ABSTRACT
For all that I had spent years studying Marxism, both in theory and in application, it was not until recently that I was struck by the phenomenon which is the subject of the present chapter. A few months ago, I was invited to deliver a series of lectures on Marxism at a Saudi university. During one of these lectures, a student asked how widespread communism was in Western Europe. It was while I was replying to his question that the first glimmerings of an idea flashed through my mind. Back in my room, I decided to test my idea against a map of Europe. There it was: my theory was confirmed beyond the shadow of a doubt.
