The enemy of capitalism and now nearly extinct. Invented by Karl Marx, who predicted that feudalism and capitalism would be succeeded by the “dictatorship of the proletariat”, during which the state would “wither away” and economic life would be organized to achieve “from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs”. The Soviet Union was the most prominent attempt to put communism into practice and the result was conspicuous failure, although some modern followers of Marx reckon that the Soviets missed the point.