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Article: Letter from Europe: the specter of capitalism. (in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union)
- Article from:
- The Nation
- Article date:
- August 21, 1989
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1989 The Nation Company L.P. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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The rulers of the capitalist world who came to Paris for the bicentennial celebrations last month were in a smug mood. True, the great French Revolution was not the last, but the bourgeois order now looks more solidly entrenched than it has for quite a time. So, 1789 could be celebrated because 1917 is apparently a dead end, or at least is being presented as such with the full power of the propaganda machine. The bloody leap backward in China in June and the simultaneous rejection of the regime by Polish voters have been used to drum the rather contradictory message that the communist world is both totalitarian and crumbling from within. The massacre in Beijing ...