Where Does Communism Stand Today

WHERE does Communism stand today, a hundred years after Marx's death? The last hundred years .can be divided into two halves: in the first half, Communism became the form of government and the way of life of a country which was the largest in area in the world; in the second half the same happened in a country with the largest population in the world. Today, therefore, we are as much concerned with the problems of Marxism arising out of Communism in practice in a large portion of the world as with its theoretical problems. The second half of this century is again characterised by two distinct phases. The first phase, that can be said to have ended roughly in the 1950s, was one of the triumph of Communism, first in the victory of the Soviet Union in the war, then in the victory of the Communists in China, in the spectacular emergence of the Soviet Union as a superpower and in the equally spectacular unification and rapid development of China. But the second phase after this period has seen the Communist system come under considerably strain and finally enter a period of stagnation. The strain arose out of de-Stalini- sation in the Soviet Union and the effects of Maoism and then de-Maofication in China. The stagnation has reflected itself in the spread of Communism having more or less stopped in the world and in a loss of elan in the movement. Our purpose here is to focus on this last phase and to try to understand why such a situation has arisen and examine briefly what are the possible lines along which solutions can be sought. In view of the nature of the phase we have selected it may appear as if we are concentrating only on the negative aspects; this is not the intention; whatever is said about the present problems is not meant to detract from the earlier achievements as enough has been said about them. It is time we concentrate on the other aspects dealt with here because if we do not analyse these we are not likely to find a way out of the present stalemate.