Critically Evaluate Three Different Political Ideologies of Communism, Socialism, and Fascism - Essay Example

No. 12345 Political Ideologies ABC of XYZ Department of LMN 13 December, 2009 Table of Contents Contents Page No Introduction 03 Communism 03 Origin and Brief History of Communism 04 Education in Russian Communism 06 Socialism 07 Origin and Brief History of Socialism 07 Education History in Socialist British 09 Fascism 10 Origin and Brief History of Fascism 11 Education under German and Italian Fascism 11 Works Cited 14 Student Name Professor ABC Political Ideologies 13 December. 2009 Introduction The modern politics has gained a significant effect from the French Revolution as its post revolution effects created number of political ideologies which have developed into a general familiarity almost throughout the world. During the last quarter of 18th century and in the beginning of 19th century, most of the European societies, particularly French society were facing many social and cultural changes as well as many rising rational thoughts. Ideologies of communism and socialism influenced all facets of European societies. Later on these emerging Ideologies turned into a source of power. Primarily the political ideologies of the late 18th century were the basis of modern political science. This paper deals the three political ideologies that are communism, socialism, and fascism. The paper states the basic theme behind these ideologies as well as it discusses the historical background and origin of socialism, communism and fascism in different parts of the world. The important feature of this paper is to critically analyze the working of educational systems under above mentioned school of thoughts. Communism Communism is actually a political ideology that deals with the common control of control of economy in the society. Communism is derived from French word “commun” means common or general. Communism can be stated as a revolutionary socialism based on the theories of the political philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engel emphasizing common ownership of the means of production and a planned economy (Hutchinson Encyclopedia, 1996). Communism is a contemporary political movement that focuses to defeat the capitalism through revolution and therefore, create an egalitarian culture in which the entire financial system is owned by the general public. Karl Marx declared it as the last phase of human society that would be succeeded through a grassroots revolution (Walicki, 1995). The principle held is that each should work according to its capacity and receive according to their needs. The difference between “communism” itself and working towards communism is same as the difference between constructing and living in a house. In fact, the ideal communist state of USSR never claimed of achieving the communism in true sense. Practically what ever had been done in Russian state that was an endeavor to do the work required to establish a communist culture. In political point of view, communism pursues to bring down the capitalism via proletarian revolution. Origin and Brief History of Communism After the revolution of 1917, the first communist state was the Soviet Union. Like USSR, revolutionary socialist parties along with allied groups integrated to establish communist school of thoughts in other countries. During the post World War-II era, the communism was imposed on all those nations that were captured by USSR. After 1961, China came into sight as a challenger of the USSR in the world’s communist leadership while other countries tried to implement communism according to their own needs. More individual liberty trends were seen in many communist countries during the late 1980s, which ended culminating in the eradication of communist rule in Magnolia and Eastern Europe and further state authoritarianism in China. The unsuccessful hard-hitting rebellion against President Gorbachev in the USSR resulted in the effectual rejection of communism there. In the Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels proposed the theory about the human society that faced consecutive periods of slavery. According to Karl Marx, capitalism had become a social and financial obstacle to development of human society and considered necessary to be substituted by an autocracy of the proletariat which would build up a socialist society. During the 2nd half of 19th century, the European social democratic parties perceived to be Marxist but despite of implementing the radical social change visualized by Marx, they steadily initiated the aim to reform the capitalist societies. However, The Russian Social Democratic Labor Party led by Lenin remained Marxist. After the 1917 revolution, the party changed its name to Communist Party to underline its distinction from Social Democratic parties. The joint foundation of feudalism was still strong in Russia and Lenin and Stalin were competent to bring about the communist system easily. Communism revolution was lead and completed by Mao Zedong in China in 1949. Soviet Union and China both adopted firm strategies to maintain their established communism in their neighborhood countries i.e. USSR tried to impose its orthodox communism in Hungary and Czechoslovakia while China enforced its own communism in North Korea and