Marx always predicted that the development of capitalism as a socialsystem would be punctuated by major crises, which would become progressivelydeeper and broader until the system itself was swept away. What he could not haveforeseen was that the development of Marxism as a theory would also be marked bycrises, both of belief and of method, which have periodically threatened itssurvival. In this respect at least Marxism has achieved a unity of theory andpractice. No crisis has been so profound for Marxism, however, as the crisisbrought about by the collapse of Communism in Europe after 1989. With the disappearance after seventy years of the Soviet Union,the first workers' state and the first state to proclaim Marxism as itsofficial ideology, Marxism as a critical theory of society suddenly seemedrudderless, no longer relevant to understanding the present or providing a guideas to how society might be changed for the better. Marx at last was to bereturned to the nineteenth century where many suspected he had alwaysbelonged.