includes index and biblioraphy

Communism was one of the most powerful political and intellectual movements of the modern world; at the height of its influence over a third of the world`s population lived under communist rule. And yet very few predicted either its bewildering rise or sudden decline, while even close observers were mystified by its frequent convulsions and turbulent politics. In the Red Flag, David Priestland provides an original account of the communist movement that fully explores its global impact. He not only discusses the ideas and motivations of its principal thinkers and leaders-from Marx to Mao, from Stalin to Che Guevara-but also asks how Communism inspired its rank and file, whether the militants of 1920s Russia, the guerilla fighters of China, the Marxist students of Ethiopia or the urban terrorists of Europe in the 1970s. At the same time The Red Flag explores the experience of living under Communism for its millions of subjects.