The Communist Manifesto was among the most feared and banned books in the 20th century. After reading it, I wondered why. What could cause so much fear in less then a hundred pages? The book, though short, is a good read, and doesn't talk above the heads or down to it's readers. But it proves the absurity of communism and why it was destined to doom. Pitting the workers (the prolitares) against the upper class in a constant struggle for a piece of the pie, it dictates that the workers will forever be the stepping stones of the elite to gain, control, and retain wealth. Some of Marx and Engels theories make sense, and many labor unions of today adopt many of the manifestos beliefs, but the authors forgot to take one very serious downfall of the human race into account: that of greed. As most of the communist countries show the people that become powerful and retain the control of the communist parties become rich and often the exact people that they claim to hate, living it great wealth while the "workers" suffer. (though it is mostly a satire of socialism, check out Animal Farm, a perfect example). This short books is a good read, and I encourge everyone (especially those that fear communism taking over the world, yet knowing nothing about it) to read it, and seeing why their fears are unfounded, and why it wouldn't (and didn't) work.

Marx's "Communist Manifesto" is a response to human cost of Industrial Revolution. It was a time when Europe was coming of age, with the development of modern industry and the potential world market. This market had an immense development to commerce, to navigation and to industry. These improvements were enacted at a cost of society as a whole divided into two hostile camps -the bourgeoise and the proletariat. Marx immersed himself into the suffrage of the new urban proletariat at the hands of bourgeoise modern capitalist. His solution lay in the abolition of private property living in a society where all are equal.

I found this document an interesting read, as this short concise book simply explains the "theory" of one economic system. It should be noted the democracy prevalent at the time of this books introduction closely resembled an oligarchy, in which the rich and powerful ruled the weak. The impact of socialist ideology on this situation was great: labor movements were created, egalitarianism became a greater part of democracy ideology and the lower classes became more significant to the political system than they had ever been before.

The greatest weakness one can note of Marx's argument, is his failure to predict the significance of the middle class in the nations. Marx's view was that the middle class would either be absorbed into the working class or proprietors. The success of the middle class in present times accounts for the failure of Marx's theory.

The Communist Manifesto is a superior piece of political work. Karl Marx was able to put great information of his Workers theories into one small volume that is 20 times lighter than his work of "Das Kapital"; - having nevertheless great information and inspiration descibing the idea of Communism. This explains the motivations and stages of his idea of a Socialist government, written in a key time when the industry and modern Capitalism first started to develop, using each other to exploit the working class for capital. This book can be read by anyone, and includes a small glossary of important terms to help the reader understand what Marx and Engels are trying to explain. I recommend this book to anybody who considers themself a non-bigot and open-minded person. This is truly one of the greatest, if not the greatest pieces of political literature ever written.

Russia Under Western Eyes is actually a right-wing history of "European thought.". Malia is an Idealist, which is to say that like many professors he is convinced that the world turns on the opinions of professors. Specifically, he joins Peter Gay in what he calls "the party of humanity"--which actually means, "the party of grumpy old professors who are convinced the world falling apart when they stopped requiring ties in the Faculty Club."

Malia sees himself as a great healer, preparing Russia, like the dishonored daughter of a respectable family, for eventual readmission to Europe. Malia's hope for Russia is that, after fifty years of penance, Russia may at long last be allowed to "converge" with Central Europe, and after another 50 years, be fit to walk beside that most glorious corner of the globe, Western Europe. Russians themselves don't seem to have been consulted on the matter; in proper Victorian manner, Malia diagrams Russia's salvation without asking the mere natives for their opinion.

Most of us have had arguments like the one that occupies Malia: "Is Russia actually part of Europe?" But we've had them in the traditional context: in the dorms, after taking a first-year survey course titled something like "Modern Europe: Robespierre to Raskolnikov," or "Moliere to Madonna" or "...Nationalism, Rationalism and that Other One"--a course invariably taught by one embittered rightwing professor and twelve sullen underpaid TA's.

When you try to take this kind of argument seriously under any other circumstances (outside the dorms, past the age of 18), the question of Russia's inclusion in Europe tends to devolve into pointless arguments about the definition of "Europe." Either the term refers simply to that part of Eurasia west of the Urals--in which case we can settle the whole question with a simple road map--or "Europe" is forced to carry an insupportable load of normative baggage about "the essence of the European character." And such questions are better left unasked, because they lead either to massive bloody world wars or, even worse, to Dutch hippies bragging about how bravely they resist Fascism by pinstriping German tourists' BMWs when nobody's looking.

On those rare occasions when Malia actually discusses in detail the history of shifts in the perception of Russia by Europe, he makes some very interesting points, notably that Russia has often been most feared when it was least aggressive and powerful (as in the latter half of the nineteenth century), and most trusted when it was at its most expansionist (especially under Peter I and Catherine the Great).

