This book explores the development of Lenin's thinking on violence throughout his career, and provides an important assessment of the significance of ideological factors for understanding Soviet state violence as directed by the Bolshevik leadership during its first years in power.

James Ryan is a Government of Ireland Postdoctoral CARA Mobility Research Fellow in the Humanities and Social Sciences, based at the Department of History, University of Warwick, UK and School of History, University College Cork, Ireland.

Introduction: Ideology and Terror 1. 'Revolution is War': The Genesis of a Militant Marxism, 1894-1907 2. 'Violence to end all violence': Ideological Purity and the Great War, 1907-1917 3. 'History will never forgive us if we do not seize power now'. The Revolutionary Imperative, 1917 4. Confronting the 'Wolves in the Forest': October 1917-Summer 1918 5. The Red Terror 6. Civil War: The Strengthening of Dictatorship, 1919-21 7. War and Peace: From Civil War to NEP, 1919-1921 8. 'We will cleanse Russia for a long time': The Contradictions of NEP Conclusion: Lenin's Terror