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Quentin Peel, International Affairs editor of the Financial Times, presents a two-part series looking at the communist regimes and movements orphaned by the collapse of the governments of the Soviet Union and eastern Europe.

China is an important focus for these programmes as Quentin probes the nature of its communism today and asks just how far Beijing acts as the new "parent" for communists around the world.

In Programme One, he assesses the present and considers how far other long-standing communist regimes - such as those in Cuba and Vietnam - are still truly communist.

He explores Hanoi's complicated relationship with Beijing, as well as China's interest in North Korea. In Africa, Angola, Mozambique and Guinea Bissau, together with Ethiopia, championed communism in the 1970s and 1980s.

Now new leaders have "rebranded" those governments. But what is their political stance?

First broadcast on 07 December 2009.