The literature is enormous, and we do not intend to do more than list below a few general elementary discussions of Marxism, and a few of the more important works of the great men in the tradition. We have deliberately chosen, wherever possible, works in which the concrete discussion of actual revolutions is more important than pure theory.
M. M. Bober, _Karl Marx’s Interpretation of History_. Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1927.
Max Eastman, _Marx and Lenin: The Science of Revolution_. New York, 1927.
Sidney Hook, _Towards the Understanding of Karl Marx_. New York, 1933.
H. J. Laski, _Communism_. New York, 1927.
A. D. Lindsay, _Karl Marx’s Capital: an introductory essay_. New ed. Oxford, 1937.
V. Pareto, _Les systèmes socialistes_. Paris, 1902.
[E. Burns], _A Handbook of Marxism_. New York, 1935. This is one of the most useful of the various collections of bits of the writings of the great Marxists. It includes some of the most important work of Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Stalin.
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, _The Communist Manifesto_. Edited by D. Ryazanoff. London, 1930. The rich notes in this full-sized volume expand the brief original Manifesto into a critical commentary on Marxism.
Of Marx the following is a suggested beginning, neglecting entirely the ponderous _Capital: The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte_, _Revolution and Counter-Revolution, or Germany in 1848_, _Civil War in France_ (sometimes called the _Paris Commune_) and _The Poverty of Philosophy_.
Of Engels: _The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844_, _Landmarks of Scientific Socialism_ (Anti-Dühring).
Of Lenin: _Imperialism_, _The State and Revolution_. (Both of these are in a handy single volume issued by the Vanguard Press, New York, 1926.)
_IV. The Sociology of Revolutions_
The following section contains a selected list of modern books on revolutions in general. Such writing is necessarily very varied indeed. Some of the books listed below are careful studies by trained sociologists; some are the work of cranks with a variety of cutting tools to grind; some, directly in the Marxist tradition, seem to belong here rather than in the preceding section because of their direct preoccupation with the sociology of revolutions. We have been obliged to be fairly narrow in our interpretation of the subject. In a sense almost everything that appears nowadays on social and political problems might be catalogued as dealing at some point with the sociology of revolutions. To take a wide and somewhat random choice of well-known figures, most of the important work of men like Spengler, H. G. Wells, Ortega y Gasset, and A. J. Toynbee touches upon the question of revolutions and social change. But a bibliography as inclusive as this would be pointless or endless. We have, therefore, simply made a choice of general books on the specific subject of the comparative study of revolution.
Brooks Adams, _The Theory of Social Revolutions_. New York, 1913. One of the earliest predictions of the decline of the West. Should be read with Mr. George Soule’s book below.
Arthur Bauer, _Essai sur les révolutions_. Paris, 1908. Approaches the problem from the psychology of the individual and his activity in crowds. Has an interesting conceptual scheme of revolutions as a general phenomenon.
C. Delisle Burns, _The Principles of Revolution_. London, 1920. From the point of view of modern anti-intellectualism, an unrealistic study of “rationalizations.”
L. P. Edwards, _The Natural History of Revolutions_. Chicago, 1927. Unpretentious, suggestive, tentative. One of the best introductions to the subject available in English. Mr. Edwards does not pretend to do more than sketch the essential problems and indicate possible further work. Admirably free from special pleading.
T. Geiger, _Die Masse und ihre Aktion: Ein Beitrag zur Soziologie der Revolutionen_. Stuttgart, 1926. A psychological study, with a Marxist tinge. To a non-German, a bit in the clouds.
H. M. Hyndman, _The Evolution of Revolution_. London, 1927. By one of the pioneers of Marxist Socialism in England. Not very illuminating nowadays.
G. Lebon, _The Psychology of Revolution_. English translation. New York, 1913. Lebon’s reputation as a social psychologist has sunk considerably. This is the work of a frightened anti-intellectualist.
Arthur Liebert, _Vom Geist der Revolutionen_. Berlin, 1919. A brief discussion of the rational and emotional origins of revolution, and an analysis of the crisis period.
