LENIN'S FIRST BOOK

ILYIN (ILIN), VLADIMIR [i.e. VLADIMIR LENIN].

Ekonomicheskie etyudy i stati. [i.e. Economic Studies and Essays].

S.-Petersburg, 1899 [recte October 1898].

8vo. Bound in an excellent newer red half morocco in perfect contemporary style, with five raised bands and gilt author and year to spine. Marbled edges and beautiful marbled en-papers. Old owner's stamps to title-page ("Biblioteka Aleksandova, S. 1873 F.", "Iz knig Avrutina M.V.", and the number "21162"), otherwise also internally very nice and clean. (4), 290 pp.

Very rare first edition of Lenin's first published book, the seminal miscellany of his economic papers, which constitute the first outline of his revolutionary ideas. The work consists in five economic essays/studies, four of which are published here for the first time ("The Handicraft Census of 1894-95 in Perm Gubernia and General Problems of "Handicraft" Industry"; "Gems of Narodnik Project-Mongering"; "The Heritage We Renounce" - all three written in exile in 1897 - and "On the Question of Our Factory Statistics", written in 1898), and one of which ("A Characterisation of Economic Romanticism") had been published the previous year, in installments, in the magazine Novoye Slovo, April-July 1897. Before the present publication, only very few of Lenin's papers and articles had been published, and none of them in book form.

The present publication brings to light Lenin's elaboration of the tasks of the Russian Marxists (both as to their programme, their tactics, and the organization as such) ("The Heritage We Renounce") and gives us the basis for his take on Marxism. Much of the original material published here was used by Lenin, both directly (e.g. the "Handicraft Census") and indirectly (forming a basis for the work) in his later published book "The Development of Capitalim in Russia" (1899), which established his reputation as a Marxist theorist. Furthermore, the present publication constitutes Lenin's earliest economic writings directed against the Narodniks. As a whole, the present publication gives us the first rounded picture of Leninist thought and provides us with the basis for Leninist economics and politics.

That which Lenin develops in the present studies and essays forms the basis for the capitalist and Marxist thought that he is later to present and which becomes the standard introduction to the Russian economy for later generations of Marxists.

The work is of great scarcity and was presumably printed in very small numbers.

Order-nr.: 58184