LEFT BOLSHEVISM

A Review of Red Hamlet: The Life and Ideas of Alexander Bogdanov by James D. White

Paul Le Blanc

Department of History, La Roche University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

paul.leblanc@laroche.edu

James D. White, (2019) Red Hamlet: The Life and Ideas of Alexander Bogdanov, Historical Materialism Book Series, Chicago: Haymarket Books.

Abstract

Alexander Bogdanov is a central figure in the history of Russian Marxism, co-equal with Lenin in the early formation of Bolshevism. His life’s work embraced medicine, natural science, mathematics, political economy, sociology, philosophy, education, political theory and more. The Bogdanov/Lenin split involved the crystallisation of a distinctive variant of Marxism that up until now has not been widely available. James D. White’s very substantial biography Red Hamlet: The Life and Ideas of Alexander Bogdanov is part of a collective project retrieving and making available contributions of an extremely important revolutionary thinker. The present critical appreciation of White’s study, and critical overview of Bogdanov’s ideas and life, is meant to advance an expanding exploration of Bogdanov’s insights and approaches that may enhance our understanding of the past, present and future.

Keywords

Bogdanov – Marxism – Communism – Lenin – Bolsheviks

LONG READ Learning from Bogdanov | Historical Materialism