The Bolsheviks & Workers’ Control: 1917–1921

Originally published as a pamphlet in 1970, Maurice Brinton’s ‘The Bolsheviks and Workers’ Control’ presents a concise yet brilliant historical critique of Revolutionary Russia from the year 1917 to 1921, from the Bolshevik’s ascension to state power, up to—and in the aftermath of—Lenin and Trotsky’s brutal suppression of the 1921 Kronstadt Uprising. This small volume offers a critical understanding of the history of the Russian Revolution that has too often been obscured by romanticized Leninist revision. With devastating documentation and attention to detail, Brinton’s writing exposes the Bolshevik counterrevolution and its hostile resentment toward the self-mobilization of the Russian working class. Additionally, Brinton’s work illuminates crucial distinctions between workers’ self-management of industry and “workers’ control” (an alternate idea coined by the Bolshevik dictatorship). In this way, his work asserts and defends the revolutionary idea that the working class itself can govern the affairs of society, outside of the authority of any state power or ruling class—whatever its name or form.