Archive Report
Archive Report
Half Century of Communism in Russia
A specter is haunting Europe, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels wrote more than a century ago—“the specter of communism.”1 Communism is spectral no longer. It has become a political and economic system under which one-third of the world's people live. Today, Communists and non-Communists alike would agree that the “Great October Socialist Revolution,”2 which took place in Russia 50 years ago, was of “enormous international significance” and that it “accelerated the march of historical events in the world.”3
What has communism accomplished in half a century? Where has it fallen short of its goals? Above all, in which direction is it heading? These questions have been posed often in Soviet communism's jubilee year, and the answers have been far from ...