The Communist Party and After

Abstract

The first two years of the 1990s witnessed the collapse of communist rule in the country of its creation. After almost three-quarters of a century of unchallenged political monopoly, the party of Lenin, Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev and Gorbachev was removed from power as a result of changes introduced by itself. It may continue some kind of shadowy existence — or several existences, in the form of revived splinter organisations that may even enjoy some electoral support — but the effect is to remove the principal pillar of the traditional system of communist rule, and it is virtually inconceivable that the old system can ever be restored. In order to assess the significance of the change, we shall consider briefly the party’s position in the Soviet system in recent decades.