There was a time, not so long ago when, in cavernous New York cafeterias, men old enough to remember the events that took place in Russia in 1917 sat and endlessly argued over "a glass tea" the relative merits of Stalin's and Trotsky's approach to world revolution. For those outside of those storied circles, possessing even the most superficial acquaintance with Marxism, one phrase endures: "socialism in one country." When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, just short of its 75th birthday, leftists on all sides of the debate must have heard that phrase echoing in their thoughts--whether they were happy to admit it or not. Just as Trotsky had warned, socialism in one country, (or, as it turned out, even in two or three countries), seemed proven untenable. The debate over the actual causes of the collapse of the U.S.S.R., along with the de facto collapse of Maoism in China, (particularly, needless to say, for those familiar with the left's penchant for ceaseless debate and secatarianism), will continue apace. A look at a political map of the globe, however, reveals a reality that seems undebatable. Except for a handful of roaring mice like the aged Castro brothers or the teenage dictator in Pyongyang, the world has been cleansed of communist "experiments."
For true believers, whether they subscribed to Trotsky's critique or not, what happened in the formerly communist countries was not a fair test of Marxist ideology, of communism or even socialism. To the followers of Trotsky, his essential insight that the only lasting revolution would be a worldwide one has been vindicated by events. Others within the left wing fold point to flaws within the regimes themselves that in a sense front-loaded them for failure. The Chinese leadership that took over after the Gang of Four was dispatched and inaugurated the state capitalism that now rules adopted an interesting line, "Great heros make mistakes." It is a line that is heard everywhere throughout China and has wide application--from the excesses of Mao's Cultural Revolution to, surprisingly, such historical phenomena as Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-Shek's fall from grace and eventual exile in Taiwan. Of mistakes ascribed to Stalin, little need be said here.
Yet, when Vladimir Putin famously stated his belief that the fall of the Soviet Union was the "greatest tragedy of the twentieth century," one could almost hear the collective sigh of sympathy that his utterance elicited from like-minded souls around the world. In the liberal West, of course, there is little doubt that the world is now better off for being rid of the U.S.S.R., but, on the left, there are many even among the followers of Trotsky who must be wondering. Is socialism in no country (at least no major power) proving to be better for mankind than socialism in one country?
The post-Soviet era in which we are now living is one in which policy makers in the West seem not content merely to be rid of the Evil Empire(s) but see the oportunity to roll back advances made by the working classes that they were never happy to have conceded in the first place and only did so out of fear that those very masses might be seduced by "foreign" ideologies. Thus, it is not enough to be rid of revolutionaries like the Stalinists, Maoists and Trotskyites, they have pushed the envelope to include such rather innocuous reformers as Keynes, or, for that matter, even Bismarck.
The paradigm that seems to have been at work for some time now is one for which the cry might well be carpe diem! "Let us roll back the reforms of the last century to a point whereby a new wave of socialist thought will have to dig itself out of a hole so deep that a counter-reformation will be nigh impossible. When will events ever be more favorable for such a project?"
