The Revolutionary Ascetic: Evolution of a political Type. Bruce Mazlish. New York:  Basic Books. Inc., 1976.  221 pp.

The Revolutionary Ascetic is an ambitious attempt to understand leaders, followers, revolution, and political life in a new way. To do this Bruce Mazlich has transformed the insights of Freud and Weber into a provocative interpretation of group psychology. Revolutionary asceticism is

the organizing principle. Mazlish is not searching for a revolutionary personality per se, but he wants to explore a “cluster of traits” that enable a leader to command the love and allegiance of his followers. This cluster includes many aspects of revolutionary asceticism: self-discipline, “freedom from dependency,” libido displaced onto an abstract political cause, narcissism, and control of one's appetites and impulses. The ideal revolutionary ascetic makes revolution his profession, his calling, and his loved object and in doing so merges his personal traits with his revolutionary ideology.

Revolutionary asceticism can be found in varied forms throughout history. Mazlish pursues his central theme with a look at early Christian asceticism, which later becomes secular asceticism in the Protestant Ethic, And within Cromwell and the Puritan Revolution and Robespierre and the French Revolution are elements, however incomplete, of revolutionary asceticism. Finally, after examining his theme within the Industrial Revolution, Utilitarianism, and Victorianism, the author finds that “revilutionary asceticism becomes more and more prominent and more and more functional as we move toward more modern, conscious, and professional revolution's.” In the twentieth century modernizing revolutions have had a special need for revolutionary ascetic leadership. So the culmination of this historical survey is the detailed analysis of two prototypical modern revolutionary ascetics—Mao Tsetung and Lenin

Mazlish's creative application of the idea of revolutionary asceticism to several historical settings and his incisive and revealing biographical portraits are the heart of the book. Some of the ego psycholo