Much has been written already about the changed international system of the 1990s, projecting the configuration of a restructured Europe, the future role of the former Soviet republics and the United States, and the emergence of a multipolar world with or without a dominant hegemon. In the search for new structures and explanations, however, it is too often assumed in error that these apply to what we label the "Third World" in the same way that they do to the "North" or the "West."

This book explores the phenomenon of global transformation in the context of the Third World, looking specifically at the preference for more democratic political systems, the emergence of a new international economic order, and the changing forms of conflict, its mitigation, and its resolution. The authors provide major theoretical analyses of these three trends, as well as in-depth case studies that explore specific developments.

In a revolutionary situation in which communism has been discredited and the Communist Party has been labelled a totalitarian organization, 'socialism' is a dirty word in the Soviet Union today. The polarisation between Gorbachev's communist apparat and Boris Yeltsin's new cadres of liberals has left little room for alternative ideas or movements.

Yet a handful of socialists are trying to carve out a third path. Led by Boris Kargalitsky and Mikhail Milutin, the Socialist Party of Russia has concluded that the peoples' interests are not represented by either the old system nor the new liberal agenda. Rather, they seek to build a truly socialist society out of the rubble of stalinism.

We can proudly say that at no time in human history has a political movement and ideological trend played such a tremendous transformative role as the international communist and working class movement.

Leonid Brezhnev (World Marxist Review, 8 (1969), p. 4)

Ironically, Brezhnev's observation still holds true today. However, the transformative power of the international communist movement has resulted not from its consolidation, as Brezhnev surmised, but from its disintegration. The "world revolutionary process" predicted by Marx, initiated by Lenin, and promoted for seventy years by the Soviet Union has come to an abrupt halt. Whether temporary or permanent, its present demise has created one of the most fluid historical moments in the twentieth century.