Join us on the evening of December 17th at the Centre for Socialist Education for a presentation and discussion on Lenin’s 1920 text “Leftwing Communism: an Infantile Disorder.”

Wednesday, December 17th
7pm at the Centre for Socialist Education
706 Clark Drive, East Vancouver
To participate on Zoom, email cpcbcorganizer@gmail.com

With this now-classic work, Lenin aimed to encapsulate the lessons the Bolshevik Party had learned from its involvement in three revolutions in 12 years—in a manner that European Communists could relate to, for it was to them he was speaking. He also further develops the theory of what the “dictatorship of the proletariat” means and stresses that the primary danger for the working-class movement in general is opportunism on the one hand, and anti-Marxist ultraleftism on the other.

“Left-Wing” Communism: an Infantile Disorder was written in April, and the appendix was written on May 12, 1920. It came out on June 8–10 in Russian and in July was published in German, English and French. Lenin gave personal attention to the book’s type-setting and printing schedule so that it would be published before the opening of the Second Congress of the Communist International, each delegate receiving a copy. Between July and November 1920, the book was republished in Leipzig, Paris, and London, in the German, French, and English languages respectively.

• Marxists.org