THE BOLSHEVIKS

Subtitled ""The Intellectual and Political History of the Triumph of Communism in Russia,"" this treatment focusses mainly on the intellectual and political biography of Lenin and operates on the thesis that ""by the time Lenin died the character of the Soviet state was determined."" Thus the author mainly restricts his investigation to the ""events and personalities of 1900 to 1924."" Within these quite severe limitations there are numerous advantages to be found; for instance, space and opportunity for a more thorough study of purely Russian antecedents to Bolshevik ideology and tactics than has yet appeared elsewhere, at least in a form suitable to nonspecialist comprehension. With clarity and many original insights, this author has traced out the intricate linkages extending from the Decembrists, through men as wildly different as Bakunin, Herzen, and Tkachev, to the sudden realization of a movement which, in scarcely more than a generation, has come to rule a full third of the world and to aspire to the control of the whole of it.