Heaven on Earth: The Rise and Fall of Socialism [Hardcover]

Joshua Muravchik (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 25, 2002

Joshua Muravchik traces the fiery trajectory of socialism with sketches of dreamers and doers who developed the theory, led it to power and presided over its collapse.

Editorial Reviews

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Just a few generations ago, socialism was regarded as the wave of the future by millions of "enlightened" thinkers across the world; the promise of socialism motivated hard-line Marxists, Western-educated men of the Third World who fought for political independence, and Americans and Europeans repelled by the inequalities of capitalism. Now, of course, socialism is widely discredited; even former Communists in Eastern Europe proclaim allegiance to a market economy. This engrossing history of various socialist movements is told through portraits of the leaders who provided the intellectual and political support for those movements. With eloquence, skepticism, and even sympathy, Muravchik examines the careers of figures as varied as Friedrich Engels, Clement Atlee, and Julius Nyerere. Although each had a somewhat different interpretation of socialism, they all shared the fatal assumption that they could use the coercive power of the state to "improve" human nature. This is an important work and an object lesson showing great harm is frequently done by those with the purest motives. Jay Freeman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review

"In this sweeping and accessible survey, Muravchik places his focus on the personalities who determined the shifting fortunes of socialism."

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 391 pages
• Publisher: Encounter Books (April 25, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1893554457
• ISBN-13: 978-1893554450
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 6.1 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (49 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #989,829 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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120 of 123 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Socialism with a human face, June 7, 2002

By 

Craig Kennedy (Washington, DC USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Heaven on Earth: The Rise and Fall of Socialism (Hardcover)

Heaven on Earth is a captivating intellectual history of the first rank. When I first heard about this book, I imagined 450 dense pages devoted to socialism's political splits, rivalries and intellectual schisms over the past two centuries. Not a very inviting prospect. The reality is much different. Josh Muravchik tells the story of the socialist idea and of the socialist movement(s) through a series of fascinating vignettes and brief biographies. Starting with the French revolutionary Babeuf and taking the story through the fall of the Soviet Union (and the troubled current state of the Israeli kibbutz movement), Muravchik uses this format to highlight the central philosophical and political issues addressed by the key figures in a particular historical setting.

It is a very effective approach. The biographical portraits provide a very human dimension to his larger task of telling the story of socialism. By attaching political developments and ideas to the lives of real people, he also manages to create a real sense of drama in examining each historical period. Even though you know how the story will end, you become caught up in each personal narrative.

The entire book is first rate, but several chapters are especially notable. The first portrait of Babeuf and his contemporaries give you a historical footing in the development of socialism as an economic and political ideal that few of us have. A later chapter on Clement Atlee and the British Labor Party in the post-World War II era does a great job of describing how this patrician figure became the champion of democratic socialism. However, my favorite segment is the one on the American labor movement that features Samuel Gompers and George Meany. Muravchik uses this chapter to explore the failure of socialism as a movement in the United States and he does it with considerable skill.

One final aspect of the book is worth noting. Muravchik explains in the introduction that he was a third generation socialist who turned his political interests elsewhere in the 1970s. However, unlike many others who have migrated away from the Left, Muravchik is able to discuss socialism in a calm, analytical and, at times, understanding manner. This book is not a tirade against the evils of socialism, but rather a thoughtful explication of a flawed ideal and the failed and often dangerous political movements it spawned. Heaven on Earth is an intelligent and insightful book that is well worth reading by anyone who has an interest in modern politics and history.

203 of 222 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Review By Thomas Sowell, December 5, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Heaven on Earth: The Rise and Fall of Socialism (Hardcover)

Socialism is a wonderful idea. It is only as a reality that it has been disastrous. Among people of every race, color, and creed, all around the world, socialism has led to hunger in countries that used to have surplus food to export.

Its economic disasters have afflicted virtually every industry. In its Communist version, it killed far more innocent civilians in peacetime than Hitler killed in his death camps during World War II.

Nevertheless, for many of those who deal primarily in ideas, socialism remains an attractive idea -- in fact, seductive. Its every failure is explained away as due to the inadequacies of particular leaders.

Many of the intelligentsia remain convinced that if only there had been better leaders -- people like themselves, for example -- it would all have worked out fine, according to plan.

A remarkable new book makes the history of socialism come alive. Its title is "Heaven on Earth: The Rise and Fall of Socialism." Its author, Joshua Muravchik, is a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a leading think tank in Washington. It is hard to find a book on the history of socialism that is either readable or accurate, so it is especially remarkable to find one that is both. The story told in "Heaven on Earth" is so dramatic and compelling that the author finds no need to gild the lily with rhetoric or hype. It is a great read.

This history of socialism begins more than two centuries ago, at the time of the French Revolution, with the radical conspirator Babeuf, who wanted to carry the revolutionary ideas of the times even farther, to a communist society.

