When Fidel Castro said earlier this year that communism had failed in Cuba, one might have thought the sun had finally set worldwide on the Marxist-Leninist ideology. But, despite Cuba's shaky economy and the fall of the Soviet Union and its satellite states nearly 20 years ago, one in five people on the planet still lives under communist rule. Single-party authoritarian communist governments still run five countries: Cuba, Vietnam, Laos, North Korea and -- most significantly -- China, with its 1.3 billion inhabitants. In addition, elected communist parties run the governments in Nepal and Cyprus, while communist parties are members of ruling coalitions in South Africa, Belarus, Brazil and six other nations. In Europe and elsewhere, modern communist parties are more centrist than their leftist ancestors. Academics still debate whether the threat of communism was overrated during the Cold War, whether President Ronald Reagan was responsible for the fall of the Soviet Union and if today's communist economies are sustainable.

Alex Kingsbury writes about national security and the intelligence community for U.S. News & World Report. He made several trips to Iraq in 2007 and 2008 to cover the Iraq War, and also has written about steroids in baseball, campaign finance reform and education reform. He holds a B.A. in history from George Washington University and a B.S. in Journalism from Columbia University.