Comrades!: A History of World CommunismAlmost two decades after the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and the USSR, leading historian Robert Service examines the history of communism throughout the world. Comrades! moves from Marx and Lenin to Mao and Castro and beyond to trace communism from its beginnings to the present day. Offering vivid portraits of the protagonists and decisive events in communist history, Service looks not only at the high politics of communist regimes but also at the social conditions that led millions to support communism in so many countries. After outlining communism's origins with Marx and Engels and its first success with Lenin and the Russian Revolution in 1917, Service examines the Soviet bloc, long-lasting regimes like Yugoslavia and Cuba, the Chinese revolution, the spread of communism in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, and the international links among the hundreds of parties. He covers communism's organization and ideology as well as its general appeal. He looks at abortive communist revolutions and at the ineffectual parties in the United States and elsewhere. Service offers a human view of the story as well as a global analysis. His uncomfortable conclusion--and an important message for the twenty-first century--is that although communism in its original form is now dying or dead, the poverty and injustice that enabled its rise are still dangerously alive. Unsettling and compellingly written, Comrades! is the most comprehensive study of one of the most important movements of the modern world. |
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Why communism survived
for so long
Despite what Robert Service says in his GCSE coursework book masquerading as an academic study, the longevity of communism had nothing to do with Russian breastmilk. It was the failures of capitalism that kept it alive...
Review continued here: http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/reviewofbooks_article/3753/
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
ORIGINS TO 1917 | 11 |
COMMUNISM BEFORE MARXISM | 13 |
MARX AND ENGELS | 24 |
COMMUNISM IN EUROPE | 36 |
RUSSIAN VARIATIONS | 46 |
THE OCTOBER REVOLUTION | 58 |
THE FIRST COMMUNIST STATE | 70 |
WESTERN EUROPE | 261 |
WARRING PROPAGANDA | 272 |
THE CHINESE REVOLUTION | 283 |
ORGANISING COMMUNISM | 293 |
AGAINST AND FOR REFORM | 304 |
MUTATION 19571979 | 317 |
DETENTE AND EXPANSION | 319 |
CHINA CONVULSED | 331 |
EXPERIMENT 19171929 | 83 |
EUROPEAN REVOLUTIONS | 85 |
COMMUNISM AND ITS DISCONTENTS | 97 |
THE COMMUNIST INTERNATIONAL | 107 |
PROBING AMERICA | 119 |
MAKING SENSE OF COMMUNISM | 130 |
THE USSR IN TORMENT | 142 |
THE SOVIET MODEL | 153 |
DEVELOPMENT 19291947 | 165 |
WORLD STRATEGY | 167 |
STALINIST IDEOLOGY | 179 |
INSIDE THE PARTIES | 190 |
FRIENDS AND FOES | 202 |
COMMUNISM IN THE WORLD WAR | 213 |
FORCING THE PEACE | 224 |
REPRODUCTION 19471957 | 237 |
THE COLD WAR AND THE SOVIET BLOC | 239 |
THE YUGOSLAV ROAD | 251 |
REVOLUTIONARY CUBA | 342 |
COMMUNIST ORDER | 354 |
RETHINKING COMMUNISM | 366 |
EUROPE EAST AND WEST | 379 |
REDUCED EXPECTATIONS | 391 |
LAST OF THE COMMUNIST REVOLUTIONS | 401 |
ENDINGS FROM 1980 | 413 |
ROADS FROM COMMUNISM | 415 |
ANTICOMMUNISM IN EASTERN EUROPE | 426 |
CHINAS CAPITALIST COMMUNISM | 437 |
PERESTROIKA | 448 |
THE COMRADES DEPART | 459 |
ACCOUNTING FOR COMMUNISM | 473 |
Notes | 483 |
Select Bibliography | 522 |
| 551 | |
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Bibliographic information
| Title | Comrades!: A History of World Communism |
| Authors | ROBERT. SERVICE, Robert Service |
| Edition | illustrated |
| Publisher | Harvard University Press, 2007 |
| ISBN | 067402530X, 9780674025301 |
| Length | 571 pages |
| Subjects | › › History / Modern / 20th Century Political Science / Political Ideologies / Communism, Post-Communism & Socialism |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |