Communist History

tuvok, first of all, communism is a form of economics rather than government. In early Virginia, the "common kettle" approach was tried, that is, everyone pooled his resources into a common coffer. It was soon discovered, however, that some ended up supporting others who did nothing. At this point, a shift occurred to early capitalism. (another type economics).

Communism in Russia, was simply a ruse, since the government decided what was a luxury and what was NOT a luxury. It was, of course, a revolt against the monarchy of Tsar Nicholas.

My suggestion is that you explore the early forms of communism and then decide how that practice affected the government of any given country. Hope this helps, my friend.

I am still young about these things.
seems these two ideologies need to cooperate more than doubt each other and maybe they can form up a communism-capitalism world together. Anyway they both have inevitable flaws.
I believe the history is the most equitable :wink:

Letty is correct. In fact, all so-called 'communist states' never even claimed to be communist; they were socialist countries. Communism has so far only existed in primitibe tribes. Why not study their communal lifestyle?

I think you should start with one of the origins of communism:

http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/kropotkin/pcommune.html

The Commune of Paris
By Peter Kropotkin
I. THE PLACE OF THE COMMUNE IN SOCIALIST EVOLUTION
On March 18, 1871 , the people of Paris rose against a despised and detested government, and proclaimed the city independent free, belonging to itself.


This overthrow of the central power took place without the usual stage effects of revolution, without the firing of guns, without the shedding of blood upon barricades. When the armed people came out into the streets, the rulers fled away, the troops evacuated the town, the civil functionaries hurriedly retreated to Versailles carrying everything they could with them. The government evaporated like a pond of stagnant water in a spring breeze, and on the nineteenth the great city of Paris found herself free from the impurity which had defiled her, with the loss of scarcely a drop of her children's blood.

Yet the change thus accomplished began a new era in that long series of revolutions whereby the peoples are marching from slavery to freedom. Under the name "Commune of Paris" a new idea was born, to become the starting point for future revolutions.

Re: Communist History

I’m afraid I am too late to help you with your history project, even so I think I should reply just because many people here seem to know really nothing on the subject. Censorship, Secret Police and Nuclear bombs manufactured at amazing rates... Sometimes it is a bit funny to hear about the view of the former Soviet Union that existed and still exists in the West .

If I could answer what communism really is, it would be a thick book and I would become a prominent historian or expert in political sociology. However I will attempt to give you an answer and describe the Soviet type of communism though it will require a huge posting. My reply is going to fall into two parts.

1) On one hand, Letty is quite right:


That is, while the forms of government are classified, according to different characteristics, as unitary, federal and confederated states or absolute/limited monarchies and presidential/parliamentary republics etc., the idea of communism is opposed with the principle of free enterprise but not principles of any type of government.

As per the Marxists communism is an ideal of a classless society based upon public ownership of "means of production" (i.e. industries, resources etc.), with no exploitation, no state machine used by one section of the population to oppress another section, no need for professional armies or police forces and no use of production for profit. Such society runs in accord with the principle: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs”. This is what communists declare as their ultimate goal, but being an ideal such system never existed and can hardly exist in the real world. Until now here in Russia we use an expression “to live like under communism”, which does not mean experiencing any kind of oppression, as you might think, on the contrary it is used to describe people who want for nothing. We used to joke that communism is akin to the horizon line which retreats as you try to approach it.

Being unable to embody this ideal the Marxists claimed that they needed a long transition period between the “overthrow of bourgeois rule” and the development of a classless, communist society, which they called “Socialism”. They defined it as “a society run by the working class rather than the bourgeoisie, where the state machine is used to defend working class interests against those internal and external forces who still have wealth or power and who will attempt to return society to the capitalist system and bourgeois rule”. In distinction from communism the principle of socialism is: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his deeds”, in other words, under “socialism” people are paid wages based on several factors (social need, difficulty, amount of schooling required, etc.)

I have described the communist view of what communism is, which I think is a “need-to-know” for those who try to understand this phenomenon. Actually the key point of any communist (or more accurately – Soviet-type socialist) system is the “public ownership” with a tendency to diminish the power of money. It resulted in very strong social guarantees (almost free housing, free medicine and education, guaranteed employment etc.) and weakened competition, which itself is a driving power for improving quality of goods and services.

After having lived two decades in the Soviet Union I cannot say that it was an overall fiasco in economy. Quite the opposite it used to be very successful in certain areas that required sophisticated technologies and expertise. What was a complete failure that finally put an end to socialism in Russia was an attempt to organize retail sales as a unified structure to be directly managed from a ministry in the government. The Soviet Union succeeded in such things as developing academic science and launching space and suchlike programs but failed in the spheres of production and distribution of consumer goods.

