On the Fate of Communism

Asked by the German periodical Die Zeit in August 1989 whether the opening of a MacDonald’s franchise in Moscow signified “the end of Communism,” Daniel Bell wrote the following reply.—Eds.

To answer the question posed by Die Zeit directly would require the wit of a Karl Kraus or the mordant irony of a Franz Kafka. I have neither. Therefore I shall have to respond as a drab sociologist.

The current Soviet (or is it Hungarian, or Polish?...