Publisher's Synopsis
From the preface: "The outline of this magical and anomalous story that seems so far out of our time and psychology, may be gaged between two adjacent facts. On March 23, 1917, all the persons in all the world that had ever heard of Bolshevism as a doctrine may have numbered a thousand. On January 23, 1919, when the chief apostles of the new faith issued their call for the first international Bolshevic congress these were the groups that were summoned: 1. The Spartacus League of Germany. 2. The Communist (or Bolshevist) party of Russia. 3. The Communist party of German Austria. 4. The Communist party of Hungary. 5. The Communist party of Finland. 6. The Communist party of Poland. 7. The Communist party of Esthonia. 8. The Communist party of Lettonia. 9. The Communist party of Lithuania. 10. The Communist party of White Russia. 11. The Communist party of Ukrainia. 12. The Revolutionary Element among the Tchecko-Slovaks. 13. The Social Democratic party of Bulgaria. 14. The Social Democratic party of Roumania. 15. The Left Wing of the Social Democratic party of Serbia. 16. The Left Wing of the Social Democratic party of Sweden. 17. The Social Democratic party of Norway. 18. A Revolutionary group in Denmark. 19. The Communist party of Holland. 20. The Revolutionary element of the Labor party of Belgium. 21. The Revolutionary group in the Socialist party of France. 22. The Revolutionary element of the Syndicalists of France. 23. The Left Wing of the Social Democratic party of Switzerland. 24. The Socialist party of Italy. 25. The Left Wing of the Socialist party of Spain. 26. The Left Wing of the Socialist party of Portugal. 27. The Socialist party of Great Britain (Glasgow movement). 28. The Independent Social Revolutionary party of Great Britain. 29. The I. W. W. K. of England. 30. The I. W. W. of England. 31. The Revolutionary elements in Ireland. 32. The Revolutionary elements among the Shop Stewards of Great Britain. 33. The Socialist Labor party of the United States. 34. The Left Wing of the Socialist party of the United States, represented by Debs and the Socialist Propaganda League. 35. The I. W. W. of the United States. 36. The I. W. W. of Australia. 37. The American Workers' International Industrial Union of the United States. 38. The Socialist groups of Tokio and Samoa. 39. The Young People's International Socialist League. From what might be called a student's cell in the city of Cracow, Austria, to the utmost Orient and the islands of the South Seas, taking in much territory between, and all in these few months-wonderful is the flight, all must admit it to be so! The creed of one man become already the creed of millions and still going on to other millions and to others-it is plain as day that about the new faith is something powerfully appealing to the latent inclinations of a part of each community. It has something that formulates what many men feel or wish to feel or are willing to feel. He has struck a new chord somewhere, this Nicolai Lenine; he is entitled to the credit. Let him die even now and he will have an enduring place in history. He said something new and caused millions to believe it and thousands to be ready to die for it."
