The Genius of Communism - Essay Example

Introduction Communism is said to promote equality in ownership of property and factors of production within a society. It is a political and socioeconomic ideology that promotes a classless society. No one is supposed to be rich or poor and the factors of production are controlled by one entity which is the government. It is argued that it was an ideology formed by the proletariats who were against the ideology of capitalism. Karl Marx is highly known to contribute in this ideology for he saw that communism would definitely bring the class issues within societies to an end. According to him, communism would follow the second last stage which is socialism that would lead to a revolution by the proletariats in strongly refuting capitalism. According to Karl Marx, a society will practice communism if decisions on what to produce and the policies to promote the economy are made by everyone within the society. This means that a society is fully considered to practice pure communism if it has no class, state and there are free operations for every citizens (Karl Marx, 2001, pp. 120-140). Communism is not only considered to be part of the political entity but it is also seen as part of socialism and economics. The decision making process regarding the factors of production really affect the economic status of a country. When critically examined, communism is a solution to some problems brought about by practising capitalism. According to Marx, communism is the only way to solve the problems faced by proletariats who are the main producers within a society. Proletariats are the working class individuals who are considered to produce the largest amount of wealth within a society according to Marx. To stop their exploitation by the bourgeoisies who are the holders of the factors of production, a society needs to practise communism. The bourgeoisies are the main holders of the capital. The practise of communism will also reduce the racial segregation because it leans more in favour of the egalitarian concept. A country will be considered as a communist state if it ruled by one political party. It does not appreciate the works of democracy at all (Karl Marx, 2002, pp. 23-235). Marxist Manifesto The main agenda of Marx and other communist theorists like Engels had a plan to end capitalism by promoting the works of communism. According to Marx, communism promotes full freedom to humanity unlike capitalism that only promotes alienation within a society due to class formation. Communism looks at the agent; it refers to the proletariats or the working group of people. The obstacles are considered to be the divisions due to different classes, inequality in economic distributions, and unequal chances in life. The goals of communism are to ensure that human needs are fulfilled thus satisfaction at the work place and equal share of the profits or products. Communism is believed to allow people to practise and do what they want. More so, it conditions people not to have the urge to exploit each other (Karl Marx, 2002, pp. 23-235). According to Karl Marx, communism mainly evolved due to the unequal distribution of the factors of production. He believes that a time will come when the proletariats will win and a communist society will prevail. This means that there will be revolutions that will be against the social classes formed within a society and private ownership of property will slowly come to an end. Thus the factors of production will slowly belong to the community as a whole and not to one particular individual. According to his description of communism, an individual gives to the society according to his or her capabilities and there are no limitations of what one can engage in. According to his theory, the proletariats will form revolutions to fight for communism (Karl Marx, 2001, pp. 120-140). Why communism failed The Soviet Union is highly looked at when it comes to studying communism as it is known to appreciate the works of Karl Marx in promoting communism. According to Plekhanov in the early 19th century, Russia had a long way to go in experiencing a revolution by the proletariats. This is because it was less industrialised and urbanised as compared to other Western European countries. It would take so many years for the bourgeois regime to replace the Tsarism concept with the socialist then communist type of leadership (Francois, 2000, pp.320-429). Communism in Russia is said to have begun in 7th November 1917 when a revolution occurred in favour of communism. The Bolsheviks took over the powers of the state and they in deed used the theory of Marx in fighting against capitalism. The fact that Russia was experiencing extreme poverty rates in Europe, contradicted with the thoughts of Karl Marx. Marx believed that communism would be successful after a country had gained full development in capitalism. Russia had not at that time of the revolution gained any development of capitalism as it was characterised by high numbers of peasants, high illiterate levels and very few industrial workers. Though according to Marx, Russia was able to achieve the revolution without passing through the capitalist phase. More so, many communists and socialists had the belief that Russia would inspire other workers from Western Europe to revolt against capitalism. Though the Mensheviks refuted the Bolsheviks idea of moving to socialism without passing through the capitalist phase, was not successful as the Bolsheviks used a slogan that made them gain more popularity within the State. They advised people on the need to have peace, bread and land. The Bolsheviks also made the Russians believe that they would gain all the power, which made them gain more and more popularity. The Russians were dying to stop being involved in World War I and they needed the government to come up with strong policies on land reform methods (Francois, 2000, pp.320-429). Lenin Bolsheviks' government changed the government way of running things within Russia. This happened when the civil war was still on in Russia between 1918 and 1922. The government ensured that there was a policy imposed in supporting war communism