The principle of “public ownership” was interpreted differently in various “communist” countries. In Central and Eastern Europe one could own a small workshop, a shop or a restaurant, which was possible only in very early and very late years of the Soviet Union. But for all the 70 years of its existence people used to buy food in markets from private merchants, what used to be restricted in countries like Cuba and North Korea (I heard that now Cuba has liberalized these limitations, and I have no info about N.Korea).
(to be continued )

Re: Communist History (Continued)
( Continued...)
2) On the other hand all “socialist” states developed a specific political system that was alike in many countries. This very fact makes it possible to single out a special type of “communist government” though one can argue whether this particular system was inevitable for the given economic model. I would say it is too simplistic to just call it a “totalitarian dictatorship” and think that it was kept afloat only because of merciless secret police and hard censorship. This is rather a cliché of the Cold war time than any true portrayal.

The government systems of most “socialist” countries were merely clones of the Soviet one (like government structure in Latin America at least formally resemble that in the US). First of all please bear in mind that the Soviet system in its turn emerged in very specific historic circumstances. Russia had a long tradition of imperial rule and in spite of the desire to “destroy the old world” the Russian communists borrowed from the Empire too many administrative models while building their “new world”. Second, you should understand that communists started after having won the war. They had popular support. Their opponents were defeated and fled. To oppose construction of communism in Russia was like advocating British rule after America gained independence or sponsoring dissolution of the union after the end of the Civil war in the US.

No doubt Stalin’s rule was a personal dictatorship while the Soviet system on the whole was not. After all “the cult of personality” was denounced by Nikita Khrushchev in mid 50’s, and the Soviet communist party officially condemned Stalinist atrocities. Somehow “strong men” were in power in many countries of the world over that period. On the whole the Soviet Union had some structural similarities with a government system operating under an established (i.e. state) church and much less with any kind of military administration. Formally the Soviet Union was a federation of national republics governed by the Soviets (Russian for “councils”), i.e. local and federal legislatures elected on the basis of universal suffrage. However the constitution of the Soviet Union contained an article that named the communist party as “the leading and guiding power” of the Soviet state. In practice it meant that all candidates were nominated in advance so we used to have “no choice elections”, and the relevant Communist party committee initiated every draft submitted to the Soviets. The true government of the Soviet Union was the “political bureau” of the communist party central committee. The head of the party chose to hold a post of either president of the Supreme Soviet (e.g. Brezhnev and Gorbachev) or Prime Minister (Lenin, Stalin and Khrushchev), which itself was a cause for confusion as to which of the two positions was the top one.

The Soviet communist party itself was not a political party in the western meaning. Normally political parties aggregate different social interests and are capable and willing to come to power in order to implement their vision of how to sort out certain problems (this is the principal difference between parties on one hand and trade unions or some lobbying groups on the other hand). The communist party of the Soviet Union could be viewed as a specific government institution or instrument but not a political movement. The communist party used to be much more involved in resolving current economic problems than any other party could imagine. The skills that were required from local and federal party leaders were rather skills of top industrial managers than those of politicians (I guess they must have looked gloomy alongside western leaders who were more accustomed to public relations than thinking of, say, pipelines technical parameters). In reality communist party committees were the true executive power, e.g. a regional party committee was indeed a local government.

The Soviet communist party had also some similarities with professional unions because all its “primary units” were basing on industrial and agricultural enterprises. The party assemblies were those events where rank-and-file communists could discuss all problems that arose at their working places. Practically anyone could apply for membership, but many were rejected for various reasons. Some people enrolled just because of their interest to public matters. After the collapse of the Soviet Union former communists appeared to share very diverse political stances.

For others party affiliation was seen as a way to administrative career. I remember my uncle, who was very cynical about communists, telling a story of his fellow worker whose candidacy had been rejected at first because they wanted more factory workers and he used to be an engineer. Then in order to be a member he gave a leather coat to the local party leader as a present, got associate membership and started looking forward to a promotion. “What kind of a party is it” – my uncle asked – “if membership require gifts?” At the same time my uncle respected his father very much, and his father was a dedicated communist. But he did not join the party for career, it happened at the wartime, when nazis would have killed him immediately among “Jews and commissars” if he had been taken captive and they had known he was a communist.
(to be continued )

SerSo, I am caught up in your survey of Communism. Waiting for the next chapter.

So am I. :wink: I'm taking notes.



Virago

The communist system is broken beyond repair. There are many examples of peolple who had tried to reform this system from withín. In each of those examples, without exception, the result was either the end of communism or, more often, the end of the reformer.

(Not sure if that helps with your assignment. Sorry.)

Interesting.

Karl Marx considered France the only nation capable (at the time) of a communistic social/economic order, as he considered a basic requirement to be an educated populace.

Does the PRC follow this governmental model?

I do not quite think so....
That is why they always claim "The Chinese Style Socialism" :wink:

My opnion is: The birth of Communism is the failure of Capitalism in China. Capitalism had chances, but many factors didn't allow it (Mainly was the western Imperialism at that time ). From Hongxiu quan to Kung Yuwei, then to Sun Yat-Sen, all failed

This might be the choice of history

That's what I thought.

