Moscow, Nauka Publishing House. 1976. 239 pp. The print run is 3,800. Price 96 kopecks.

The doctrine of the class struggle of the proletariat occupies an important place in the historical legacy of V. I. Lenin. The creative development of this teaching is one of the main sources of strength of the modern international labor movement. Of great importance in this connection is the study of Lenin's activity in generalizing the experience of the struggle of the Russian proletariat. The monograph of Candidate of Historical Sciences, senior researcher at the Institute of History of the USSR of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR N. A. Ivanova reveals this activity of Lenin on the example of the analysis of the strike struggle in Russia and the characteristics of the mass strike as one of its forms.

The mass revolutionary strike was born out of the revolutionary creativity of the working class and passed its first combat test in 1905-1907. Adopted by the proletariat, it became a means of revolutionary organization and rallying not only the workers, but the broad masses of the people. Lenin noted that in the revolutionary mass strike the Russian proletariat "found for itself in 1905" a means of drawing the masses into the revolution. And later, in the conditions of the pre-war upsurge, according to Lenin's definition, the revolutionary strike was for the social-democratic proletariat "a great, irreplaceable weapon" "for agitating the masses, for awakening them, for drawing them to the struggle." 1
Despite the importance that Lenin attached to the mass revolutionary strike, its experience, as well as the work carried out by Lenin to generalize this experience, were not yet the subject of special study, and the richness of Lenin's ideas expressed about the revolutionary strike remained insufficiently disclosed. In our literature, including that devoted to the analysis of the forms of strike struggle in Russia, the question of the revolutionary mass revolution is discussed.

1 See V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 23, p. 298.

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the strike was dealt with only in the most general way2 . Thus, the book under review fills a significant gap in the coverage of an important problem, both in concrete historical and theoretical terms.

The content of the book is much broader than its title. It does not confine itself to an exposition of Lenin's views on the revolutionary strike. The author traces the genesis of Lenin's concept of strike struggle in connection with the main stages of the labor movement in Russia. The question of a revolutionary strike is also considered in many ways in connection with such problems of the history of the revolution as the hegemony of the proletariat, its alliance with non-proletarian strata, the leading role of the party, etc.

The process of Lenin's elaboration of the question of a revolutionary strike is considered in the book against a broad historical background. This allowed the author to show that the Russian proletariat was led to use such weapons by the development of the strike movement, which rose from the economic, fragmented and largely spontaneous actions of the last decades of the XIX century to the level of a nationwide war of labor against capital at the beginning of the XX century. Through the use of the mass revolutionary strike, the Russian proletariat enriched the practice of the working-class movement and raised the level of class struggle to a new level. N. A. Ivanova emphasizes that the fulfillment of this task was made possible thanks to the conscious efforts of the Bolsheviks and Lenin, who with brilliant insight was able to see the enormous revolutionary potential of the proletarian strike.

The main focus of the author is on revealing Lenin's concept of a revolutionary mass strike, which was formed in the acute ideological struggle of revolutionary social democracy with reformists of the left and right. Of great interest in this connection are the pages devoted to the discussion at the Third Congress of the RSDLP (based on the reports of A. V. Lunacharsky and A. A. Bogdanov on the armed insurrection) of the question of the use of a mass strike in the revolution. It was at this congress that the idea of a mass political strike as a means of democratic struggle of the masses and leading them to insurrection was sharply opposed by the Bolshevik-Leninists (A. V. Lunacharsky testified that in his report he "proceeded from the most detailed instructions of Vladimir Ilyich", who gave him "all the main theses of the report" 3), on the one hand the anarchist idea of identifying the mass strike with the "social revolution of the proletariat" and, on the other hand, the Menshevik line of actually denying the connection between the strike struggle and armed insurrection. The Congress, while devoting its main attention to the mobilization of forces for an armed struggle against tsarism, at the same time stressed the need for preliminary work to prepare for a mass political strike, and directed the proletariat to take active revolutionary actions in the course of strikes.

Using the documents of the Sixth (Prague) Conference of the RSDLP (b), the Cracow and Poroninsky conferences, and others, the author traces how Lenin and the Bolsheviks consistently defended the ideas of a mass revolutionary strike in the struggle against the liquidators and opportunists of the Second International. In his instructions to the RSDLP (b) delegation at the 1914 Brussels Unification Conference of Socialists, Lenin raised, in particular, the question of intolerance in the ranks of the illegal party of those who "in any form speak out... against revolutionary mass strikes (i.e., strikes that combine economic and political struggle and revolutionary agitation). " 4 Let us add that even during the Basel Congress, Lenin considered-

2 See, for example: D. I. Shelikhov, O. K. Fedotova. The significance of mass political strikes in the First Russian Revolution. L. 1959; V. S. Kirillov. Bolsheviks at the head of mass political strikes in the period of the rise of the revolution of 1905-1907. Bolsheviks at the head of mass political strikes in the first Russian Revolution (1905-1907). M. 1976; S. V. Murzintseva. V. I. Lenin on the forms of struggle of the working class during the new revolutionary upsurge (1910-1914). "V. I. Lenin and historical science". L. 1970; P. A. Mikhalchuk. V. I. Lenin on the forms and methods of the class struggle of the proletariat (experience of the first Russian Revolution). "Questions of the history of the Party in the Works of V. I. Lenin", Moscow, 1973, et al. The same can be said of the literature on the history of the working-class movement as a whole. From recent works, a brief mention of the revolutionary mass strike is available only in the book: G. A. Arutyunov. The labor movement in Russia in the years of a new revolutionary upsurge. M. 1975.

3 A. V. Lunacharsky. The Bolsheviks in 1905, Proletarian Revolution, 1925, No. 11, p. 54.

4 V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 25, p. 385.

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He considered it necessary to clearly define the position of the Bolsheviks in relation to the revolutionary strike. In a letter to G. V. Plekhanov on November 4(17), 1912, he asked that the Congress commission to write a draft resolution be informed of the Bolsheviks ' disagreement with K. Kautsky's article "War and the International", which denied the need for a mass revolutionary strike .5
Relying on party documents and Lenin's statements (especially in Lenin's final works of the pre-war period for this problem: "The Revolutionary Upsurge", "The Development of the Revolutionary Strike and Street Demonstrations", "On the Forms of the Working-class Movement", "Liquidators against the Revolutionary Mass Strike", etc.), N. A. Ivanova gives a generalized definition of the revolutionary mass strike. strikes, highlighting such characteristic features as " the powerful scope of the movement, the indissoluble connection and constant interaction of the economic and political struggle, the combination of strikes with demonstrations, meetings, street agitation, the nationwide character of the struggle, the realization of the hegemony of the proletariat through strikes, the development of the strike struggle to a general strike, the connection of strikes with armed insurrection, both in the sense of both the preparation of an insurrection and the direct transition - from strike to insurrection " (p. 237). It seems, however, that this definition is too broad; it is more suitable for describing the situation in which the revolutionary strike unfolded than for describing the strike itself, and therefore may serve as a reason to reproach the author (as was already the case with her earlier works) for identifying the revolutionary strike with a revolutionary upsurge or revolution. the crisis. It is true that the content of this work does not give grounds for such reproaches, but nevertheless it is important that a special study on the forms of strike struggle and terminological issues be resolved with the necessary accuracy. It would also be desirable to explain more fully, as is done in this book, how such concepts as "general", "national", "national-wide", and "mass political" strikes differ from each other, and in what relation they stand to a mass revolutionary strike.

Certain questions are outlined in the book schematically (this applies primarily to the relationship between a mass revolutionary strike and other forms of strikes, such as a revolutionary strike and a revolutionary crisis); they are only outlined and still require special elaboration.

In general, the monograph recreates a vivid picture of the revolutionary working-class movement and shows the democratic proletarian character of the revolution unfolding in Russia. This is all the more important because modern bourgeois literature puts forward concepts ("stabilization" and "modernization") that are aimed at belittling the significance of the proletariat's struggle against tsarism in the pre-war years, at proving that if the First World War had not taken place, Russia would have been able to take advantage of the "reformist opportunities" available to it, and at reducing the importance of the proletariat's struggle against tsardom. having escaped the revolution, develop in line with bourgeois democracy. The specific material given in the book on the mass revolutionary strike of 1912-1914, which roused millions of proletarians and working masses of Russia against capital and the tsarist monarchy, reveals the groundlessness of attempts to "revise" the history of our country in this way.

The author's conclusions concerning the international significance of the mass revolutionary strike are quite significant. The modern capitalist world is being shaken by class battles. General, national, political, and economic strikes (which have many features in common with the revolutionary strike in Russia) are widely used by the working class and the working people of various countries in their struggle for peace, democracy, and socialism. In this regard, N. A. Ivanova's address to the study of Lenin's doctrine of a mass revolutionary strike is of actual importance.

5 See V. I. Lenin, PSS. vol. 48, pp. 109-110; " Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. Biographical chronicle", vol. 3, Moscow, 1972, p. 48.

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