Socialism In Russia

by John Gooding

"This study raises three fundamental questions about the socialist experiment in Russia: How did Marxist ideas come to be implemented in Russia, a country entirely unsuited to them? Why did the experiment lead to such suffering and upheaval and prove so fruitless? And why did the attempt to return to a proper Marxism-Leninism bring about the rapid collapse of Soviet Russia?" "In anwering these questions John Gooding devotes considerable attention to Lenin's legacy. In particular he examines two conflicting posthumous views of the Soviet leader. On the one hand, Lenin was perceived - largely due to Stalin - as a godlike figure, embodying the onmiscience and might of the Party. On the other, he was known - mainly among intellectuals and later perestroika reformers - as a Marxist idealist, an anti-Stalinist and a democrat. This latter perception, the author argues, did much to bring the socialist experiment in Russia to its disastrous conclusion."--Jacket.