Re: Communist History (Continued)

Re: Communist History (Part 3)
( Continued...)
Sorry for the delay with my “third chapter”, but please understand that I am not paid for posting to A2K, so I still do have to carry out my job responsibilities, and it took all my time the previous week.

I said that my answer re: communism would fall into two parts. The first one described the principals of the economic model and in my second posting I gave some details of the administrative system that actually existed in the Soviet Union. I tried to be as unbiased as I could. However I believe that the real history is not only factual data we can find in reference books, and personal feelings are no less valuable. Thus I would like to give my own opinion here, and it is up to you whether to throw it away or accept. This system in Russia is already a history for about 15 years, and now I am able to compare and make conclusions.

To be honest, if a magician had asked me to choose if I wanted to live my life now or return to the Soviet period I would have consciously chosen living in the Soviet Union I remember. I am far from idealizing it (I think you see it from my previous postings), I dislike the pressures against dissent, treatment of the neighbouring nations etc., though I do not think it all was absolutely inevitable. It is my personal choice, and I guess many people here in Russia would share it though many would not. It is not because I materially lost much, quite the contrary I am sure my own family became wealthier (unfortunately it is not true for many other families). The reason is the lack of freedom. Certainly the “real socialism” is not the best sample of human freedom, but I feel MUCH more constrained nowadays by efforts of those who have authority and money than it used to be “under communism”. I don’t know, maybe it is because people in power normally tend to impose their will in areas of practical interests (esp. financial ones) much more furiously than in some doctrinal dispute. This is true both in “big politics” (barefaced use of force in almost all conflicts) and everyday life (at work, in the streets, when dealing with some legal problems etc.).

I am not going to describe problems of the present-day Russia though. I am talking of the Soviet type of socialism. I cannot deny that the communists’ desire to limit the significance of money in human life used to have some positive effect: I received the education I wanted, and my prospects depended more on my examination results but never on what I could afford. The choice of my job based upon where I could reach my maximum potential and self-actualisation but not on what is available on the labour market and what salary they suggest. Professional development was not just your own problem because it used to be encouraged, and people were never afraid that their employers could squeeze them dry and then replace by young graduates, with whom they would repeat the same trick. No one humiliated others just because they are less successful financially and it was unthinkable to hear someone calling somebody a loser. People used to have more opportunity to communicate with friends, read books, go to cinemas or theatres or just relax and think. The Soviet political and economic system was inflexible and awkwardly responded to any challenges, but at least its official ideology, being like an established faith, declared respect for any labour and at least pretended to meet people’s needs.

Yes, we used to have censorship, though in order to face it one should have been either a prominent author or an open dissident. It was a stupid system because it only excited curiosity to “classified” writings etc. A rigid commercial approach has turned up to be a more practical tool: one first should think if he can afford spreading nonconformist ideas. Soviet censorship authorities used to disallow everything they disliked, but authors continued to work in hope that censorship could change up their mind some day. Now people are sacked immediately if they express views “that are not in line with the company’s policy”. Do not really know what of the two is worse...

Yes, we used to have secret police. (Name me a state where secret services do not exist!) The problem was that they persecuted anyone who openly opposed the state system. They did it because the state regarded anybody who dared to criticize it as a threat. Communists felt embarrassed when they were told that they did something wrong. Now the state seems to be ashamed of nothing, it is too powerful to get embarrassed. And in the event a challenge is serious, there is no need to incur dishonour on the government organizing dubious trials: there are so many methods to shut up somebody! Communists used to be very single-eyed and naïve in dealing with opposition to them...

Yes, we used to have unified economics. What it reminds me most of all is a huge corporation. Now I often call it within myself as “the Soviet Union Corporation”. (Tuvok, people were allowed to get fired. And if fired they were guaranteed another job.) If you can imagine a corporation that fought out all competitors in every business in the entire country and merged with a national government, you will get somewhat close to the Soviet Union.

This corporation had its own corporate culture, it was rather specific but not a culture of gangsters. It was a bankrupt because it failed to build mechanisms able to react to emerging problems and find adequate solutions. Born in the revolution it very soon turned out to be the most conservative structure imaginable. This system used to be really cruel at the first stage (until late 50’s) but what I personally remember was not more brutal than any other powerful state willing to achieve its objectives. When the Soviet media used to declare that official candidates gained 99% of popular vote at some elections this figure was not very far from the reality. The majority did not really feel oppressed. In the event the outcome was, say, 95% the regional party secretary was supposed to be kicked off. I am sure they doctored the election results under this threat, but not very much. I doubt it could be so easy to turn white into black.

That is all. If you have questions please ask and I will try to answer them.

fair post,

I love that