Marx’s condemnation of the heartless laissez-faire capitalism of the early nineteenth century now, by an irony of history, applies with fantastic precision to twentieth century Communism. It is Communism, not free society, which is dominated by what the Yugoslav communist Milovan Djilas has called the New Class—the class of party bosses and bureaucrats, who acquire not only privileges but an exemption from criticism which would be unimaginable in democratic societies. Far from being a classless society, Communism is governed by an elite as steadfast in its determination to maintain its prerogatives as any oligarchy known to history.