Terrorism and Communism: A Contribution to the Natural, History of Revolution (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from Terrorism and Communism: A Contribution to the Natural, History of RevolutionThe course of recent events did not minister to the uniformity of this work. It was rendered more difficult by the fact that, as time went on, the examination of this subject shifted itself to some extent. My starting point represented the central problem of modern Socialism, the attitude of Social Democracy to B'olshevik methods. But since Bolshevism had, ofits own accord, referred to the Paris Commune of 1871 as being to some extent its precursor and its prototype, and as having received the sanction of Marx himself, and since the Commune is little known and understood by the present generation, I undertook to draw a parallel between the Commune and the Soviet Republic.In order to make the Commune comprehensible I had to refer to the Paris Commune, and afterwards to the French Revolution and its Reign of Terror. This gave me fresh means for another parallel to the Soviet Republic; hence an examination of the Commune led to an examination of Terrorism, its origin and its consequences.Thus there are two lines of thought which become merged in this book, the one occasionally leading away from the other. At first I felt this to be rather disturb ing, and even considered whether it would not be better to divide the work into two separate sections, the one representing the exposition of the Commune, the other a discussion of Terrorism. However, in regard to my starting point, the Soviet Republic is in such very close connection with these two events in history, that it seemed to me impossible to treat them separately. I hope therefore that, in spite of the difficulties inherent in the dual nature of this book, I shall have succeeded in preserving uniformity in the structure of the thoughts contained therein.However academic the reader may think many of my illustrations and expositions, they are all of the highest practical importance, especially at such a wildly fermented time as the present. This does not mean to say that I have adapted, as it were, the truth to the needs of the moment. Instead I have always sought, even in those sections where I was referring to a period long past, to treat only of that side of the subject which seemed calculated to throw light upon the chaos that surrounds us.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.