Formulation of the Problem Every political authority, both in democratic and undemocratic regimes, needs information in order to efficiently exercise the duties of governors or rulers, and reproduce the status quo to maintain power. However, there is a significant difference between democratic and undemocratic regimes with regard to information flow and with respect to how powerholders are kept informed. In this paper I intend to answer two questions: firstly, what factors, if any, influenced

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... formation flow under the communist regime; and secondly, the methods used by communist elites, those in charge of decision-making processes, to collect information to aid those decisionmaking processes themselves. I start my analysis by briefly enumerating the main sources of information used for governance in a democratic regime. Then, employing Niklas Luhmann's theory of social systems, I approach the problem of information flow in a communist regime, starting with the description of the communist system and the role of the Party. Afterwards, I will look at the communist economy and analyze its structure as well as the status of money (a means of exchange) and the failure of its role in the socialist market as an "informative device of society" (see Friedrich Hayek). Secondly, The sphere of formal organizations is then analyzed and how these organizations have replaced the institutions of civil society. In this section I will refer by and large to Edmund Wnuk-Lipinski's works on the monocentric mass society. I conclude the essay with brief enumerate Volume 17, 2001