The Evolution of Communism

Adam Westoby has written an historical and critical account of world communism that traces its development from an obscure origin in the Bolshevik journal Iskra ("The Spark") to the most recent events in Russia, China, Poland and Latin America. Organized thermatically, the book discusses the formative phases of Lenin's Bolshevik Party and of subsequent communist parties; communism's spread, and its differing routes to power; the bases of independence of various communist parties and the deep divisions which have fractured world communism; the evolution of communist ideas and theories, the social and political character of communist states, and communist crisis and efforts at self-renewal.