Volume 3, Number 8 · December 3, 1964
The Death of Marxism
By Hans J. Morgenthau
World Communism
by Richard Lowenthal
Oxford, 288 pp., $5.00
Professor Richard Lowenthal of the Free University of Berlin has collected in this volume a number of papers he has written since 1955 on the crisis of Communism. The result is a penetrating analysis of the intellectual decay and political disintegration which have befallen Communism during the last decade. The story of that disintegration and decay has the characteristics of tragedy. For the collapse of Communism, torn by inner contradictions and disavowed by one historic experience after the other, was inevitable, and the more its leaders tried to stave off the catastrophe, the more certain they made its coming. There is something tragic, evoking terror and pity in the beholder, in the spectacle of Khrushchev and Mao Tse-tung trying, each in his own way, to close the gates of destruction, only succeeding in opening them wider.
Review, 2275 words
To read the full text of this piece, please choose one of the following options:
|
If you are already a subscriber to the Review's electronic edition, please sign in: |
To subscribe to the electronic edition, please press the button below. |
To purchase access to this article for $3, please press the button below. |