ABSTRACT

Millenarian Bolshevism had its origins in a debate between positivist and idealist Marxists at the turn of the 20th Century. This book, originally published in 1987, charts the development of Millenarian Bolshevism by studying the careers of Bogdanov and Lunacharsky and analyzing their relations with Lenin, Gorky and other left Bolsheviks. In discussing their relationship with Lenin, the author maintains that the millenarian Bolsheviks gave expression to the voluntarist, idealist spirit which was inherent in the program and organization of Bolshevism and which provided the philosophy of Soviet socialist idealism.