But there's far too little detail on the history of Western images of Russia, and far too much of the old Daniel Mornet, Lester Crocker potted, tendentious intellectual histories, all focusing on Europe, not Russia. When you reach the end of this odd book, you wonder: Honestly, Professor-Emeritus Malia, what does Russia have to do with this faculty-club spat ? Russia, in your book, has been dragged, as so many times before, into a European war she could well have been spared.

Why I bought this book:

I was reading The Bathhouse at Midnight, which is about magic in Russia. Malia's book was cited lots. I didn't have it, and was starting to feel that "I'm missing something" sensation. So I went on a bookstore crawl and found Russia Under Western Eyes.

This is a good book.

I enter this rather tentatively. I don't usually comment on what I call "real books" even though I read them, feeling that I don't have the qualifications. Ye Olde BA doesn't seem to mean much, anymore.

On the other hand, if you are an educated person who generally flees at high speed from "intellectual history", read this.

Malia is not a socialist. He may or may not deconstruct in other books, for all I know he is a firm believer in what Kelly Neff refers to as literary donatism (which is all I believe deconstruction is in the end). In this book he writes as if you were meant to read it, which makes a nice change.

He chooses to bounce Western intellectual history off dreams of Russia. Is there anything new in it? No. His point is simple and (if you bothered to pay any attention to pre-Revolutionary Russia) glaringly obvious. On the other hand, we are so enamoured of the disaffected intelligent from the 1860's on that we ignore what they were painfully aware of - their ideas were adapted from the West. It irritated them, but there it was. The West has consistently shown a tendency to bounce its ideals and its nightmares off Russia; as a point for guidance in a sea of material, it's not a bad one.

Malia doesn't like what communism did to Russia. Neither do I. Anyone who stands up and says communism was a bad thing tends to get a "good boy!" from me. Good little socialists, beware: he handles hard and soft versions of the ideal briskly. The reviewer who wants to make him an embittered right-winger needs to do a re-think, and maybe a re-read without the blinkers; Malia mentions that Europe asked if Russia was part of it, he never questions it. Malia points up a pattern - Russia tends to hit similar points of politics and economics about 50 years after the West. OK, but this doesn't mean Russia is out of the modern world, and Malia says so. That, in fact, was part of the problem.

Ask the average Russian if he'd like to live like an American without having to be one. He'd probably say "Bring it on!" We're still letting the disaffected intelligentsia form our opinions - oh, suburbia, too boring, such ennui, oh, the deadening of our souls by wealth! Our souls are our personal responsibility, and poverty in my view is miserable, not enlightening. Sharing the wealth is a fine thing, provided that we remember that the point is to have no more poor, not reduce everyone to an identical level of penury.

Malia gets it right, the book is interesting if not new, and it remembers that the question the socialists never ask is, in your new society of fulfillment, who handles the garbage?

It is difficult to explain this book in the space of a few sentences, because the scope of its topic is breathtaking, and its depth considerable. This is not a book about Russia per se; rather, it is about the symbiosis of Russia and Europe over the last 300 years. For as Malia clearly demonstrates, Russia - in all her iterations - cannot be considered without taking into account the philosophical (and hence ideological and political) influences of Europe. Russia is Europe, and very much the product of evolving European movements spawned by the Enlightenment - such rationalism, romanticism, and socialism.

In this reader's analysis, a central theme in Russia Under Western Eyes is how efforts to rationalize human society culminated in the dark experiment launched in the Red October of 1917. Malia demonstrates how Lenin perverted Marx by making the proletariat subservient to the Party, and how sheer folly was maintained through a jettisoning of principles and reliance on 'the Method' through the successive stewardship of Stalin, Khruschev, Breshnev, and ending with Gorbachev.

My only complaint: while Malia is right in asserting that the planned economy of the USSR was decaying on its own from the end of World War II, Ronald Reagan's appearance on the world stage, and the effect his policy of confrontation had on bringing the Cold War to its omega point, deserves a more considered treatment. This is mitigated, however, by Malia's excellent treatment of the dissidents and their contribution to exposing the Soviet lie.

This is a tome of erudition, written by a scholar who has an amazing grasp of the 'big picture.' One will draw from it a good understanding of the philosophical development of Europe, the ideas that changed the face of the Continent, and their effect on Russia through the centuries.

Like the Marquis de Custine, Malia has peeked through the sometimes brocaded, sometimes iron curtains of Russia and recorded poignant observations for posterity. Unlike Custine, however, Malia has produced a balanced work that will be ranked as indispensable to an understanding of Russia and Europe.