The Organizational Weapon: A Study of Bolshevik Strategy and Tactics

Philip Selznick

oct 2014 · Classics of the Social Sciences Libro 18 · Quid Pro Books

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The Organizational Weapon is a classic study of the methods, propaganda, and institutions which create infiltration and eventually cooptation of organizations from within. The study applies its theory to communist techniques but its analysis and insights have, over the years, become extremely useful in perceiving and combating such methods in jihadist cells, terrorist organizations, and political groups of many varieties, not only from the Left. 

The book's continuing relevance and utility have been exemplified in how it has influenced, and been cited by, many current writers on how extremist and politically astute groups recruit and infiltrate more benign organizations and make them tools of further expansion of power and action. The book is also considered excellent social science and history, analyzing an important moment in U.S. history when trade organizations, community groups, and the like became affected by Soviet encroachment and Marxist influence. Its insights, from one of the country's most recognized social scientists, have stood the test of time.

The new digital reprint edition from Quid Pro Books features an extensive and substantive 2014 Foreword by Martin Krygier, a senior professor of law and social theory at the law school of the University of New South Wales, in Australia, and adjunct professor at Australian National University.

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Philip Selznick (1919-2010) taught generations of law and sociology students as a professor of sociology and jurisprudence & social policy at the University of California at Berkeley. He was founding chair of Berkeley's Center for the Study of Law and Society. In addition to this work, his other influential books include TVA and the Grass Roots; Law, Society and Industrial Justice; Law and Society in Transition (with Philippe Nonet); The Moral Commonwealth; The Communitarian Persuasion; and, in 2008, A Humanist Science.