Barbara C Allen – författare

This volume recounts the political formation and positions of Russian trade unionist and 'old Bolshevik' Alexander Shlyapnikov. Famous for his role in the Workers' Opposition, and his calls for trade unions to realize workers' mastery over the economy, this biography - the first in any language - offers a little seen 'on the shop floor' view of life within the Russian revolutionary movement.

When workers and peasants rose up across Russia and smashed the centuries old Tsarist autocracy their actions reverberated across the world, and continue to inspire activists to this day. This carefully assembled and expertly translated collection of documents from the Petrograd socialist movement in 1917 provides contemporary readers with a firsthand glimpse into the revolutionary ferment as it unfolds.In Leaflets of the Russian Revolution, Barbara Allen selects and introduces the pamphlets and other agitational material that give life to the debates, disagreements and perspectives that animated the masses during the revolution.

The Russian Workers' Opposition in 1919-21 advocated trade union management of the Soviet economy and worker dominance of the Russian Communist Party's leading bodies. The Workers' Opposition in the Russian Communist Party: Documents, 1919-30 comprises the most complete set of articles, speeches, theses, memoranda, protocols, resolutions, letters, diary entries, and other documents pertaining to the activity of the Workers' Opposition group during its existence. It also includes materials from the Opposition's individual former members after the group itself dissolved and until its key members ceased their participation in dissenting political activities by 1930.Most of the documents in this collection have never before been published in English and many have not been published in Russian. The material contained herein represents a major contribution to the documentary material of Soviet history.

These translations by Barbara C. Allen of Alexander Shlyapnikov’s memoirs of his childhood and youth and of his history of the 1905 Revolution in Russia illuminate how a working-class provincial youth from a religious dissenter family became a Marxist revolutionary. The book comprises a brief published autobiography, an unpublished memoir of Shlyapnikov’s childhood, a short fictional piece based on his early experience of factory work, a published historical survey of the 1905 Revolution in Russia, and three article-length published memoir-histories about his early activities in the revolutionary underground and his leadership of a revolutionary organisation in the town of Murom.