Vietnam. Many communist parties in capitalist countries, for example, Japan and the Euro-communism of France, Italy and the major part of the British Communist Party, have since the 1960s or later rejected Soviet dominance. A great expansion political and economic freedom was observed during 1980s in Eastern Europe. The USSR remained a single party orthodox and other Warsaw Pact countries moved towards an end to communist rule and its replacement by free elections within more democratic political system. Other manifestation of communism have included Libya’s attempt to combine revolutionary socialism with Islam and the devastation of Cambodia by the extreme communist Khmer Rouge 1975-78. Latin America has suffered from the US fear of communism with the democratically elected Marxist regime in Chile violently overthrown 1973 and the socialist group of Nicaragua involved in a prolonged civil war against US backed guerrillas. In 1991, the British Communist Party with 6300 card holders changed its name to the Democratic Left. The red and black logo was replaced by a red (traditional), purple (suffrage), and green (environmental) one. Education in Russian Communism After the Russian Revolution of 1917, the whole education system in Russia was based on the ideologies of the German philosopher Karl Marx. Marxism believes that a person should attain its liberty by giving up self benefits to do well to the state. Although, from a democratic approach, this theory highlighted an ostracized form of government; however, it made communism a proficient educational guide. Russian communism remained active for 74 years and during this period, it had established one of the most standardized and centralized education system of the world. Before the communism rose in power, just 30% of the Russian population was educated. At that time, there were only 105 higher learning institutes in USSR. Lenin took revolutionary steps in 1921 by imposing 04 years of compulsory primary education throughout the country and 07 years of education in all big towns. Under this order, the literacy rate reached 81% within just 09 years. The Institute of Educational Research in Moscow presented a unique "metod proektov" i.e. a project method of teaching. Under this project, children were encouraged to join industrial units to support the labor. The project was banned in 1931 by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, as they considered it unhealthy in conveying skills and knowledge to reinforce the concept of communism and to improve the industrialization. During the two decades of 1920s and 1930s, the communist leaders of USSR recognized that liberal curricula were shaped to prop up the individual’s growth. Therefore they also encouraged the liberal teaching methods during that era. Stalin kept rigid control over education policy including curricula, literature and teaching methods. Under communism, educational institutes forced to remain obedient, sincere, and loyal to the political ideology of the nation. Socialism Socialism is a political ideology that aims to establish a classless society by substituting public for private ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange. The term “socialism” has been used in broader sense to express the positions of social democracy and anarchism. The main focus of socialism is on social welfare and social equity. Unlike communism the socialism concurs with market system which is fundamental to establish the demand and delivery of essential goods. Contrary to capitalism in which the rich community gets richer and the poor to get poorer, the socialism reduces the gap between two communities as much as possible. Origin and Brief History of Socialism The word “Socialism” is derived from French word “Socialisme”. Socialist ideas appear in classical times; in early Christianity as well as in 18th and 19th centuries were put forward as systematic political aims by Jean-Jacque Rousseau, Claude Saint-Simon and Robert Owen. In the last quarter of 18th century and in the beginning of 20th century, a division was observed between those who opposed Marxism and those who focused on the original revolution. The ideas of socialism have been existed since ancient times in the thoughts of Plato and Aristotle (http://www.economictheories.org), but the term “Socialism” and “Socialist” appeared during the 4th decade of the 19th century by Pierre Leroux, and Robert Owen in France and Britain respectively. Ancient and early socialism was observed as an additional aspect of orthodox liberalism in which freedom and human rights were granted to the economic aspect of life while the contemporary concept of socialism is associated with the expansion of industrial capitalism. The initial modern Europeans who criticized the excessive inequality and poverty of the industrial revolution were Charles Fourier, Louis Blanc, Pierre-Joseph, Robert Owen, and Saint-Simon. Marx is regarded as the founder of scientific socialism for a working-men’s movement. As a youth he displayed signs of intellectual brilliance and achieved distinction in his university studies at Bon and Berlin. Marx believed that effective remedies for social and political ills could be devised by neither abstract reasoning nor the imaginative fashioning of fine social ideals. For the appropriate remedies