Communism: A History (Modern Library Chronicles) [Paperback]

Richard Pipes (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 5, 2003 | ISBN-10: 0812968646 | ISBN-13: 978-0812968644

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.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

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 --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

This opinionated introduction to communism would be better subtitled "requiem for a misguided ideology." Pipes (The Russian Revolution) focuses much of the book on his own field of specialty the rise and fall of the Soviet Union. The Harvard historian is at his best here, providing a thorough account of the ascendancy of the Russian party in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in accessible and at times eloquent prose: "Soviet totalitarianism thus grew out of Marxist seeds planted on the soil of tsarist patrimonialism." Part of the Modern Library's series on world history, the book details Soviet atrocities, emphasizing how Communist agricultural policies not only suppressed human rights but led to famines that killed millions of Soviet citizens. The sections on communism in other countries are much shorter and not as strong, particularly the discussion of Chile, in which Pipes fails to address the involvement of the United States in the 1973 coup that overthrew Socialist leader Salvador Allende. Throughout this volume, Pipes, a longtime Cold Warrior who served as Reagan's National Security Council adviser on Soviet and East European affairs, is on a mission to prove that communism's egalitarian impulses run contrary to human nature. Whether or not they agree with Pipes's views, students and general readers alike will benefit from this concise, insightful work. (Sept.)Forecast: The book is certain to be widely taught in its field and will be promoted in a brochure mailing to historians but a three-city author tour and series advertising in the New York Times Book Review, the Chronicle of Higher Education and Lingua Franca should help the book find a more general though learned readership as well.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: Modern Library (August 5, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0812968646
• ISBN-13: 978-0812968644
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.4 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (82 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #206,216 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Simply excellent, June 17, 2007

By 

Anthony Bates "Tony & Julia" (Wellington, New Zealand) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Communism: A History (Modern Library Chronicles) (Hardcover)

I first read this fantastic little book back in 2003 and it never left my side throughout 4 years of university. That's my way of putting a disclaimer in that my review may be a little biased.

Over 161 pages Pipes charts the rise and fall of Communism from the very first intellectual musings by Plato and Aristole all the way through to John Locke and of course Karl Marx and Lennin. Pipes argues coherently and articulately coming to the conclusion that Communism failed not because of timing, or location, or implementation, but because the ideology of communism is fundamentally flawed. It wouldn't have mattered one jot if the time, place or manner of implementation changed (as the Neo-Marxist argue) because the ideology was so fundamentally anti-human that it would never have worked.

If you are interested in finding out how such a fundamentally flawed ideology could control the actions and reactions of the hundreds of millions of people and dictate the formation of the geo-political situation for 73 odd years then read this book - you won't regret it and it is quite simply a page turner that I found impossible to put down.

26 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An amazing introduction to an important subject, January 11, 2002

By 

Brian Considine (Mine Hill Dover, New Jersey USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Communism: A History (Modern Library Chronicles) (Hardcover)

Communism was an amazing development in world history. A system of ideas took control of intellectuals and revolutionaries across the world, but in unindustrialized nations communism was able to achieve power and wrecked horrible suffering on those unlucky enough to be born within its grasp.

Richard Pipes does an excellent service by providing the reader with a concise history of Communism. Call it a 'Cliff Notes' if you will, yet it is brief and easy to follow.

Pipes spilts his book into three sections. The first details the history of communism from Marx to its rise and domination in Russie. The second is the reaction to communism and its influence on intellectual life in other industrialized nations. Finally Pipes explores communisms influence in the third world with an excellent examination of China and how Mao's style of communism contrasted with the USSR (which was caught between hoping to encourage communism abroad but unwilling to see communists abroad who achieved power drift from control by Moscow...result tension and hostility between Russia, China etc.).

While Communism has died, it is important that we remember its errors for two reasons. The first is so we do not repeat them, obviously. The second is so that we know where the modern world came from as we start our way into a new century.

68 of 87 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Well-Deserved Obituary, September 13, 2001

By 

thewahlmighty (Hanoi) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Communism: A History (Modern Library Chronicles) (Hardcover)

In a succint 160 pages, Richard Pipes aptly lays down a history of Communism which is meant to serve both as an introduction to and an obituary for this "utopia" envisioned by Karl Marx and others.

The telling quotes and the refreshingly logical progression (from its starting point in the books of philosophers to the bloody ocean of victims it left behind) make this book arguably one of the best ever written on this grim subject. Although I cannot speak for everyone, the skill that Pipes displays while grounding his conclusions in the facts as well as his ability to pick the quotes that best exemplify each leader, make this the best that I personally have ever read on Communism--and thus my rating of five stars.

To be frank, if Communism does survive after this, the book will only prove its point--that Communism, in theory as well as in practice, has a reckless disregard for both the facts of reality and for human life.