BOOK LAUNCH - Lenin's Comintern Revisited

Please join us for the launch of the soft-cover version of John Riddell's Lenin's Comintern Revisited (Haymarket Books), and discuss lessons from the period of the Communist International for today's movements and struggles. 

The Communist International (or ‘Comintern’) was launched in 1919 to promote worldwide extension of the 1917 workers’ and peasants’ revolution in Russia. During the Comintern’s first years under the leadership of V.I. Lenin, it proposed and tested strategic and tactical concepts that retain their value and continue to be studied. While the Communist International was soon to be deformed and destroyed by the rise of bureaucracy and authoritarianism associated with Stalinism, its perspective on the fight for international revolutionary change still presents a compelling vision, and is an inspiring example for millions throughout the world.

Lenin's Comintern Revisited is the latest volume in the Comintern publishing project and another monumental achievement for John, his co-editor Mike Taber, and all those involved in preserving this important part of revolutionary history. It represents the culmination of a decades-long project to make available the proceedings of the congresses of the Communist International (comintern) held during Lenin’s time.

When: November 21 - Doors open: 1:30pmEST, Event start: 2:00pmEST

Where: College Street United Church, 454 College Street, Toronto  (map)  + Online

How: Please register via the event page 

Cost: Free/by donation (to make a donation, select "Free Admission" and type an optional donation amount during check-out). 

Please stick around after the event for a reception, book signing, and complimentary refreshments! We are pleased to have our friends from Another Story Bookshop join us with copies of the book and other great titles for purchase.

This event is being co-organized by Spring Magazine and the Socialist Project, with assistance from the Leo Panitch School for Socialist Education. To endorse, please email secretary@socialistproject.ca.

SPEAKERS

John Riddell is an essayist, historian, editor, translator, and lifelong activist. He is the editor of The Communist International in Lenin’s Time, a multi-volume series of books of Communist International documents, many of which translated into English for the first time.

Mike Taber has edited and prepared a number of books related to the history of revolutionary and working-class movements—from collections of documents of the Communist International under Lenin to works by James P. Cannon, Leon Trotsky, Malcolm X, Che Guevara, Fidel Castro, Maurice Bishop, and Nelson Mandela.

Kay Mann is a sociologist and historian. She has taught at Miami University in Ohio and the University of Wisconsin and is a member of the US socialist organization Solidarity, and the editorial committee of Inprecor/International Viewpoint.

Bryan Palmer, a historian of labour and the left, has written a number of books including James P. Cannon and the Emergence of Trotskyism in the United States, 1928-38 (Chicago: Haymarket, 2022), and the recently published three-volume history of capitalism and colonialism in Canada, 1500 to the present (2024-26), which he also taught a class on at the Leo Panitch School during the Summer of 2026. He has a forthcoming book, to appear with Verso in 2027, tentatively titled Writing Dangerously: Mike Davis and the Prose of Protest.

Vijay Prashad is a historian and journalist who is the director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, an inter-movement research institute of the Global South associated with the International Peoples Assembly. He is the author of over forty books, most recently (with Grieve Chelwa) How the International Monetary Fund Suffocates Africa (2026) and the two award winning histories The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World (2007) and The Poorer Nations: A Possible History of the Global South (2013).

Sarah Nafisa Shahid is a Bangladeshi community organizer and writer based in Toronto. She has been active in the workers' movement and was the coordinator of the Decent Work & Health Network, an organization of health workers advocating for better employment laws in Ontario. During the July Uprising in Bangladesh, Sarah organized solidarity efforts amongst the diaspora in Toronto and was active in producing written analysis about the movement. Her works have appeared in Jamhoor, The Daily Star, Hyperallergic and other publications. She is currently pursuing a masters in Anthropology at the University of Toronto where she is looking at the social movement infrastructure of Bangladesh's July Uprising. She is a regular contributor to Spring Magazine and a member of CUPE 3902.

MODERATORS

James Clark (Spring)

Julia Barnett (Socialist Project)

Accessibility

College Street United Church is located at College and Bathurst in Toronto. The building is wheelchair accessible and features multiple accessible, gender neutral washrooms. We kindly ask all attendees to refrain from wearing scented products. 

Any questions or requests regarding accessibility, participation, or programming can be directed to  info@leopanitchschool.ca.