at any given time depend upon the special basic conditions of a then existing social order. He considered the progress of mechanical invention. The resulting development of the capitalist system with its special rules for fixing prices and wages and the accompanying segregation of the whole people into two opposing classes i.e. the owners of the machines and raw materials of production against all others, the latter able to maintain their existence by laboring with these machines and materials under conditions set by the former. He soon arrived at the main tenets of his socialism and spent the rest of his life in efforts to elaborate their theoretical and historical foundation and persuade the workers of Europe to adopt and apply them. The Russian Revolution took socialism from sphere of theory to that of practice and was followed in 1919 by the foundation of Third International which completed the division between right and left. The short-term victories against France and Spain during 1936-38, supported the rise of Fascism and Nazism in Germany. During the late 19th century, socialist parties came into power in most European countries e.g. the Independent Labor Party in Britain. This period when in Russia the Bolsheviks were reviving witnessed a reaction against Marxism. Education History in Socialist British The Church of England was responsible for the educational system in UK during the 19th century. Later on compulsory free education was established during late 19th century. A brief history of the British education is explained in the table below. Century &Year Education 18th (1757) Sunday School Movement was established by Robert Raikes Most schools focused on grammar in Latin and Greek languages 19th (1831) Sunday School in Great Britain was ministering about 25% of the population. 1833 Parliament successfully voted to build new schools for children belong to poor family 1870 The Forster Elementary Education Act was imposed to provide education in remote areas. 1880 The Elementary Education Act 1880,enforced every citizen to attend compulsory education for 5-10 years (Lincolnshire School Resources Genuki.org.uk) 1891 The Free Education Act 1891 which bounded the government to provide 10 shillings per week to the needy students 1897 The Voluntary Schools Act 1897 which provided grant to private elementary schools 20th (1902) The Balfour Education Act 1902 who took the share responsibility of the school boards 1918 The Fisher Education Act 1918 under which secondary education was compulsory up to 14 years. 1944 The Education Act 1944 defined the modern division between primary and secondary education. 1979-1997 Under New Vocationalism from1979 to 1997, The Youth Opportunities Program was the main scheme, offered to 16 to 18 year olds. 1980 The Assisted Places Scheme which provided financial support to the students which could not bear the expenses 1988 The Education Reform Act of 1988 included The National Curriculum, National curriculum assessments, Formula funding and League tables 1997 Labor party mantra was “Education, Education, Education” 1998 The Beacon Schools program was established in UK 2007 Education Secretary Alan Johnson announced the plan to extend the school leaving age up to 18 years by 2013. Fascism The definition and recognition of fascism as well as the fascist governments remained an eternal disputed issue that resulted in complex and controversial deductions. An everlasting infuriated discussion has remained alive among the political leaders, historians, researchers, and other scholars about the exact nature of fascism (James. 2002). The following few scholarly definitions show the distinction of each definition of Fascism that may be too vast or too narrow simultaneously. Roger Griffin (2003) writes: “The core mobilizing myth of fascism which conditions its ideology, propaganda, style of politics and actions is the vision of the nations imminent rebirth from decadence.” Robert Paxton (1990) writes: “…a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation or victim-hood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion.” Fascism is actually a type of extreme nationalism which remained popular only in 20th century. Fascism originates from Latin word “fasci” which means bundle, a symbol of unity. The theme behind the idea can be assumed from the children’s story in which single piece of yarn is effortlessly broken while a bundle of threads remain solid. Fascism is the result when only few million people take this story seriously. Generally under the influence of a magnetic fascist leadership, a country remains sturdy and integrated in vision, strength and heart. Under Fascism, there is room only for a single national party with a single ideology. Thus by analyzing critically it can be deduced that Fascism is exceptionally right wing. Origin and Brief History of Fascism Most accounts of Fascism relate its advent to the manner of operation of parliamentary government in Italy during the sixty-odd years preceding the Fascist coup of October 28, 1922. In 1861, the several states occupying the Italian peninsula were merged into a kingdom of Italy, King Victor Emmanuel of Piedmont becoming king of Italy and the Piedmont constitution becoming the constitution of Italy. This constitution provided for parliamentary government of