Word: communistic
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...decades following World War II. Today, self-proclaimed socialists of one variety or another rule 53 of the world's sovereign states, controlling 39% of its territory and 42% of its population. Such numbers alone can be misleading, for societies calling themselves socialist include Western-style democracies and repressive Communist dictatorships, constitutional republics and hereditary monarchies. Socialism is a flag of convenience that accommodates technocrats and market-minded economists, that allows fascist-type dictators or small-time Bonapartes to perpetuate themselves in power. It is politically chic to use the socialist label. Observes French Political Philosopher Raymond Aron: "In most...
Adds TIME'S Aikman: "In Rumania, senior officials have their own villas and even relatively low party functionaries drive automobiles and receive a generous gasoline allowance. The son of Communist Party Boss Nicolae Ceau?escu races around Bucharest in a sleek Mercedes sports coupé. The perks for the Polish elite include special schools for their children and access to luxurious vacation camps and ski resorts. Traffic literally stops for East Germany's new class; at the approach of the imported Volvo limousines carrying the party's top brass, police halt all other movement on the streets...
...even classless China is exempt from the new elitism. After Mao's 1949 triumph, Chinese Communist leaders immediately moved into villas expropriated from capitalist tycoons and, among other things, designated Peitaiho, one of the country's best seaside resorts, as their exclusive playground. Chauffeured cars ferry the wives of high-ranking Chinese cadres to exclusive shops and their
Citizens of Communist states are well aware that their rulers give only lip service to Marxism's egalitarian ideals. But all they can do is complain and joke. One popular story in the Soviet Union tells of Party Boss Brezhnev inviting his mother to his elegant villa in the Crimea. He shows her the lavish furnishings, his yachts, art treasures and the fleet of foreign cars he has received as gifts from visiting heads of state. After a table-groaning banquet, he asks: "Well, Mama, what do you think? Not bad for your little boy?" To which the old woman...
Social democracy is the most liberal version of socialism. Marxist-Leninists complain that social democrats are "bourgeois revisionists" and they have traditionally been the first victims of Communist coups. Social democrats can justly answer back that the "true socialists" of Moscow are dictators who have betrayed Marxism's humanistic vision. Alone or in coalitions, social-democratic leaders control the governments of Britain, West Germany, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Luxembourg, Norway, The Netherlands, Portugal?to cite only European examples. (Sweden's Social Democrats, after 44 years in power, were defeated in 1976 by a narrow margin.) Social democracy accepts a multiparty...