d’Etude et de Recherche, and we plan to dedicate some coming publications to the same question. We chose the articles of this CER because they deal with a fundamental historical controversy, bring a new light on a period of history which is often badly known and eventually because they provide interesting elements for thought on the theme of the vanguard party. The authors’ analyses often converge but some of their concerns and conclusions differ. By publishing them together, we wanted to give a pluralistic study to the reader .
Paul Le Blanc lives in the United States, where he studied History in Pittsburg University. He is a militant of the Fourth International and often writes in its publication Bulletin in Defense of Marxism. He contributes to many publications like International Marxist Review, Monthly Review and Science&Society. He also wrote a book on the Nicaragua revolution, Permanent Revolution in Nicaragua, published in the United States in 1984.
Norman Geras lives in the UK. He studied in Oxford and has been a teacher at Manchester University since 1967. He is a member of the editorial board of the New Left Review, contributor to many publications and wrote the following books: The Legacy of Rosa Luxemburg (1976), Marx and Human Nature (1983), Literature and Revolution (1986) and Discourses of Extremity (1989), all published by Verso, London.