ABSTRACT

In modern Western Europe social democratic parties shed their Marxism and sought power not on a wave of revolution but through popular election. Marxism as a political ideology is broader and more far-ranging than its Leninist version which has historically animated the activity of the various communist parties of the Western world. The ebb and flow of the indigenous challenge of European communism and Marxism in contemporary Western politics is intimately linked with that culture's contemporary strengths and weaknesses. If contemporary Western civic culture suffered demise, it would likely be the outcome of the combined effects of internal and external agencies. The challenges to contemporary Western civic culture can only be answered by the fortitude of its own defenders in preserving its essential principles. Concentration on the enigmas of Eurocommunism and its kin elsewhere can obscure the more basic issue for Western civil culture itself.