Prior to his death in 1978 Georges Haupt enjoyed a considerable reputation as a scholar of European socialism, but much of his best work was scattered in small periodicals. This 1986 volume brings together in translation a selection of some of his most important essays, centred around three major, interlocking, themes: analysis of the groups of early activists who formed labour and socialist parties; the structure and development of socialist ideology; and the interaction between theory, doctrine and external circumstance that Haupt considered the very essence of intellectual debate. The subjects discussed include the symbolic and exemplary role of the Commune, the place of international leading groups in early socialism, and, in two essays that bring the history of socialist ideological debate firmly into the world of major historical events, Lenin. Eric Hobsbawm has contributed an analytic preface to the volume, examining Haupt's particular contribution to the history of socialism.