Crisis for Gorbachev

One is thankful that amid this hoopla of pontification you cared to present the truth. Yes, the true failure of communism has been its inability to create “the Socialist man.” All the promises and expectations were based on this central premise.

But to equate the ideology of the Communist Manifesto with the goals of the Union Jack or the Roman Legions is a convenient distortion of history. In time it will be noted that the subjects of the Soviet empire will find their place next to their kin in the First World. But the subjects of those other empires--their cultures and civilizations decimated--have been permanently consigned to that wastebasket called the Third World!

Communism was an attempt to address some of the contradictions in our existence. It failed, perhaps abjectly. But while we applaud the glories of capitalism, we should not forget that it has flourished on the crest of the most massive, regressive redistribution of world resources and wealth. Yes, for the world--the world of the European with a sprinkling of the yellow and brown--capitalism has been a blessing. But in the non-world--those wastelands of Asia, Africa, Latin America--people must watch these current developments with a great deal of trepidation. So many more First World people to lay first claim to world resources!

PRITHVI SHARMA

Camarillo