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Communism: A History (Modern Library Chronicles)
Product Type: Book
Product Price: $13.95
Manufacturer: Modern Library
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Description
With astonishing authority and clarity, Richard Pipes has fused a lifetime’s scholarship into a single focused history of Communism, from its hopeful birth as a theory to its miserable death as a practice. At its heart, the book is a history of the Soviet Union, the most comprehensive reorganization of human society ever attempted by a nation-state. This is the story of how the agitation of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, two mid-nineteenth-century European thinkers and writers, led to a great and terrible world religion that brought down a mighty empire, consumed the world in conflict, and left in its wake a devastation whose full costs can only now be tabulated.
As Harvard University professor Richard Pipes shows in Communism: A Brief History, the tragedy of Communism is that its history was anything but brief. For most of the 20th century, it held much of the globe in its fatal grip: The utopian ideology is responsible for nearly 100 million deaths, which is 50 percent more than the number of people killed in the two world wars combined. "Communism was not a good idea that went wrong; it was a bad idea," writes Pipes, who is also the author of The Russian Revolution and Property and Freedom.
This compelling little book is a devastating critique of Marxism, Leninism, Stalinism, and everything else that fits under the awful rubric of Communism. It begins by tracing Communism's philosophical origins (it has antecedents in Plato) and then outlines the writings of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Next comes the story of why Communism took root in Russia and not the industrial West, where Marx himself believed it would sprout (answer: the traditions of property rights and the rule of law were too strong). Even in Russia, Communism was not the product of popular demand (in fact, it has never been the product of popular demand anywhere). Instead, it was a top-down revolution imposed on the whole country by a small minority of elites, led by Lenin. The Communists claimed to represent workers, but few workers were actually a part of their movement. Thus, "the Communists had to rule despotically and violently; they could never afford to relax their authority." And they were capable of incredible cruelty: "The so-called purges of the 1930s were a terror campaign that in indiscriminate ferocity and number of victims had no parallel in world history." In 1937 and 1938, for instance, the Soviet rulers of Russia executed an average of 1,000 people per day; the tsarist regime they supplanted, which was often criticized as inhumane, executed less than 4,000 people for political crimes over an 85-year period.
Though Pipes appropriately spends much time discussing the Soviet Union, he also examines Communism's reception in the West and in developing countries. The book is a concise tour de force. As the cold war fades into history, it is critical not to forget the monstrous legacy of Communism, whose horrible record Pipes lays out on these pages. This is a magnificent book, a wonderful primer on a topic whose importance is difficult to overstate. --John Miller
Reviews
Rating: 5 / 5
Date: 2010-06-25
Summary: "Review from a Freedom-Loving American Capitalist"
Richard Pipes 'Communism: A History' is a sharp and to-the-point tour de force. Most freedom-loving, pro capitalist Americans will find there are many shocking parallels, intentionally or not, between what is being engineered now in our country (!) and the early Marxist socialist implementations - including that perpetrated by Leninism with his Bolshevik soviets (a 'soviet' is a council of workers and soldier deputies who exercised paralyzing control over the Duma).
Today we are witnessing - in kind if not form - the same anti-capitalist ambivalence despite the amazing history of success, wealth and freedom found only in the United States. The instincts and attitudes of today's Left Progressives are plainly Marxist - and shockingly they are in power. One struggles to name one single critical or large industry that hasn't been brow beaten, threatened, nationalized or intimidated by this administration and the left. Meanwhile the courts and universities have been packed with Socialists and the Supreme Court was even publicly brandished by the President during his address! Obama's "czar" lieutenants run the country, often for the benefit of the unions, effectively acting as cabinet members who haven't been vetted by congress or anyone else. And their 'powers' are increasing every day.
This short book is so well written and to-the-point that I will be recommending it to a broad audience. Richard Pipes makes one large mistake in predicting that these notions were so destructive and devastating in practice that they would not likely be seriously tried again. I guess he was SLIGHTLY WRONG there, but I would have predicted the same thing in the face of such horrendous historical consequences. In fairness, he wrote the book in 2001 prior to the arrival of Captain Hope and Change.
Rating: 4 / 5
Date: 2010-01-22
Summary: "Communism stinks"
That's the message that comes through loud and clear in Richard Pipes' concise little history, "Communism," a lightning survey of the history of communism, from the Bolsheviks to Pol Pot. The very first sentence informs us that this book is "an introduction to Communism and, at the same time, its obituary."
Whoa, I say, not so fast. There are something like a gazillion Chinese who haven't heard the good news. They're still running around thinking they're communists! And let's not forget Cuba, where not even Castro has died yet, let alone communism. And North Vietnam, which noone cares to remember at all. Besides, didn't Rambo singlehandedly win that one? Hugo Chavez--there's him, too. Oh, and Russia itself, where communism died first and most spectacularly, but seems to be ressurecting itself, like Nosferatu, in the creepy form of Putin. And I'm sure I'm forgetting some other examples of communism scattered about here and there.
Pipes would argue that nowhere, not even in China, does true communism exist, pure and true, as professed by Karl Marx, or even the variation preached by Lenin, or the even loonier version taught by Mao. But by the same token, pure capitalism doesn't exist either, not even here in the USA, an oligarchy of elite special interests, where the government seems to be grabbing control of yet another part of our economic lives every day.
Still, this one-sided, hostile critique of communism points out what happens when a few idealogues decide what's best for the rest of us. Communism is a big lie, because it depends on human beings acting in ways that human beings have never acted, and never will act: that is, in a spirit of communal brotherhood.
