Communist Politics Under the Knife: Surgery or Autopsy?

This new introductory text is aimed at those studying the politics of the communist world for the first time. It is written in an accessible style, and illustrated with references to the increasingly varied examples of communism in practice in the world today. The book takes very little for granted, either by way of conceptual sophistication or in terms of detailed factual knowledge of the countries of the communist world. The appropriate analytical concepts are introduced in a jargon-free way, and factual imformation drawn from the whole of the communist world is used to provide telling illustration of the points under discussion. The text focuses on the principal features of communism as a form of rule: the ideology, the goals of the system, the ruling party, the state institutions, the symbols and myths that are used to sustain the system, the attempt to mould the new citizen through control of the flows of information, the rise of dissent and dissidence, the role of the leader and other topics. It concludes with an assessment of communism in the currently rapidly changing world.