ABSTRACT
The most obvious characteristic of the change in authority and control in the communist movement is the absence since 1943 of a formal international organization as a guiding mechanism. A schema of changes in the structure of authority and control in the communist movement runs immediately into the obstacle of the inadequacy of nomenclature and taxonomy for international political organization. The general purpose behind the foundation of the Communist International was to join forces for World Revolution. In short, the structure of authority and control has broken down; the present period is characterized by the search to re-establish unity on the basis of proletarian internationalism's being given a new context and, failing that, the acceptance of independent communist parties and states. The Chinese Communists too proceeded from the proposition of the equality of parties. They refused to accept Moscow's democratic alternative on the ground that they would be bound by an "arithmetical majority"—that is, votes at the disposal of Moscow.
