The conventional wisdom after 1989 was that socialism was finished. Communist parties were ejected from power across eastern Europe, west European social democratic parties embraced neo-liberalism, and intellectuals wrote of the definitive victory of capitalism and the pre-eminence of the United States in a new uni-polar world order. Ten years later things look different: economic crisis has hit the world economy, communist parties and their successors have gained significant electoral support in the former Soviet Union and eastern Europe, and west European social democracy faces a growing electoral challenge from a new European left - regaining a political space occupied previously by communist parties. No analysis of the pattern of European politics into the new millennium can be complete without taking account of this developing trend.