The Third Wave?

The historical starting point of the Communist enterprise can be conveniently taken as the victory of Lenin’s Bolshevik faction in the 1903 conference of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party. For some purposes, appearance of the Communist Manifesto in 1848 or, for that matter, of Plato’s Republic in 375 or so b.c., might be more useful. In this temporal world there is no absolute beginning; our choice of starting point is always in some degree arbitrary. However, if our interest is in Communism not as a mere idea or episodic fringe happening but as an actual existing and developing historical enterprise—a going concern—then it is probably best to consider 1903 the birth year.

If we adopt a perspective from which we can consider, synoptically, the entire 72-year span of the enterprise’s existence up to now, we will note that, though its total growth in these three generations exceeds that of any previous historical formation, its growth rate has not been uniform. The pattern seems to be that of a relatively static period in which little external growth occurs, followed by a dynamic burst that in a short time brings about a quantum expansion; a time of fairly calm water (to shift the figure) interrupted at lengthy intervals by a great tidal wave that submerges vast new land areas.

JB

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James Burnham

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The historical starting point of the Communist enterprise can be conveniently taken as the victory of Lenin’s Bolshevik faction in the 1903 conference of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party. For some purposes, appearance of the Communist Manifesto in 1848 or, for that matter, of Plato’s Republic in 375 or so b.c., might be more useful. In this temporal world there is no absolute beginning; our choice of starting point is always in some degree arbitrary. However, if our interest is in Communism not as a mere idea or episodic fringe happening but as an actual existing and developing historical enterprise—a going concern—then it is probably best to consider 1903 the birth year.

If we adopt a perspective from which we can consider, synoptically, the entire 72-year span of the enterprise’s existence up to now, we will note that, though its total growth in these three generations exceeds that of any previous historical formation, its growth rate has not been uniform. The pattern seems to be that of a relatively static period in which little external growth occurs, followed by a dynamic burst that in a short time brings about a quantum expansion; a time of fairly calm water (to shift the figure) interrupted at lengthy intervals by a great tidal wave that submerges vast new land areas.