ABSTRACT
The ruin of Marx's system by the events of the past half-century has in no way inhibited the production of Marxian theoretical literature in Western societies. The distinctive achievement of Marxism, peculiarly ironical in a system of ideas committed au fond to the unity of theory with practice, is that it's most spectacular victories in the real world have afforded the most devastating criticisms of its fundamental tenets. The self-refutation in practice of Marxism over the past half century was not unanticipated in the theoretical writings of Marx's critics. It is not astonishing that the liberal capitalist system produces Fascism under certain circumstances, but it is astonishing that in the great majority of cases Fascism has not succeeded in gaining power in spite of certain circumstances. In the Communist societies where Marxism has been institutionalized as the official ideology, its mythopoeic elements have not indeed been especially prominent.