the English type. Although it did not in set terms make cabinet ministers responsible to the elective chamber. It was so interpreted by those who put the system into actual practice. The administrative system set up in the new kingdom was copied generally from that of France. Thus a country that since medieval times had been covered by mutually independent states alike in having autocratic governments, but with varying political traditions was first under a system of responsible government, borrowed from a country of long experience with representative institutions and then given a system of centralized administration and uniform local government borrowed from a country that had been politically united and administratively centralized for several centuries. The fascist movement began in the critical period immediately after the World War when chaotic conditions created formidable difficulties for any government. Italy at this time exhibited in an exaggerated degree. Education under German and Italian Fascism During the 20th century, between communism and capitalism, Fascism distinctly encouraged its ideology as a Third Position (Morgan. 2003). Corporatism was implicated in Italian Fascism Movement in which financial and education systems were jointly dealt at national level by the government officials and the workers (Jonathan & Derek. 2002). Fascism activated a new national educational system which was marked as National Socialism or National Corporatism (Payne. 1983). All the fascism movements like Italian and Nazism in Germany emphasized on the self-rule or the establishment of extensive capitalism. Fascism governments adopted distinct educational policies from the communist countries in which educational institutes were controlled but not nationalized (Payne, 1996). However, on the other hand, the main aim behind the economic and educational policies was the same i.e. to strengthen its internal unity and extension of its ideology. Both fascist states of Italy and Germany put their best to establish their self-sufficiency by applying significant economic planning but both failed to do so. Under Hitler’s regime, the educational system focused on racial biology, culture and physical sciences. Anti-Semitic policy of German Fascist government resulted in the removal of Jewish teachers and professors from the education system. In order to get employed in any university, the professors were required to be a member of the National Socialist Association of University Lecturers (Pauley. 2003). During this period (1933–1945), indoctrination of Nazi ideologies remained a part of education curriculum but the basic education structure remained the same. Weimer Republic launched a 4-year free elementary school education plan after World War I. the students who had the capacity to pay a small amount of fee went for Intermediate schooling that was composed of more challenging syllabus. The students were allowed to enter the secondary level education by qualifying the entrance test after 4 year education. After passing several decades, the German nation is still under the effect of Fascism. The recent governments have done the following developments during last couple of decades. Practical approach of teaching Bilingual education in few subjects Transfer of shared responsibility both on ministry of education and local schools Like some other western countries. introduction of afternoon classes (Table 1: % of education levels) Education Levels / Year 1970 1982 1991 2000 Hauptschulabschluss (least education) 87.7 % 79.3 % 66.5 % 54.9 % Realschulabschluss (until grade 10) 10.9 % 17.7 % 27 % 34.1 % Abitur (university level) 1.4 % 3 % 6.5 % 11 % (Source: wikipedia.com) In Italy, the education system exists since 1859 when Legge Casati devised the education responsibilities for the upcoming Italian Fascism Movement that started in 1861. To reduce the illiteracy rate, The Casati Act declared the primary education as compulsory. The law produced great results that primary education to each and every town, secondary education to all the counties and university education at state level, ultimately the illiteracy rate which was about 80% in 1861 reduced to less than 40% in just 70 years. Works Cited Communism, Hutchinson Encyclopedia, 1996 Davies. Peter Jonathan and Lynch. Derek (2002). The Rout-ledge Companion to Fascism and the Far Right Gregor. A. James (2002). Phoenix: Fascism in Our Time. Transaction Publishers Griffin. Robert. (2003). The palingenetic core of generic fascist ideology. Chapter published in Alessandro Campi. pp. 97–122. http://www.economictheories.org/2008/10/aristotle-and-plato-communism.html Lincolnshire School Resources Genuki.org.uk Morgan. Philip (2003). Fascism in Europe . 1919–1945. Taylor & Francis. p. 168. Pauley. Bruce F. (2003). Hitler. Stalin and Mussolini: Totalitarianism in the Twentieth Century. 2nd Edition. Wheeling. Illinois. USA: Harlan Davidson Inc. p. 118-119. Paxton. Robert (1990). The Anatomy of Fascism. Vintage Books Payne. Stanley G (1983). Fascism. Comparison and Definition. University of Wisconsin Press Payne. Stanley (1996). A History of Fascism. Rout-ledge. p.10 Walicki, Andrzej (1995). Marxism and the leap to the kingdom of freedom: the rise and fall of the Communist utopia. Stanford, Calif: Stanford University Press. p. 95 Read More