Communism stinks because people stink. There will always be an elite that floats to the top of the cess pool; it doesnt matter what sort of government is in place. Yes, our system stinks, too. Its beyond reform. But at least it hasnt forced millions into gulags or condemned them to starve to death in contrived famines. Well, not yet anyway.
But this isnt about my political philosophy, which can be summed up in three words, "leave me alone." It's about Richard Pipes' book, "Communism," which makes no pretence about its purpose: to expose the atrocities perpetrated by totalitarian leaders in the name of a utopian ideal called communism for what they really were: the extermination of all those who would oppose their merciless and unquenchable lust for power.
There really isnt a proper end to this review. If you're a communist, you're going to hate this book, because it's going to rub your nose in all the horrible things your heroes have done for the "good of the people." If you hate communism, communists, socialism, liberals, left-wing revolutionaries, and the like, then this book will give you the ammo you need to cow your commy friends into dialectical submission.
As a scholar, as a historian, Pipes should probably have been a little more objective. As it is, his book reads like propaganda. It would be nice to have a companion volume that told the same story from the other side. But then it would be nice to have a lot of things which I dont have, so what's the point of even making such a statement?
Rating: 5 / 5
Date: 2009-09-30
Summary: "Excelent & short book"
Este libro presenta y excelente panorama de la aplicacion en la vida real del comunismo teorico Marxista.
Aclara muy bien sus origenes junto al anarquismo, pensamiento que estaba mucho mas cerca de la realidad del comportamiento y conducta humana que el marxismo, y por lo cual es expulsado del movimiento en la segunda internacional donde ya Lenin va preparando el camino para el estado totalitario, al que solo le quedaba por separar a los Manchevick.
Luego se señala muy bien la disputa con los socialista que abogaban por un concordato con el capitalismo por medio del cual gobiernos socialistas podrian funcionar parasitando de la produccion del modelo capitalista, para ello creando sindicatos de obreros, sistemas publicos de seguridad etc todos financiados por la produccion de los hombres de empresa pero donde los politicos demagogos cosecharian los votos del poder. Este sistema socialista de no destruir al capitalismo sino solo usufructuarlo se origina en la sociedad Fabian de Inglaterra y es la que hoy domina las llamadas "democracias sociales" de Europa y de Norte america.
En resumen, un excelente libro para aquellos que desean conocer la evolucion de una idea falsa, imposible y muy dañina para la humanidad como lo fueron los planteamientos de Marx & Engles y del manifiesto comunista.
Rating: 4 / 5
Date: 2009-08-14
Summary: "Pipes Succeeds!"
Richard Pipes' pithy book is a highly readable work of history that examines a very complex subject. It's informative and will give a reader an overview of Communist intellectual and political history. Of course, given the book's relative shortness (It's only 160 pages) it should not be taken as a definitive text on the subject. The book is designed for someone who may not have time to delve into the subject like Pipes' other book, The Russian Revolution (which is over 900 pages).
Pipes organizes the book into three different aspects of Communism: the ideal, program, and regime. These subjects are organized to show the gradual progression of Communism from a Platonic philosophical concept to Lenin leaving the Finland station. As other reviewers have noted, most of this book is taken up describing the rise of Lenin and the cruelties of Stalinism. Given that Pipes is an expert on Russian history, this naturally is the bulk of the text. But, again, this is mainly on Leninism and Stalinism; Trotsky and his followers are given very little time within the book. Other Communist figures are lumped into a chapter entitled: "The Third World" which covers some of Mao, but gives limited information on figures like Ho Chi Man, Pal Pot, Castro and others. Pipes main thesis, other than that Communism was a failure, is that Russian Communism (Bolshevikism) was the main instigator of Communist aggression and expansion throughout the twentieth century, and thus is given more time within the text. However you feel about this summery will largely affect your opinion of the book.
The only other aspect of this book that would cause someone to like or dislike it is the relative bias of the author. It's nearly impossible to be nuanced about Communism; let alone discussing Lenin, Stalin, Mao and the like. Much of the text focuses on the catastrophic loss of life under the various Communist regimes. Pipes wears his anti-communist credentials on his sleeves. This may bother some rather- personally; I'm not really bothered by any of the points that Pipes chooses to focus on. Not only where the Communists an overwhelmingly destructive force on their respective populations; Pipes shows that they did not even have the best intentions for what they were doing, for the most part men like Lenin and Stalin were mainly just concerned with the consolidation political power. Pipes doesn't give credence to the notion that communists were idealists gone astray. None of this practically bothered me, but I could see how this would cause some to dislike the book.
Overall, I really enjoyed the book and would recommend it. It's not perfect, but it does succeed with what it sets out to do. It's not perfect, but unless you have a political axe to grind, I think a reader will find this book a very use introduction to communist history and thought.
Rating: 4 / 5
Date: 2009-04-26
Summary: "Short and Informative"
I grew up as Communism was collapsing as a global force, so I have long been fascinated by the history behind this massive social experiment - but I didn't particularly want to wade through a hundreds-of-pages-thick tome on the subject.
This is where this book is ideal - a short, fascinating primer for anyone who wants to know what the roots of communism are.
From its origin as left-wing scientism for intellectuals, to its collapse under the curse of its own rigidity, the whole book is riveting - but I guess that isn't hard for a book barely over 160 pages in length.
The only complaint I have is the text's obvious capitalistic bias - capitalism is promoted as empirically based and self-correcting, and hence superior. While capitalism may have economic advantages, any of its flaws seem to be ignored. A more balanced appraisal would have made even a passing acknowledgement that all human systems, not just Communism, are imperfect.