Workers Against Lenin: Labour Protest and the Bolshevik Dictatorship (International Library of Historical Studies)

This work challenges the view, widely held among historians of the Bolshevik revolution, that the upsurge of labour unrest of 1920-22 was the result of the appalling living conditions caused by the Civil War, had little significant content and was largely a sideshow to the huge conflict between the Bolsheviks and the peasants.Based on a wide reading of the contemporary Soviet press, archive sources and first-hand accounts by Bolsheviks and non-Bolsheviks, this work shows how rank and file opposition to the leadership in the Bolshevik-dominated trade unions grew, and how support for non-Bolshevik trade unions and political parties developed fast.