Focusing on socialism as it has been practised in recent years, this text examines the serious set-backs that face its existence, particularly following events in Eastern Europe. The author argues that it is totalitarianism which is being rejected and not socialism as it was originally conceived. Instead of providing ordinary people, "the workers", with a larger share in economic decision-making, the socialist models have concentrated both economic and political power in the hands of the State, developing a form of state socialism. This second edition re-considers the arguments of the first text, and assesses the decisive swing to the right which has marked the political arena of the 1980s.;The author, Evan Luard, has published a number of titles, many for Macmillan. These include "Conflict and Peace in the Modern International System", "The United Nations: How It Works and What It Does", "The Management of the World Economy", "International Agencies: The Emerging Framework of Interdependence" and "International Society".

The revolutions that have recently occurred in Eastern Europe have been seen by some as heralding the death of socialism. Evan Luard argues, in this new edition of his book, that those revolutions demonstrated the failure not of socialism, which were never practised in those states, but of state socialism, a perversion of the doctrine which, for nearly a century, has distorted its true meaning in East and West Europe alike.