Study of Bolshevism

A massive effort to determine the objectives and techniques of Soviet communism by intensive examination of all the works of Lenin and Stalin.'In this book I shall attempt to portray the spirit of the Bolshevik elite-the elite which in 1903 had a dominant influence on a few hundred members of the Russian Social-Democratic Workers' Party, and today influences several hundred million people in Europe, Asia and elsewhere.In doing so, I have a two-fold objective: to contribute to our knowledge of the varieties of man; and to enhance the skill of Western policy-makers in dealing with the Politburos of the Soviet and other Communist parties. There are various ways to study the spirit of a ruling group. Here I have chosen just one: the analysis of its doctrine. It is conceivable that future researches will show other procedures to be equally, or more, productive.I do not propose to analyze Bolshevik doctrine as fully as possible, but rather to take one aspect of it: what I call the operational code, that is, the conceptions of political 'strategy.' Future research may deal in a comparable manner with other aspects of Bolshevik ideology. We cannot now prejudge the relation, and relevance, of the results to be obtained by such different foci of study.' - Author's introduction