The Conscience of the Revolution: Communist Opposition in Soviet Russia

Until Stalin changed it into his own image, the communist movement was not simple, homogeneous and monolithic, but complex dissentious, and changeable. This important work from the Russian Research Center of Harvard University is a history and study of the difference within the communist movement in Russia and of all the groups that opposed the movement's leaders - from the establishment of the Bolshevik Party by Lenin till the last real voices of opposition were stifled by Stalin in the purges of the late 1930's. With brilliant insight and a wealth of scholarship, Professor Daniels describes the battles between the Leninists and Leftists (including Trotsky) - the pragmatists and idealists of the Revolution - that reveal how communism developed in an unplanned way far from its initial aims and meaning, and demonstrates that the direction of Soviet political evolution was the complex product of many factors - historical circumstances, social and economic realities, ideals and ideology, and the quirks, drives and preferences of leading or contending personalities. The Conscience of the Revolution is an indispensable source for an understanding of the crucial early period in Soviet history and politics and the evolution of a totalitarian system.