This book, first published in 1962, is a collection of essays on the ideological origins of the European revolutionary movement. Saint-Simon, Marx, Proudhon, Herzen, Lassalle and Sorel; the early history of the Russian Communist Party; the histories of the British and German Communist Parties; and Lenin and Stalin.

1. Saint-Simon: The Precursor (1949) 2. The Communist Manifesto (1947) 3. Proudhon: Robinson Crusoe of Socialism (1947) 4. Herzen: An Intellectual Revolutionary (1947) 5. Lassalle Meets Bismarck (1946) 6. Some Nineteenth-Century Russian Thinkers (1947) 7. Plekhanov: Father of Russian Marxism (1948) 8. The Cradle of Bolshevism (1948) 9. Lenin: The Master Builder (1947) 10. Sorel: Philosopher of Syndicalism (1947) 11. Mr. Gallacher and the CPGB (1949) 12. The Revolution that Failed (1949) 13. Stalin: The Road to Power (1946) 14. Stalin: The Dialectics of Stalinism (1949)