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Preface (i960 Edition) It would naturally be impossible in one volume of documentary materials to cover a subject as broad and complex as Communism from every point of view. The careful description of political institutions, events and everyday life as they have proceeded over the years under Communism would require whole shelves of source materials. The present work has been deliberately focused on the subject of Communist thought and doctrine, for reason of its commanding importance, its relative uniformity within the Communist scheme of things, and the appropriateness of the documentary approach to its elucidation. We will be primarily concerned with the evolution of top-level guiding ideas, policies and intentions among the Communists. Statements of deviators of all sorts are included along with the official line of those in power—we may regard anyone who claims descent from Lenin as equally meriting the label "Communist." Through the pronouncements of its leading figures, both those who have ruled and those who have fallen from grace, we may arrive at a reasonably approximate picture of what Communism actually is, historically considered. The problems of selecting materials for a purpose such as this never permit a fully satisfactory solution. I have attempted a fair digest and representative choice of statements expressing all the main concepts and currents in Communism. Many readers, however, will find that their areas of interest are underrepresented. This failing is the price that must be paid in an effort to survey the entire Communist movement in one documentary volume, and meet the needs of the student, the general reader, and the scholar who is not a specialist in this field. The present work would never have materialized without the assistance of many people who helped in its preparation or who paved the way with their own studies. I am indebted to the many publishers who kindly permitted me to reprint selections of previously translated material (individually acknowledged under each item). Certain documentary collections which have been particularly helpful deserve special mention—the pioneering Documentary History of Chinese Communism, by Conrad Brandt, Benjamin Schwartz and John K. Fairbank (Harvard University Press, 1952); the Materialsfor the Study ofthe Soviet System, by James H. Meisel and Edward S. Kozera (The George Wahr Publishing Co., Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1950), which brings together a wide selection of previously translated Soviet documents ; the documentary compilations prepared by the Legislative Reference Service of the Library of Congress; the various collections of Soviet documents published by the Stanford University Press; and the English editions of the selected works of Lenin and Stalin, published by the Foreign Languages Publishing House in Moscow. The Harvard University Library has kindly permitted me to include my translations from a number of hitherto unpublished documents in the Trotsky Archive . For their suggestions regarding documents on Far Eastern Communism I am xiv Preface (i960 Edition) indebted to Professors Justus M. van der Kroef and George T. Little, and to Professor Little and Professor Lewis S. Feuer I am grateful for many helpful criticisms. To Mr. Nathan Glazer I wish to express my appreciation for initially encouraging me to undertake this project, and for his editorial assistance since that time. Mrs. Joyce McLaughlin of the Inter-Library Loan Department of the University of Vermont Library rendered me invaluable service in locating and obtaining many scarce but important publications. The vast work of transcribing and assembling the documentary materials was ably done by Mrs. Madeline Chaplin, Mrs. Jean Falls, Mrs. Phyllis Reservitz, Mrs. Roberta Stetson, and my wife, Alice Daniels. ...

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