A popular history of high quality, World Revolution 1917-1936, first published in 1937, was one of the few contemporary attempts to synthesize the experience of the revolutionary movement after World War I. It continues to hold up well more than half a century after publication, and attests to the depth and breadth that were to become a hallmark of C.L.R. James's work.
Indeed, James's analysis of the Soviet Union bears an amazing freshness in view of the events of the past few years. Many of James's short-term predictions have proved suprisingly accurate and, as Al Richardson says in his introduction to this new paperback edition, we can only await the confirmation (or otherwise) of James's grim prophecy: "If the Soviet Union goes down, then Socialism receives a blow which will cripple it for a generation."