Communism: Ideology, History, and Global Impact

 

What Is Communism?

Communism stands as an economic and political ideology that directly opposes liberal democracy and capitalism by promoting a classless society where communal ownership replaces private property. This ideology, articulated by figures like Karl Marx, emerged prominently during the French Revolution and shaped nations such as the Soviet Union and China, altering global power dynamics.

 

How Communism Developed As a Political Doctrine

Communism is an umbrella term that encompasses a range of ideologies. The term’s modern usage originated with Victor d’Hupay, an 18th-century French aristocrat who advocated living in “communes” in which all property would be shared and “all may benefit from everybody’s work.”

The idea was hardly new, even at that time. The Bible’s Book of Acts describes 1st-Century Christian communities holding property in common according to a system known as koinonia. Thisinspired later religious groups such as the 17th-century English “Diggers” to reject private ownership.

 

The Impact and Ideas of “The Communist Manifesto”

Modern communist ideology began to develop during the French Revolution and its seminal tract, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels’ “Communist Manifesto,” was published in 1848. That pamphlet rejected the Christian tenor of previous communist philosophies, laying out a materialist and scientific analysis of the history and future trajectory of human society. “The history of all hitherto existing society,” Marx and Engels wrote, “is the history of class struggles.”

The Communist Manifesto presented the French Revolution as a major historical turning point when the “bourgeoisie,” the merchant class that was in the process of consolidating control over the “means of production,” overturned the feudal power structure and ushered in the modern capitalist era.

That revolution replaced the medieval class struggle that pitted the nobility against the serfs with the modern one pitting the bourgeois owners of capital against the “proletariat,” the working class who sell their labor for wages.

Marx, Engels, and their followers advocated for and predicted as historically inevitable a global proletarian revolution in the Communist Manifesto and later works. They stated that it would first usher in an era of socialism, then of communism.

As a popular Marxist slogan puts it, the Communist economy would function “from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.”

 

Communism in Practice: The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Union

Marx and Engels’ theories weren’t tested until after their deaths. In 1917, during World War I, an uprising in Russia toppled the czar, starting a civil war that led radical Marxists, led by Vladimir Lenin, to gain power in 1922. This group was called the Bolsheviks. It founded the Soviet Union on former Imperial Russian territory and attempted to put communist theory into practice.

Before the Bolshevik Revolution, Lenin developed the Marxist theory of vanguardism. This theory suggested that a small, elite group was needed to lead society to socialism and, eventually, communism.

After Lenin’s death, his successor Joseph Stalin led the “dictatorship of the proletariat,” conducting harsh ethnic and ideological purges and enforced agricultural collectivization. Stalin’s rule from 1922 to 1953 saw tens of millions die, alongside those who perished in the war with Nazi Germany.

This system of central planning enabled rapid industrialization and growth in Soviet gross domestic product (GDP) outpaced that of the U.S. from 1950 to 1965. The Soviet economy generally grew at a much slower pace than its capitalist, democratic counterparts, however.

Weak consumer spending was a particular drag on growth. Central planners’ emphasis on heavy industry led to chronic underproduction of consumer goods. Long lines at understocked grocery stores were a fixture of Soviet life even during periods of relative prosperity.

The Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 after attempted reforms, called perestroika and glasnost, aimed to improve the economy and allow more private enterprise and free expression. However, these reforms didn’t stop the economic decline of the 1980s and may have accelerated the end of the Communist state by weakening its control over dissent.

 

The Evolution of Communism in China

Mao Zedong’s Communist Party took control of China in 1949, after over 20 years of war against the Nationalists and Imperial Japan, making it the second major Marxist-Leninist state. Mao allied with the Soviet Union, but the Soviets’ de-Stalinization and “peaceful coexistence” with the West led to a diplomatic split around 1958.

Mao’s rule in China resembled Stalin’s in its violence, deprivation, and insistence on ideological purity. The Communist Party ordered the rural population to produce enormous quantities of steel during the Great Leap Forward from 1958 to 1962 to jumpstart an industrial revolution in China.

The same period’s Great Chinese Famine killed at least 16 million people and perhaps more than 45 million. The Cultural Revolution, an ideological purge that lasted from 1966 until Mao’s death in 1976, killed perhaps another 1.6 million people and subjected millions of others to political persecution.

After Mao’s death, Deng Xiaoping introduced market reforms that continued under later leaders. Meanwhile, the U.S. began normalizing relations with China when President Nixon visited in 1972, before Mao died.

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) remains in power, presiding over a largely capitalist system, although state-owned enterprises continue to form a large part of the economy. Freedom of expression is significantly curtailed and meaningful opposition to the reigning Communist Party isn’t permitted. It would take a miracle for the CCP to be ousted.

 

Communism and the Cold War: A Global Power Struggle

The U.S. emerged from World War II as the world’s richest and most militarily powerful nation. The country, if not all its people, felt a sense of exceptionalism and historical purpose as a liberal democracy that had just defeated fascist dictatorships in two theaters.

The Soviet Union, an ally against Germany and the only revolutionary Marxist state then, also emerged powerful. The two powers quickly divided Europe into political and economic spheres, which Winston Churchill termed the “Iron Curtain.”

The two superpowers both possessed nuclear weapons after 1949 and they engaged in a long standoff known as the Cold War. The closest the U.S. came to direct military conflict with the Soviet Union was the 1962 Cuban missile crisis.

The U.S. fought a long Vietnam War, supporting South Vietnamese forces against the North Vietnamese army and communist guerrillas backed by China and the Soviet Union. The U.S. withdrew from the war and Vietnam was united under communist rule in 1975.

The Cold War ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

 

Analyzing the Factors Behind Communism’s Collapse

There’s been extensive study of the reasons for communism’s failure but researchers have pinpointed a couple of common factors that contributed to its demise.

The first is an absence of incentives among citizens to produce for profit. The profit incentive leads to competition and innovation in society but an ideal citizen in a communist society was selflessly devoted to societal causes and rarely thought about their own welfare.

The second reason for communism’s failure was its inefficiencies, like centralized planning, which was complex and required extensive data aggregation and synthesis. Since all projects were centrally planned, this inefficient system compounded problems. Growth data was fudged or error-prone in several cases to make facts fit into planned statistics and create an illusion of progress.

The concentration of power in the hands of a select few also bred inefficiency and provided them with incentives to game the system for their benefit and retain their hold on power. Corruption and laziness became endemic features of this system. Surveillance such as that characterized East German and Soviet societies was common. It also disincentivized industrious and hard-working people. The economy suffered in the end.

 

The Bottom Line

Communism, a political and economic ideology advocating for a classless society and communal ownership, gained momentum with the works of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. While smaller communities have occasionally practiced forms of communal living successfully, large-scale implementation in countries like the Soviet Union and China involved authoritarian regimes that often compromised communist principles for power and control.

These implementations faced challenges such as lack of profit incentives and central planning inefficiencies, which contributed to their downfall. Some argue this demonstrates communism’s impracticality, while others believe these regimes deviated from the ideology’s true intent. Understanding these historical contexts is crucial for analyzing communism’s feasibility and implications in today’s political landscape.*