Workers Against Lenin

This work challenges the view widely held among historians of the Bolshevik revolution that the upsurge of labour unrest of 1920-22 was the result of the appalling living conditions caused by the Civil War had little significant content and was largely a sideshow to the huge conflict between the Bolsheviks and the peasants. Based on a wide reading of the contemporary Soviet press archive sources and first-hand accounts by Bolsheviks and non-Bolsheviks this work shows how rank and file opposition to the leadership in the Bolshevik-dominated trade unions grew and how support for non-Bolshevik trade unions and political parties developed fast.