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It is with these bold, sweeping words that
Zbigniew Brzezinski begins The Grand Failure: The Birth
and Death of Communism in the Twentieth Century -- a
book of far-reaching conclusions from one of the most astute
foreign policy experts of our time. The advent of communism,
Brzezinski argues, was one of the most critical phenomenons
in the history of the century. From the Cold War, the building
of the Berlin Wall, the Korean War, Sputnik, the Vietnam
War, the war in Afghanistan, we have lived our lives in
the light of the Soviet Union as our predominant and most
forbidding antagonist. At one time, one-third of the world's
population was living under communism's domination. Now,
as Brzezinski sets out before us in this book, the horrors
of Stalin and the stagnation of Brezhnev have created an
enormous internal crisis in the USSR. Marxist theory has
proved a failure, as have its practical applications. Brzezinski
cites specific factors that have led to this cataclysmic
crisis:
- For Communists around the world, the
Soviet experience -- an icon no more -- henceforth must
not be imitated but avoided. Communism thus no longer
has a practical model for others to emulate.
- In the Soviet Union, the communist system's
insoluble dilemma is that economic success can only be
purchased at the cost of political stability, while political
stability can only be sustained at the cost of economic
failure.
- In Eastern Europe, communism's fatal
flaw is the party's monopoly of power rooted in Soviet
domination. Forty years after the imposition of communism,
the elimination of both foreign and party domination is
now widely seen as the necessary precondition to social
rebirth.
- In China, communism's ideological dilution
will be the price of economic success. Modern China may
enter the twenty-first century still ruled by communism,
but it will not be a communized China.
- The era of a monolithic Communist world
movement built around a shared dogma has become a thing
of the past. By the mid-1980s, the end has come to the
notion of a movement of Communist parties unified in doctrine
and action.
As Brzezinski concludes, "the communist
phenomenon represents a historical tragedy. Born out of
an impatient idealism that rejected the injustice of the
status quo, it sought a better and more humane society --
but produced mass oppression. It optimistically reflected
faith in the power of reason to construct a perfect community.
It mobilized the most powerful emotions of love for humanity
and of hatred for oppression on behalf of morally motivated
social engineering. It thus captivated some of the brightest
minds and some of the most idealistic hearts -- yet it prompted
some of the worst crimes of this or any century."
A startling and controversial book, The
Grand Failure is destined to be the most talked about
book of the season.
Zbigniew Brzezinski served during the
Carter administration as Assistant to the President, National
Security Affairs, and as Director of the National Security
Council. He is the author of The Soviet Bloc, Between
Two Ages, Game Plan, and Power and Principle.
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