Leon de Poncius, _Les forces secrètes de la révolution_. Paris, 1929. A good example of the kind of writing which attributes modern revolutions to wicked conspirators--in this case Jews and freemasons. For those who do not read French, the works of Mrs. Nesta Webster may be recommended as an adequate sample of this approach. See especially her _Secret Societies and Subversive Movements_, London, 1924, and _The French Revolution: A Study in Democracy_. New York, 1920.
C. Malaparte, _Coup d’état, the Technique of Revolution_. English translation, New York, 1932. An annoyingly bright young Italian Fascist intellectual writes on _the only_ way to make a revolution. As narrow and, in a perverted sense, idealistic as any Marxist writing.
E. D. Martin, _Farewell to Revolution_. New York, 1935. A very able and sensible writer on political and social problems has here allowed his fears to lead him into writing a bad book. Mr. Martin, as his choice of title indicates, is writing a book _against_ revolutions of all sorts. Hastily assembled from inadequate materials. Stands up badly in comparison with L. P. Edwards’s book above.
R. W. Postgate, _How to Make a Revolution_. New York, 1934. An English Leftist, formerly a Communist and now apparently just Labour, writes rather wistfully about the possibilities of a decent, respectable revolution in Western countries. A good deal of useful discussion of the techniques of modern revolutionary parties of the Left, with touches of very English humor.
_Revolution from 1789 to 1906._ London, 1920. Mr. Postgate has here made a handy collection of constitutions, bills of rights, manifestoes and similar documents touching the important revolutionary movements of the period.
S. A. Reeves, _The Natural Laws of Social Convulsions_. New York, 1933. A most ambitious attempt to apply the methods of the physical sciences to the subject. Mr. Reeves is not skeptical enough to be a scientist. He emerges with forty-five “natural” or “cosmic” laws, of which Law XLV is a not unfair example: “Man would rather Die, even in Prolonged Agony, than to Think.” The work of a doctrinaire person on the edge of the lunatic fringe, and much influenced by the position of men like Herbert Spencer, it has none the less a good deal of useful material.
E. Rosenstock-Hüssy, _Die europäische Revolutionen_. Jena, 1931. Written in what to an American seems the German cloud-cuckoo-land of beautiful and inexact ideas, choosing convenient and rejecting inconvenient facts, something in the tradition of Spengler, but with the kindly hopes of a man of good will. Full of interesting suggestions and flashes of insight, poetic to a prosaic nature. An English version by the author is promised.
S. D. Schmalhausen, Editor, _Recovery through Revolution_. New York, 1933. Chapters contributed by Louis Fischer, Harold Laski, Carleton Beals, Robert Briffault, G. Salvemini, and others. Rapid narrative accounts of the principal fields of revolutionary activity since the war, Germany, Russia, China, South America, Italy, and Spain.
H. See, _Evolution et révolutions_. Paris, 1929. A somewhat pedestrian examination of the English, French, and American revolutions, those of the nineteenth century and the Russian revolution. Excellent brief bibliographies for the revolutions discussed.
P. A. Sorokin, _Social and Cultural Dynamics_. Vol. III, _Fluctuations of Social Relationships, War and Revolutions_. New York, 1937. Mr. Sorokin’s general position is an emotional dislike for the contemporary world, which is, he thinks, about to undergo a worse series of wars and revolutions than any the human race has yet had to put up with. This Volume III has a most imposing set of statistics to show that revolutions have been more or less endemic in Western civilization. Some such conclusion might have been made safely without all these statistics, which in detail are not altogether reliable. They tend to exaggerate the amount of violence and bloodshed since 1900.
G. Soule, _The Coming American Revolution_. New York, 1934. A thoughtful, temperate book written by one of the more temperate of American “liberals.” The book deals much more widely with the general subject of revolutions than its title would indicate.
INDEX
Abbott, Professor W. C., 29
Abortive revolution, 33, 34
Adams, John, 156
Adams, Sam, 53, 59, 104, 116, 124, 135, 297
_Agreement of the People, The_, 198
Albemarle, 250, 261
All-Russian Central Executive Committee, 207
All-Russian Congress of Soviets, 207
American Civil War, 33
American Revolution, 34, 50, 84, 88, 100, 106, 155, 165, 195, 216, 229