and all the productive factors were also nationalised. This means that property belonged to the government and not to any individual. The transport networks like the rail roads and the industries were all under the control of the government. It reached to a point where the government could collect and distribute food to everyone within the society equally. This led to food rationing within the society. A new economic policy was declared by Lenin in 1921. The policy limited the capitalists place and time completely. This policy finally came to an end when John Stalin took over the government. He introduced a plan which led to the end of the new economic policy. The Russian civil war encouraged the Bolsheviks to form the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) in 1922. The parties in the union were in a hierarchical manner and more attention and ranking was given to countries which were really practising the rules of communism. Communism gained recognition after the Second World War. The republic of china adopted communism which later went its own way when it embraced some skills from capitalism; it is known as Maoism. Other countries such as Cuba, North Korea, Cambodia and Vietnam also adapted the communist way of leadership which later some countries let it go. The support given by Cuba to the USSR during the Second World War made the United State of America to form an anti Cuban campaign which was generally afraid of communism. Communism under Bolsheviks was not successfully because the communist countries were not able to form one party whereby every country adapted its own way of practising communism, like China which was Maoism. In 1980, most of the countries had adapted the communist strategy of leadership including china and the USSR (Donald, 2002, pp. 100-130). Before the Second World War, the communist entities were faced with one problem; modernisation. They were struggling to increase their industrial power. Industrialisation was realised when china and USSR finally became very powerful in industrial and technological entities. The two unions had gained high technology in arms and space machines which led to high levels of military conflicts. The gain of such knowledge highly posed a challenge to all capitalist practising countries such as America. The two entities; the capitalists and communists finally made the world to be divided in to two. Some countries supported the USSR while some supported America in promoting the works of capitalism. There was cold war whereby the Soviet Union show cased its machinery by trying to find out things from space whereby the Americans did the same thing. The Soviet Union was seen to have won in enhancing the works of communism as by 1945, it had influenced East Asia and most countries in Eastern Europe. The major fall of communism, as mentioned earlier was because the parties were not unified. For instance, after sometime, China formed Maoism, Yugoslavia formed Titoism moreover, and Albania went its own way in practising communism (Allan, 2001, pp. 233-245). The cold war was brought by the two economic giants; America and the USSR competing through propaganda against each other, making up of new weapons especially nuclear weapons and more so advancing in issues on space. The USSR in 1957, October, successfully put up the Sputnik which was the first satellite. As they were fighting using space issues, the Soviet Union was facing a lot of problems in terms of management. The Maoism of China broke away after refusing to adhere to the reconstitution of the Sino-Soviet by Khurhchew. This brought about rivalry between the USSR and China which led to the Chinese withdrawing their military help from USSR (Crossman, 2001, pp.200-220). As the cold war became more popular so did the communism movement seem to increase and become stronger and it brought about threats to America. The Soviet Union had become very powerful economically and technologically but the problem is that not all countries within the movement benefited. Some like China, Romania, Yugoslavia and Albania benefited from Moscow as it was advancing industrially. Some like Poland, East Germany, Czechoslovakia and Hungary became poorer as they did not benefit from Moscow. This is so because at that time the Soviet Union had concentrated on industrialisation and the provision of machinery products. The other poor countries had to offer agricultural products which were not in demand at the time. Thus economies like china concentrated in ensuring that the production of machinery was high thus exported their goods to Moscow. This imbalance of economic benefits led to countries like Hungary to become a mixed economy while Poland finally conducted a free election in 1989 (Karl Marx, 2001, pp. 120-140). Moscow also had its own thoughts about the Soviet Union strategies which were brought about by high education and health levels but poor quality and low quantity of human consumption levels. It did not concentrate on the essential needs of the people which were food, clothing, good road and communication networks. It forgot about the basic needs of the people as it concentrated in fighting for its rule by building up weapons and other machineries that were not considered as a necessity. This high concentration on machinery and weapons led to the Soviet Union experiencing a great fall in foreign currency due to huge the huge fluctuation in oil prices. This was happening in the 1980s when Mikhail Gorbachev took over the seat of the General Secretary (David, 1999, pp. 138-150). The state was ailing and he had to critically look in to the matter to ensure that he finally came up with the best policies. According to his research, Gorbachev concluded that the Soviet Union needed restructuring and he finally formed perestroika, an economic reform agenda for Soviet Union. The reform's main aim was to redirect the use of resources to benefit the citizens and not the Cold War military status. It allowed for foreign investment to take place, it reduced the quotas set on the system of production and people could now own businesses privately. Gorbachev was focussed in uplifting the ailing economic status of