The rise and demise of world communism
Communist parties ruled sixteen states over the course of the 20th century. At communistsm's high point, its adherents envisioned global triumph. Today, however, only five communist regimes remain in power. Why? In this book, George W. Breslauer, who has spent decades studying the evolution of communist states, provides a sweeping history of the world communist movement, focusing in particular on what communist states shared in common and why they began to differ from each other overt ime. Breslauer finds that the communist regimes all came to power in the context of warfare or its aftermath. Following the Soviet example, they all went on to "build socialism" according to a Stalinist template and were initially dedicated to "anti-imperialist struggle" as members of a world communist movement. But their common features. But their common features gave way to diversity, difference and defiance after the death of Joseph Stalin in 1953. For many reasons, and in many ways, those differences soon blew apart the world communist movement and eventually led to the collapse of European communism. While the dream of world communism is dead, the future of the remaining communist regimes that remain in power is uncertain. An accessible history of one of the most important political phenomena of the past 150 years, this volume provides readers with a crisp account of the entire movement – from the theories of Marx and Lenin to the on-the-ground policies of Stalin, Mao, Gorbachev, Deng, and other communist leaders – that culminates in our own era.
