A specter is haunting the intellectual classes—not exactly the specter of Communism, however, so much as the specter of an irresistible wave of nostalgia for a time when Marxism and its utopian myth of the classless society held so many superior minds in thrall. Now that the tyranny of Communist rule has been lifted from the lives of millions the world over and Marxist doctrine has lost its power to shape the future—for even in China, the last major bastion of Communist Party control, capitalism has succeeded in subverting the faithful--intellectuals in the West are showing signs of a yearning for the good old days when, at no cost to the freedom or prosperity of people like themselves, it was fashionable for Marxism to be upheld as the fount of all wisdom.

It has long been recognized, of course, that in the heyday of its spell over the intellectual life of the West, Marxism had always been something more than ...

This article is available to subscribers and for individual purchase