World Communism in Figures
| Date | 01 June 1962 |
| Author | Ivan Avakumovic |
| Published date | 01 June 1962 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070206201700208 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
World
Communism
In
Figures
Ivan
Avakumovic
University
of
Manitoba.
The
Soviet
leaders
have
recently
made
available a
certain
amount
of
material
about various aspects
of
the
international
Communist
move-
ment.
Although
the
data
lack
the
completeness
of
detail
known
about
the
first
decade
of
the
Comintern,
they make a
welcome
change
from
the
notorious
paucity
of
statistical
material
of
the
Cominform
period.
The
data,
scattered
in
Soviet
Communist
and
historical
journals,
and
the
International
Communist
monthly World
Marxist
Review,
give
some
indication
of
the
strengths
and
weaknesses
of
many
sections
of
the
world
Communist
movement,
most
of
which
sent
delegates to
the
twenty-second
congress
of
the
Communist
Party
of
the
Soviet Union.
Forty-eight
of
the
eighty-seven
Communist
parties
are
in
Asia,
Africa,
and
Latin
America. Among
the
former are
the
twelve
new
Communist
parties
founded
since
the twentieth
congress
of
the
C.P.S.U.
in
February,
1956.
Seven
of
these
new
parties
operate
in
countries
where
police
repression
has
destroyed
those
which
had
been
founded
in
pre-
vious decades
or
where
no
Communist
party
has
ever
existed before.
According
to the
Soviet
historical
journal
Novaya
i
Noveishaya
Istoriya
(No.
3,
1961),
Communist
"parties
and
groups" have
been
established
in
recent
years
in "Ghana, Senegal,
Somalia,
Congo,
and
several
other
African
countries".
The
remaining
new
parties
have
been
created
out
of
former
sections
of
the French
Communist
Party
(e.g.,
the
Communist
parties
of
Guadeloupe,
Madagascar,
Martinique, and
Rdunion)
and
by
splitting
the
Communist
Party
of
Syria-Lebanon
into
two.
As
a
result
of
this
numerical
increase,
B.
N. Ponomarev,
who
is
in
charge
of
the
international
department
of
the
central
committee
of
the
C.P.S.U.,
was
able
to
tell
the
twenty-second
congress
that
there
is
now
hardly
a
country
outside
Africa
without
a
Communist
party.
The
over-all
Communist
membership has
shown
a
marked increase
since
April,
1956
when
it
stood
at
"some
30
million".
In
1957
it
was
"33
million," in
1960
"36
million", and
in
1961
"40
million".
The
distribution
of
Communist
membership
confirms
certain
trends
noticeable
since
the
Communist
victory
in
China.
Of
these
the
most
important
are
the
numerical
preponderance
of
the
Chinese
and
Soviet
Communist
parties
with
"over
seventeen"
and
almost
ten
million
mem-
bers respectively;
the
growing proportion
of Asians,
who now
provide
over
half
of
the
total
number
of
organized Communists
in
the
world;
the
slightly
higher
rate
of
numerical increase
in
the
"socialist
camp"
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