At 482 pages of text (the rest is index and footnotes), it seems rather presumptious to give the history of a vast movement from the 1850s to "the end". I haven't done much studying of Communism for a good 30 years, and it's interesting to read up on it now that it is considered a rather bizarre interruption of history rather than a potential path (although does anyone other than me think that China basically owning the rest of the world might be what the 19th century Marxists forsaw following the hidden precepts of dialectical materialism known only to them? They may yet have the last laugh.) The author's emphasis is on the Russian Communists' relationship with other socialists, and how the Communists precluded any other socialist movement from becoming powerful. He's written several books on Russian Communism, so that is his emphasis. He gives short shrift, I think, to Chinese Communism, especially before they come to power, he seems to think that they weren't really independent of the USSR prior to 1949.
Hmmm, I'd say he's bigger on the world analysis than the human view. It's a pretty big subject to cover in one book. Most of his previous writings has covered the Russian Communist World, and that's the leaning of this book, his treatment of the Chinese Revolution is rather sparse. It may have been seriously edited and revised, he seems to make reference to events and people that he hasn't detailed earlier. He throws in rather gratuitous metaphors, like "Not content to have their (the nomenklatura) snouts in the trough, they had to have their front trotter in there too." I guess that is shorter than giving facts.