It ends with current British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who brought the Labour Party back to power by dropping the core of its socialist agenda and putting distance between himself and previous Labour Party governments, whose socialist policies had so backfired that the party lost four consecutive national elections.

In between, there are stories of small communal societies, such as that founded in the 19th century by Robert Owen, the man who coined the word "socialism," as well as stories of huge nations like China and the empire that was known as the Soviet Union.

In all these very different societies around the world, the story of socialism has been a story of high hopes and bitter disappointments. Attempts to redistribute wealth repeatedly led to the redistribution of poverty.

Attempts to free ordinary people from oppression repeatedly led to what Mikhail Gorbachev frankly called "servility" to new despots. How and why are spelled out with both facts and brilliant insights expressed in plain words.

Human nature has been at the heart of the failures of socialism to produce the results it sought, even when socialist leaders were idealists like Julius Nyerere in Tanzania or Pandit Nehru in India.

Nowhere have people been willing to work as well for the common good as they do for their own benefit. Perhaps in some other galaxy there are creatures who would, but the track record of socialism among human beings on earth shows that this is not the place.

Worst of all, the concentration of political power necessary to try to reduce economic inequalities has allowed tyrants like Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot to impose their notions and caprices on millions of others -- draining them economically or slaughtering them en masse or exploiting them sexually.

Mao Zedong, for example, had harems of young girls -- and occasionally boys -- for his pleasure in various parts of China.

There is no point blaming the tragedies of socialism on the flaws or corruption of particular leaders. Any system which allows some people to exercise unbridled power over other people is an open invitation to abuse, whether that system is called slavery or socialism or something else.

Socialism has long sought to create a heaven on earth but an even older philosophy pointed out that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Intriguing outline of the intellectual history of socialism, January 22, 2005

By 

E. Husman "ehusman" (Las Cruces, NM USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: Heaven On Earth: The Rise and Fall of Socialism (Paperback)

This book provides a one-stop history of socialist ideology from the French Revolution through the Blair government from the perspective of a self-described original red-diaper baby who has since rejected socialism. Although it is probably impossible to get an objective discussion of the intellectual history of socialism, this probably comes as close as anyone could get. If there were one flaw in the book, it would be the neglect of the Scandinavian experience with socialism, including its ultimate rejection by the voters in those countries (rejection? Yes. Ikea, Nokia, and Saab aren't state-owned, are they?)

I originally saw it in a bookstore and was especially surprised by the chapter on Mussolini. Apparently, Benito grew up in a socialist household, rose through the ranks of the socialist party, and broke from them in the aftermath of WWI. His father - a member of the International - named him after four different famous socialists, read Marxist texts at the dinner table every night. Young Benito was a rising star in the Italian Socialist party, edited their magazine, and eventually became a party leader. On the outbreak of WWI, Benito had the same reaction as his hero, Lenin: they both saw that the workers in various countries rejected Marx's internationalist philosophy and rushed to arms and exclaimed, "the international is dead". Benito, however, began to develop a new variation on Marxism: he believed that stronger countries oppressed weaker countries like Italy in the same way they believe that capitalists oppress workers. He believed that the entire country must rise up against the stronger nations in order to allow the workers to rise up as predicted by Marxist dogma. He also saw how camaraderie in the army was the epitome of the class solidarity they sought, and decided to pursue a strong state based on a strong, army-like command structure. You know: Fascism. Throughout his life, he continued to admire the work of Lenin and Stalin, and the feeling appears to have been mutual until he tossed in with Hitler.

The other chapters were also enlightening, but not as surprising. The failure of Owen utopianism is traced directly to Engels' appearance in his Church of Science. Engels and Marx are traced to their selected successor, Bernstein, and his observation that the Fabians' approach of reform was having the results that Marx claimed could only come about through revolution. This in turn led to a response by a young Russian named V.I. Lenin, bringing forth the theory of perpetual revolution, in which reform would be rejected and workers would be kept in a constant state of agitation. To see the outcome of that line of thought, I'd recommend the Black Book of Communism. There are also several chapters on the policies of Clements and the failure of the Socialist experiment in England, the experience of Socialism in Africa, and the fall of communism featuring Deng Xiaoping and Mikhail Gorbachev.

However, I found the chapters on the anti-socialist and anti-communist philosophies of Samuel Gompers and George Meany, and the epilogue describing the history of the kibbutzim in Israel to be the most fascinating. Despite leading the labor movement, Gompers and Meany were both strongly anti-communist and insisted that the goal of the labor movement was to negotiate for workers so that they could earn their way into the middle class. That stands in stark contrast to the union movement today, in which they are hardly distinguishable from the socialist parties. The kibbutz experience was similarly fascinating: it seems to have been successful so long as the survival of Israel hung in the balance, but has since fallen apart as younger people felt the desire for something more than working their lives away at subsistence level while giving away all privacy. They discovered that capitalism yields both individual economic results as well as moral bonuses like individual rights and privacy.