Ballot, the Streets—or Both

The Ballot, the Streets—or Both? focuses on V.I. Lenin's approach to electoral politics and the institutions of bourgeois democracy, drawing on Bolshevik debates and Marx and Engels's own writing to show this to be a central feature of their revolutionary strategy.In Lenin's electoral strategy, Nimtz uncovers an important attempt to chart a course between plain opportunism and anarchist rejections of the electoral arena. Instead, he shows, electoral campaigns can be seen as crucial for developing political education and organization and as a key way to measure left forces and communicate with the wider population. As left-wing reformist projects, including the Bernie Sanders campaign in the United States and Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party in the United Kingdom, reassert themselves as a political force, Nimtz's examination of historical debates about electoral politics, the capitalist state, and marxist strategy proves timely and instructive.