The essays brought together here are of two kinds: first, essential essays by Durkheim and Mauss which reveal the radical ambitions of Durkheimian social theory, and second, a number of complementary essays which explore the scope and limits of this sociological tradition. The central essay of the collection, written by Marcel Mauss, concerns the analysis of the Bolshevik experiment in its early years. Although Mauss argued that the Bolsheviks did not understand the importance of the market he was not for the abolition of the soviets. Indeed he offers the remarkable interpretation that the development of the soviets was something not only that Durkheim would have supported but also was a development which may have owed something to Durkheim himself. The critique which Mauss develops is a crucial part of the sociological analysis of communism.