The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism

In 1920, Bertrand Russell traveled to Soviet Russia as a sympathetic observer of the greatest social experiment of the age. What he found shattered his illusions. This book is the record of that destruction: a philosophical heavyweight's meticulous, horrified accounting of the gap between Bolshevik theory and Bolshevik practice. Russell admired the courage and conviction of those who made the revolution; he was appalled by what they became in maintaining it. He witnessed the suppression of dissent, the replacement of one tyranny with another, the hardening of revolutionary hope into bureaucratic cruelty. Yet this is not the screed of an enemy. Russell understood exactly what the Bolsheviks were trying to do, and why they failed. His critique cuts so deep because it comes from someone who wanted them to succeed. More than a historical document, this is a timeless meditation on the corruption of idealism, the seductions of dogmatism, and the tragedy that follows when decent people convince themselves that monstrous means serve noble ends. Essential reading for anyone who wants to understand how revolutions eat their children.