Introduction: Marxism and Russia

THAT TWENTIETH-CENTURY Russia embraced Marxism is perhaps the most striking feature of Russian modern history. Brainchild of Marx, the Soviet Union grew up under the shadow of his vision.¹ Marxist visionaries dreamed of a completely transformed society. Nothing of the corrupt and exploitative past was to be retained in the just, pure future. The victims of the old order were destined to become the rulers of the new. The paragon of Revolution—called a proletarian, a Bolshevik, or a Communist, depending on the speaker and the period—was to become transformed into the “New Man”(novyi chelovek).² Russian Marxists attempted