The Revolutionary Ascetic

Starting with Cromwell and the religious ascetics of the Puritan Revolution, Mazlish shows, in fascinating personality sketches, how this asceticism first became secularized with the French Revolution and then in the 19th and 20th centuries was put to the service of a new kind of "total" modernizing revolution in Russia, China, and elsewhere

Bruce Mazlish

Preface to the Transaction Edition Preface PART ONE: THEORY AND PRACTICE 1 Introduction 2 The Godlike Legislator 3 Displaced Libido and Asceticism: Theory and Function PART TWO: THE HISTORICAL STAGES 4 The Religious Stages 5 The Puritan Revolution and Cromwell 6 The French Revolution and Robespierre 7 From Legislator to Bolshevik: Robespierre to Lenin PART THREE: TWO CASE STUDIES 8 Lenin 9 Mao Tse-tung 10 Conclusion Notes Index