What Caused the Failure of Communism in Russia - Essay Example

Communism Running head: Russia WHAT CAUSED THE FAILURE OF COMMUNISM IN RUSSIA Communism 2 Abstract Communism first made its impact to the full in Russia after the Bolshevik Revolution. The totalitarian, socialist ideology of Karl Marx was practiced throughout Russia. It underwent a series of modifications: i.e. from Lenin's to Stalin's to Khruschev to Brezhnev until it reached the glasnost and perestroika of Gorbachev. But after 70 years, Communism collapsed. This paper will ascertain the various factors which brought about the downfall of Communism in Russia, analyze each factor and evaluate their effects on the reorganization of the political system in Russia. Introduction Communism made its grand entrance to the world in Russia after the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. The Russian radicals, the Bolsheviks led by Lenin, shoved out the moderate Mensheviks and imposed a totalitarian, socialist political ideology that completely obliterated capitalism and tsarist authoritarianism (Cohen,1980,p.42). Lenin, with Leon Trotsky as his main Communism engineer, adopted and modified the Communism concepts of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels as contained in The Communist Manifesto. In 1918, the Communist Party of Russia was formalized and in 1919, the Comintern or the Communist International was established to export the Communist ideology throughout the whole world (Wang,1998,p.71). Afterwards, private ownership was abolished and all private properties and industries came under the control of the state. Collectivisation of agriculture, prohibition of opposition and all basic freedoms including freedom of the press and religion and propaganda were the order of the Bolshevik rule and all facets of life whether political, social, economic or cultural were under tight Communism grip. The Stalin Era worsened the people's conditions as the Great Purge was Communism 3 set into motion immolating millions of Russians who threatened in any way Stalin's power and domination (Daniels,1985,p.173). The Russian economy failed to soar and instead plummeted during Khruschev, Brezhnev and Andropov's totalitarian rules. Gorbachev tried to revive an ailing communist government in Russia with his perestroika or rebuilding or reconstruction and glasnost or "being open to the public" but to no avail. The Russian satellites one by one declared their independence and the Iron Curtain was completely rent. Yeltsin was left with no recourse but declare the demise of the Communist Party and the termination of the USSR on December 8, 1991 (Leonard,2006,p.702). Causes of the Failure of Communism In Russia Communism in Russia was doomed right from the start. It cannot claim any legitimacy and any illegitimate government flirts with being eradicated at the most opportune time. The Bolshevik government can never claim to be legitimate right from the outset because it wrested power from the provisional government set up by the Russian Duma by illegitimate means. The Bolsheviks were just "a small, united band of revolutionary fanatics brilliantly led by Lenin" (Rabinowitch,2007,p.ix) who subverted the will of the majority by illegally imposing their own will by "undemocratic methods .i.e. rigged elections, terror, totalitarian state, harassment and threats" (Kehoe, 1988,pp. 25,32). The peasantry, which comprised 80% of the Russian population at that time were neither communists, socialists or of any political color but were plainly "hungry for more land and more food"(Grolier Universal Encyclopedia,1998,p.33) . The crafty tandem of Lenin and Trotsky pounced and capitalized on such hunger by promising them "peace, land and bread' and "all power to the Soviets" (Bagnall et al,2004,p.42) which were brazen hoaxes for after seizing power they concentrated power to themselves rather than the people and seized land and bread-making facilities in the name of collectivisation. There was no Communism 4 more peace with the reign of terror ruling the land. It is plain to see that the Bolshevik Revolution never had the support of the majority of the Russian populace and Communism's hold on the people was based only on coercion and brutal military force. As such it was an utter illegitimate government and Communism was rooted on shallow and weak foundation that was bound to be toppled over at the slightest turn of events. Conspiring with illegitimacy to cause Communism's downfall was the dismal economic failure during 75 years of Communism as well as the economic degradation of the population especially the peasantry. The Bolsheviks promised the peasantry non-confiscation of their landholdings, an exemption from the massive impounding of the landed estates of landlords, the monasteries and churches and the bourgeoisie. The Bolsheviks proclaimed that all these estates be "placed under the protection of local land committees and soviets of peasants". It also affirmed the "right of all citizens to cultivate land by their own labor" and that "the land is to be divided among the toilers according to local conditions" (Funk & Wagnall's Encyclopedia, 1995,p.37). They also promised the peasantry a cornucopia of plentiful food, progress and abundance virtually promising to transform Russia into a land of milk and honey as expressed in its slogan of "peace, bread and land". Instead during the era of Communism, the peasants were mired into depths of poverty and hunger as forcible collectivisation without exemptions were pursued. During the first stage of the Bolshevik regime, all harvests were appropriated causing starvation to the populace. With the accession to power by Stalin, collectivisation of agriculture was strongly pursued and the most productive of farmers, the kulaks were eliminated causing more wretchedness to the already suffering peasantry. To establish mammoth state-run and owned agricultural cooperatives, Stalin ordered the confiscation of homes, farms and other Communism 5 private properties (Gottfried & Reim,2002,p.45). With inefficient and uninspired farmers at the helm of agriculture, millions starved to death because of low productivity. Stalin also went into massive industrialization and forced people to generate production within allotted time resulting to unprolific and poor quality of productivity as well as 'diseconomies