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The paper presents a framework for understanding the evolution of communism. We suggest that the politico-economic system of communist regimes may be usefully seen as an institutionally and ideologically constrained bargaining game. We distinguish three stages of the develop ment of this "game"-pure communism, late communism, and constitutio nal communism. Pure communism is characterized by an aspiration to the total control over society, and a strong commitment to ideology. Constraints on bargaining weaken in late communism, resulting in a system with distinctive economic and political features, which we describe. Constitutio nal communism is an ideal type based on the current wave of reform, in which the power of communists is limited without being undermined. Its chief ingredients are the rule of law, separation of powers, communist corporatism, glasnost, and the market.

A review essay on a book by Stephane Courtois, Nicholas Werth, Jean-Louis Panne, Andrzej Paczkowski, Karel Bartosek, & Jean-Louis Margolin, The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression ([Jonathan Murthy & Mark Kramer [Trs], Cambridge, MA: Harvard U Press, 1999). The Black Book reveals that leadership by strong intellectuals with set ideas provided the motivation for the communist killing & persecution. The intellectuals who gained & kept power were those who never changed their ideas regardless of evidence against them. Unreachable goals were set, but only minor adjustments could be made without giving up the dream; so purges were made, rather than reforms, & all people suffered. In Russia alone, 8 million of the "more successful peasants" died by murder, planned starvations, deportation to atrocious conditions, & forced labor. Communism caused not only a "colossal human tragedy," but the destruction of each communist country's best officials, peasants, & skilled personnel. When their visions failed, communist regimes clung to power through hypernationalism, xenophobia, & the fueling of old hatreds. It is a mystery why Western intellectuals held communist beliefs for so long, while communist regimes practiced all the evils they attributed to capitalism, minus material success. L. A. Hoffman

Intro -- Preface -- Acknowledgments -- Contents -- 1 Communism and Culture -- The Commissars and the Creators -- The PROLETKULT -- Art and Power -- The End of Art and the Construction of Life -- Social Condensers -- A Literature of Fact -- A Photograph by Rodchenko -- Fellow Travelers -- 2 Stalinist Culture -- Socialist Realism -- The Moscow Metro -- Stalin and Culture -- Returning Home -- The Circus -- Stalinist Culture as Mythocracy -- Strategies of Resistance -- The Stalin's Epigram -- The Stalin Cult -- Zhdanovschina -- 3 De-Stalinization -- The Thaw -- Fadeev's Suicide -- Breaking with the Big Lie -- Mao: Reform or Trap? -- The Cranes Are Flying -- Pasternak's Nobel Prize -- The Manezh Affair -- The Bulldozers Exhibition -- The Solzhenitsyn Effect -- Thaw and Freeze in Romania -- Glasnost -- 4 Censorship -- Censorship and Self-Censorship -- Maya Plisetskaya, Censored -- The "Unknown" Girl from Minsk -- Marx, Groucho, and Dali's Telegram -- 5 Counterculture -- Stilyagi -- Rockers and Hippies -- Tamizdat and Samizdat -- Political Jokes -- The Bards -- 6 Picasso, the Most Celebrated Communist After Stalin and Mao Zedong -- 7 Mao's Cultural Revolution -- 8 The Che Image -- 9 Epilog: What Remains? Of Dreams, Passions, and Ashes -- Selected Bibliography -- Index.

Soviet Communism (1989) contains the full text of the 1986 significantly revised foundational documents of Soviet Communism, the Programme and Party Rules - changes agreed following Gorbachev's call for the radical and democratic reform of the Party and the Soviet political system.

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Introduction -- 1. Regime Transition in Communist States -- 2. Explaining the Tocqueville Paradox -- 3. China's Capitalist Revolution -- 4. The Private Sector under Perestroika -- 5. The Self-Liberalization of China's Mass Media -- 6. The Liberal Takeover of the Soviet Mass Media under Glasnost -- Conclusion -- Abbreviations -- Notes -- Acknowledgments -- Index