Ebook: Revolutionaries: contemporary essays

London: Phoenix. 1994. 278 p. ISBN: 1 85799 129 X.Recent years have seen a remarkable growth of interest in revolution and social upheaval, Marxism and other ideologies of the left, and the movements inspired by them. As a Marxist of long standing Professor E. J. Hobsbawm, one of the most distinguished historians of our day, has been much involved in the discussion of these topics. In this volume he has collected a series of essays and lectures written over the last decade. The book covers a wide range of connected subjects: the history of communist parties, particularly those of Europe; anarchism, its history and recent revival; the history and present prospects of Marxist thought; guerrilla war and the role of the military in the modern world; and some problems of insurrection, violence and revolution. In his final chapter Professor Hobsbawm examines the role of the intellectual in the class struggle, and the forces and ideals which go to make a revolutionary. In a discussion which is both dispassionate and autobiographical, he draws together many of the themes in preceding chapters, and sets out with force and clarity the great dilemmas which continue to face the communist intellectual in today's world.Table of contents.
Preface.
Communists.
Problems of Communist History.
Radicalism and Revolution in Britain.
French Communism.
Intellectuals and Communism.
The Dark Years of Italian Communism.
Confronting Defeat: The German Communist Party.
Anarchists.
Bolshevism and the Anarchists.
The Spanish Background.
Reflections on Anarchism.
Marxism.
Karl Marx and the British Labour Movement.
The Dialogue on Marxism.
Lenin and the 'Aristocracy of Labour'.
Revisionism.
The Principle of Hope.
The Structure of Capital.
Karl Korsch.
Soldiers and guerrillas.
Vietnam and the Dynamics of Guerrilla War.
Civilians versus Military in Twentieth-Century Politics.
Coup d'État.
Insurrectionaries and revolution.
Hannah Arendt on Révolution.
The Rules of Violence.
Revolution and Sex.
Cities and Insurrections.
May 1968.
Intellectuals and the Class Struggle.
Index.