of scale' where workers exerted more energy, resources and time to propagate scant production. The emergence of Khrushchev failed to stem the tide of suffering of the Russian people. It was because he undertook ambitious but overly expensive projects such as his space programs that sent the first satellite i.e Sputnik into space; the first man, Yuri Gagarin; the first woman Valentina Tereshkova; the first dog, Laika. He also alienated the intelligentsia by incarcerating dissidents in psychiatric hospitals and turned off the Orthodox Christians and the Jews by closing more churches and synagogues (Kaiser,1976,p.478). Khruschev was aware of the suffering and disenchantment that he himself was quoted as saying that "You cannot put theory into your soup or Marxism into your clothes. If, after 40 years of Communism, a person cannot have a glass of milk or a pair of shoes, he will not believe that Communism is a good thing, no matter what you tell him"(Russ102402300/russ102402300-5.doc). With Brezhnev, the descent to economic degradation went unabated and with Gorbachev, everything had reached the pinnacle to economic hopelessness despite Gorbachev's efforts to salvage the economy by introducing perestroika and glasnost. The root of the problem had been so well entrenched that it was beyond redemption. Communist Russia's frenetic investments in the military technology, the space programs, the high-technology industrialism cannot be reconciled with consumer satisfaction and economic growth. The economy simply cannot keep pace with all the ambitious high-technology projects while Communism failed to inspire and motivate the Russian workers and bring out to the fore their creative talents. Because of the failure to stimulate growth and the Communism 6 failure to compete against Western countries in interstate commerce and trade, collapse of communism was just around the corner. With the dtente of the 70's and the penetration of communications between the West and Russia, Russians were made aware and were influenced by Western ideas. The knowledge that Western countries were prospering and developing by leaps and bounds and their citizens enjoying the fruits of their labor while they were stagnating and groaning under the weight of Communist strictures and suppressions made Communism anathema to most of them who blamed it as the cause of their suffering and the reason why they were in such a disadvantaged and miserable position. The Communists also promised equality to all but like all promises, this was also unfulfilled. Such bred disillusion and made them lose confidence to the Soviet leaders and to Communism as an ideology. Communism had generated and elevated a corrupt, elite class called the Politburo of the Communist Party which wallowed in affluence while the rest of Russian humanity got stewed in poverty and misery (Cole,1984,p.22). Another factor that contributed to the demise of Communism in Russia was the eradication and abolition of faith in an almighty God. Such destroys morality and virtues in men and instigates corruption and allows evil to permeate in society and infects the whole society which will further result to its decay. Even Communist China sneered at Russian style of Communism. Mao Zedong castigated Khrushchev for 'de-Stalinizing' Communism and in effect capitulating to capitalism and expressed his determination to concoct a communism apart from Russian communism. This was an amalgamation of Stalinist-Marxist-Leninist communism, Confucianism and influenced by historical Chinese revolutionary experiences and with a stamp of Mao's iconoclastic and combative personality (Bradley,2009,p.105). Mao felt that Russia was diverting Communism 7 away from the right track. Thus Mao decided to veer away from Russian centralization of power; unified collectivisation of agriculture; failure to engage participation of Russian youths; the bureaucratic elitism of the Politburo of the Communist Party and the post-Stalin liberalism, moderation and foreign policy of communing with the West. Perchance, Mao had thought of these as leading to nowhere but collapse of Communism. Thus, Mao launched the Great Leap Forward radical program and the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution which reversed all the above Russian Communist policies in China (Meisner,1999,p.178). Conclusion The collapse of Communism in Russia was inevitable. First it was rooted in a shallow foundation because it was an illegitimate government in the first place which never had the support of the majority of Russians but was merely propped up by brutal military force. Thus, when the economy nosedived to the deepest due to failure to compete with Western trade and commerce and was burdened by costly military technology arming and the space programs not to mention the corruption in the Party's Politburo, there was no way but down and out. Another factor was the failure to inspire and motivate the workers who were deeply disenchanted with Communism as an ideology partly because the repressive regimes had made them disadvantaged compared to their Western contemporaries who had enjoyed the fruits of their labor. Lastly the killing of God in Russia resulted to the death of morality and virtues in men and thus contributed to its decay and collapse. BIBLIOGRAPHY Bagnall, C., Armstrong, D. & McGonigle, J. (2004). Russia 1914-41. Heinemann. Bradley, M.P. (2009). Vietnam at war. Oxford University Press. Cohen, S. (1980). Bukharin and the Bolshevik Revolution. Oxford University Press Cole, J.P. (1984). Geography of the Soviet Union. Butterworths. Daniels, R.V. (1985). Russia: The roots of confrontation. Harvard University Press. Funk & Wagnall's Encyclopedia (1995).Russian revolution. Funk & Wagnall's, Inc., vol.23. Gottfried, T & Reim, M. (2002). The Stalinist empire. Twenty-First Century Books. Grolier Universal Encyclopedia (1998). Russian revolution and civil war. Grolier Universal Publications, vol. 17. Kaiser, R. (1976). Russia:the people and the power. Pocket Books. Kehoe, A.M. (1988). Makers of twentieth century Europe. Mentor Publications, Ltd. Leonard, T. (2006). Encyclopedia of the developing world. Routledge Meisner, M.J. (1999). Mao's China and after . Free Press. Rabinowitch, A (2007). The Bolsheviks in power. Indiana University Press. Wang, K.W. (1998). Modern China. Taylor & Francis. Read More