ABSTRACT
Uneven decay is the situation with communist parties around the world; especially those in Western Europe, and even in the United States, where tightly knit, well disciplined institutional frameworks have been built up over seven decades. The equation of communism as an ideology with communism as a national system of the old Union of Soviet Socialist Republics is a profound mistake. Inherent in the history of Bolshevik domination has been a dualism of loyalties: to Russian national interests on one side and Communist class and party interests on the other. Within well established Communist Parties, one finds a continuing struggle that shapes up precisely along such lines: sections advocating hard terrorism, versus those who believe in soft social democracy. The comments by at least one segment of the Spanish Communist Party are indicative. The hard-line echoes of peripheral responses to the Soviet debacle can be found in the official American Communist Party responses as well.
