Unless we accept the claim that Lenin's coup gave birth
             to an entirely new state, and indeed to a new era in the history of
             mankind, we must recognize in today's Soviet Union the old empire of the
             Russians -- the only empire that survived into the mid 1980'sÓ (Luttwak,
             In their Communist Manifesto of 1848, Karl Marx and Friedrich
             Engels applied the term communism to a final stage of socialism in which
             all class differences would disappear and humankind would live in
             harmony. Marx and Engels claimed to have discovered a scientific
             approach to socialism based on the laws of history. They declared that
             the course of history was determined by the clash of opposing forces
             rooted in the economic system and the ownership of property. Just as
             the feudal system had given way to capitalism, so in time capitalism
             would give way to socialism. The class struggle of the future would be
             between the bourgeoisie, who were the capitalist employers, and the
             proletariat, who were the workers. The struggle would end, according to
             Marx, in the socialist revolution and the attainment of full communism
             Socialism, of which ÒMarxism-LeninismÓ is a takeoff, originated
             in the West. Designed in France and Germany, it was brought into Russia
             in the middle of the nineteenth century and promptly attracted support
             among the country's educated, public-minded elite, who at that time were
             called intelligentsia (Pipes, 21). After Revolution broke out over
             Europe in 1848 the modern working class appeared on the scene as a major
             historical force. However, Russia remained out of the changes that
             Europe was experiencing. As a socialist movement and inclination, the
             Russian Social-Democratic Party continued the traditions of all the
             Russian Revolutions of the past, with the goal of conquering political
             As early as 1894, when he was twenty-four, Lenin had become a
             revolutionary agitator and a co...