THE story of communism is a long one to tell but here it will be told with great brevity.

The concept of communism as “classless, egalitarian society” dates to the ancient Greeks and Romans, and the many iterations from that point to the time of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. In his popular book, Communism: A History, Richard Pipes rattles off an impressive list of names he associates with the idea of communism, including poets Hesiod, Virgil and Ovid; philosophers Socrates, Plato and Aristotle; and in later years, the utopian St. Thomas More and many others.