Politics & Society

The Formerly Dominant Marxist-Leninist Parties in the Developing World after the Collapse of Communism

28.04.2008

What affects whether the formerly dominant Marxist-Leninist parties in the developing world survived the end of communism? The ruling parties in the Marxist-Leninist regimes in Afghanistan. Angola. Benin Congo-Brazzaville. Ethiopia. Mozambique and Yemen adjusted in various ways to the changed circumstances of the post-('old War world (after 1991). Their experience suggests that parties that had maintained a single identity, that were characterized by peaceful internal leadership transitions, that were fairly autonomous from the military, and that were not plagued by extreme internal conflicts. were far more likely to survive, and in some cases succeed, in the post-communist period.

Article Excerpt:
For many scholars and policy-makers alike, the end of the Cold War was seen as the end of Marxism and Communism. Yet. throughout the world many of the organizational successors to the governing Marxist-Leninist parties not only survived but flourished; others disappeared altogether; some even altered their identities in order to survive, embracing markets, capitalism and democratic competition, rather than state ownership and democratic centralism.
The recent wave of democratization across the world has resulted in the dissolution of many of these Marxist-Leninist one-party regimes. However, most analyses of the .development of the political parties that succeeded the communist parties have concentrated on Europe (both Eastern and Western) rather than what happened to the former Marxist-Leninist parties in the devel¬oping world. Yet many one-party Marxist-Leninist regimes outside Europe also ended. The response of such parties to the profound systemic change is worthy of attention in its own right.
To be sure, there has emerged a growing literature on formerly dominant authoritarian parties. However, this literature has focused much more on such parties in the developing world generally rather than on the Marxist-Leninist parties specifically. The experiences of the Marxist-Leninist parties are likely to be quite different from other former dominant parties in the developing world, given their close association with a defunct superpower and a passe ideology.
What affects whether the formerly dominant Marxist-Leninist parties in the developing world survived the end of communism? This article offers an initial examination of how the ruling parties in the avowedly Marxist-Leninist regimes in Afghanistan, Angola, Benin, Congo-Brazzaville, Ethiopia, Mozambique and Yemen adjusted to the changed circumstances of the post-Cold War world (after 1991), and to what extent these parties 'success¬fully' made such an adjustment. The principal argument put forward here is that the parties survived because of organizational and regime characteristics developed prior to the transition, which enabled the formerly Marxist-Leninist parties to weather the storm brought on by the demise of their former patron, the Soviet Union.
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