Webb, Sidney & Beatrice / Lenin, (Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov) (transl.). Teoriya i praktika anglijskago tréd-yunionizma (Industrial democracy).

€ 9.500,00

First Russian edition: Lenin's extremely scarce translation of an important work by the socialist couple Sidney and Beatrice Webb. A crucial work of the social sciences, this study of British trade unionism introduced the idea of industrial democracy and reflected on the organisation of trade unions and collective bargaining. Essentially a joint effort, Lenin prepared the translation with much assistance from his wife, Nadezhada Krupskaya, during his three-year exile in Siberia. In spite of their tenuous command of English, they did a "creditable job" (Ulam), consulting a dictionary as well as the German edition during the process, "though as Struve recalls venomously, he had to spend some time straightening out the stylistic and literary side of the translation" (ibid.).

Covers slightly rubbed. Interior very well preserved. With the pink errata slip to vol. 1 bound at the beginning of vol. 2. Not seen at auction since 1982. A single copy of both volumes traceable in the Bibliothek des Ruhrgebiets, Bochum, Germany. A copy of the second volume alone is held at the International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam. An excellent copy of an otherwise near-unobtainable publication.