Imperialism and the National Question

Fired up by the outbreak of the First World War and outraged by the capitulation of most socialist parties in the face of their respective national bourgeoisies, Lenin sought to understand the deeper roots of the crisis of the world movement. The result was a popular outline book, Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism, which went on to become a core text for the international communist movement. But Lenin also sought to break with the Eurocentrism of the socialist movement that tended to look down with disdain at or simply reject struggles for self-determination especially by colonised peoples. This volume, introduced by the renowned abolitionist and anti-imperialist theorist Ruth Wilson Gilmore, brings together both the texts on imperialism and those on the national question to provide a window into Lenin’s global vision of revolution.

Author Biography

Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, better known by the alias Lenin (1870–1924), was a Russian communist revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He played a leading role in the Bolshevik revolution of October 1917.