Class and State in a Total Society

Readers of DISSENT are, or should be, already familiar with the thesis of this important book. It is that the Communist revolution has resulted in the total control of the state (which is bigger than society) by the party bureaucracy which by every test itself constitutes a new class. This class, itself without internal democracy, exercises such powers over the economy and over the minds of men as no other class or military dictatorship has been able to establish. Djilas, himself a principal author of Yugoslav’s national communism, declares that “National Communism per se is contradictory. Its nature is the same as that of Soviet Communism, but it aspires to detach itself into something of its own, nationally. In reality, National Communism is Communism in decline.”

Djilas’ sound general thesis is lucidly developed. His argument contains many quotable sentences. But the great importance of the book does not lie in what it says—others have said as mu...