Soviet Union instead of continuing with the arms and space war with America. He did meet a lot of challenges due to his new reforms from other party members but o fight it he introduced the concept of freedom which led to the media being free in reporting any matter. It was called the glasnost reform which also made the state institutions to be more transparent as they carried out their duties. Communism had paved way for high rates of corruption as the entity was controlled by a particular group of people who would do anything to ensure that they gained power and wealth. The glasnost was simply introduced to decrease the levels of corruption within the Soviet Union. By using communism, there was so much abuse of power by the leaders of the Soviet Union. The people could not speak about their operations because they were not allowed. Thus communism promoted a lot of dictatorship forcing very many people to suffer silently in fear of being killed or jailed for simply fighting for their rights. The implementation of glasnost led to an increased proximity between the American and Soviet Union citizens (David, 1999, pp. 138-150). Talks were helped between America and Soviet Union to end the cold war session and to renew the economic status of the entities. This numerous talks on withdrawing from the use of nuclear weapons that were bound to lead to mass destruction made the tension between the two economies to subside. In November 1989, communism came to an end when the Berlin Wall fell. The Soviet Union agreed from signing the START I treaty that they would no longer control any nation or involve themselves with matters that belonged to any of their national allies. Gorbachev saw the need to unionise west and East Germany to end the results of communism. The Soviet Union lost its power completely and it was on the verge of collapsing after Gorbachev had implemented some of the strategies. In 1990, finally, the communist party surrendered after it weakened completely. This made very many nationalities to declare that they did not want to be part of Moscow thus the revolution saw that communism was no longer embraced by Poland, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria and Hungary. Romania will be remembered for fighting against communism violently as they executed the head of state (David, 1999, pp. 138-150). Criticisms of communism Communism is highly criticised by some economists like Milton Friedman and Ludwig von Mises because it hinders the growth of a state economically. This is because of its one particular policy that leads to states joining up together to form communist sates like the Soviet Union. Economic performance of some entities is completely swallowed up by the gigantic economies. For instance, the production of space and arms by the Soviet Union led to countries that were still in the agricultural stage of development to experience extreme poverty levels. This is so because they could not contribute to industrialisation in Moscow. More so, it contributes to laziness as it promotes socialism whereby when one person works, the benefits are shared equally to all individuals including those who do not simply want to work. This increases the dependency level that brings about high poverty levels. In addition, motivation is reduced as one knows even if they work hard, they are not able to accumulate more than what they are supposed to. Thus individuals become very reluctant in innovation and working for more. Communism also promotes poverty as a country will tend to remain in the same state of industrialisation as no one is willing to gain more skills. The feeling of satisfaction kills the thoughts of economic growth (Allan, 2001, pp. 233-245). Communism has been accused of high death rates and refugee movements. As the Soviet Union was busy concentrating on arms and space competition, the people were dying of hunger and freedom of expression. This made a lot of people from the Soviet Union countries to flee from their countries to seek better economic and peacefully entities. Despite the fact that communism fights for human rights, it is known to deprive people of such rights. This is so because it paves way for the leaders to be dictators thus impose some policies that are detrimental to the society (Crossman, 2001, pp.200-220). Conclusion Communism offers solutions to the problems brought about by capitalism but it has not worked fro many countries. It is seen to have worked in cube but the country has not been able to increase its economic status, the only way communism can work is by allowing freedom of press and putting up policies that will allow transparent governmental practices. Dictatorship needs to be ruled out while choosing communism as a way of leadership. Even though the government will make the critically decision, it is important to describe how long a leader is expected to rule and that the leader can be voted out if he or she does not focus on uplifting the economic status of the people. Equal profit sharing should be discouraged as the government needs to motivate other lazy citizens to work harder. It needs to form rules against vagrancy. References Allan T., 2001. The making and development of communism in china: The long march, published by Heinemann, pp. 233-245. Crossman R., 2001. The criticisms of communism: the God that failed, published by the Columbia university press, pp. 200-220. David S., 1999. Ruling elites from Gorbachev: the transition from communism to capitalism, published by St. Martin's Press, pp. 138-150. Donald F., 2002. Asia, Africa and America in communism: Communism in history and theory. Greenwood publishers, Pp. 100-130. Francois F., 2000. The idea of communism in the 20th century: The passing of an illusion. University of Chicago Press. Pp. 320-429. Karl Marx, Gareth Stedman, Friedrich Engels and Samuel Moore, 2002. Introduction to communism: The communist manifesto by Karl Marx, Gareth Stedman, Friedrich Engels and Samuel Moore. Published by penguin classics. Pp. 23-235. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, 2001. The history of communism: the communist manifesto, published by New Albion press, pp. 120-140. Read More