The author argues that the demise of Communist rule in Russia should be seen as a distinct phase of the consolidation of Capitalism, and discusses it in the historical context of other forms of social order. He brings out the homology between the features of 'the path of actually existing socialism' and incipient capitalism, as well as, the social support base of the French and the Bolshevik revolution. To his mind, the major failure of Marxism in the contemporary epoch is its incapability to produce new theory and remaining confined only to the spheres of culture. Finally he says that the Jacobins led revolutions time and again based on the people having truly good intentions but ended up as victims purged by their former comrades.

March 24, 2006.