by Bertram D. Wolfe, read in 2004

33 The "Intelligentsia" - our "Greens" and anti-globalists
35 Surprising variety of ideas that motivated the Intelligentsia
35 "Fanaticism"
41 Goncharev's "Oblomov", epitome of apathy
116 Engels: Revolutionaries don't really know what they are doing.
150 "Iskra" editors: Ulyanov, Martov, Petresov, Plekhanov, Axelrod, Zasulich
193 Trotsky's preference for the general over the specific (particular).
238 Good questions about the dictatorship of the proletariat
259 Top down vs. bottom up organization.
402-3 The roots of Chechyen animosity toward Russia
404 Non-national leaders: Stalin, Napoleon, Hitler, Charles II(?)
404 Nartionalistic vs. Westernization trend - Kerensky --> Lenin --> Stalin
404 Marx's classification of societies: Asiatic, Ancient, Feudal, Capitalist
463 Trotsky on Stalin, political machines and power. Wonderful writing by Wolfe
484 Marx on the suddenness (or not) of revolutionary change
485 Marx's description of the degeneracy of (two-) party system(s)
506 Is Lunacharsky, 1908, the author of Secular Humanism? Sounds like it.
506 Gorky's "The Confessions": The people are God
512 Excellent description of modern crises in science!
513 Lenin and Engels' views of agnosticism
514 The dangers of Solipsism
515 Odoevski's necessary condition for happiness
517 Philosophy=asking, sophistry=answering, fanaticism=enforcing the answers
547 Ambivalent double agents: Gapon, Azev, Kaplinsky, Bagrov, Malinovsky
553 Summary of the Bolshevist/Menshevik split
567 "[A]ll war is playing with explosives", - Wolfe
567 Geopolitical situation just prior to WWI
571 Marx's and Engels' denigration of Slavs
602 The start of WWI
617 Typical "patriotic" attitudes and reaction during wartime