Dussian Communism is difcult to understand on account of L. its twofold nature. On the one hand it is interational and a world phenomenon; on the other hand it is national and Russian. It is particularly important for Wester minds to understand the national roots of Russian Communism and the fact that it was Russian history which determined its limits and shaped its character. A knowledge of Marxism will not help in this. The Russian people in their spiritual make-up are an Eastern people. Russia i the Christian East, which was for two centuries subject to the powerful influences of the West, and whose cultured classes assimilated every Western idea. The fate of the Russian people in history has been an unhappy one and full of sufferig. It has developed at a catastrophic tempo through interruption and change in its type of civilzation.

In spite of the opinion of the Slavophils it is impossible to fnd an organic unity in Russian history. The Russians held sway over too vast an expanse of territory-the danger from the East, from the Tartar invasions (from which it protected the West as well), was too great. And the danger from the West itself was also great. 

(From Introduction)