Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Has Any Nation Ever Chosen Communism?
I’ve been reading John Lewis Gaddis’s book The Cold War: A New History, and a question occurred to me that I’d never actually thought about before.
Communism, at least as formulated by Marx and pursued by Lenin, was supposed to be a natural consequence of the failings of capitalism. It was supposed to be the masses, the proletariat, overthrowing the small minority that was oppressing them. As such, it was supposed to be what would make life better for the vast majority of people.
But that made me wonder: has any democratic country ever voluntarily chosen a communist government? Not just socialist (we have plenty of those), but full-blown communist? If communism truly is for the people, you’d think it would be the obvious choice of the majority of voters.
But I can’t think of an example of a communist government that was put in place by the consent of a voting majority. In every case I can think of, communist regimes came to power either through violent revolution (Russia, Cuba) or through being installed or sponsored by a foreign power (most of the Eastern Bloc nations, North Korea). In each case it seems that a communist majority managed to seize power despite the wishes of the populace, and then had to use force to maintain their grip on power.
But I don’t claim an exhaustive knowledge of history. Has there ever been a case of a democratic country, in a free election, voluntarily choosing a true Marxist communist government?
Published in General
The Soviet Union never claimed to be communist. They claimed to be socialist. It was, after all, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics [Союз Советских Социалистических Республик (СССР)].
When communism arrived, it would be a matter of the government would no longer be needed and it would wither away. It is magical thinking. Communism and government are antithetical to one another.
Didn’t you attend you diamat (dialectical materialism) classes?
Um, I think that was God, not Peter. Are you saying God is a communist? ;-)
Yes, we called it communist while they called it socialist. I’ll bet there was an agenda or two at work.
There are so many flavors of socialist. They were a highly fractious bunch. Within Russia, there were Bolsheviks, Mensheviks, SRs (Socialist Revolutionaries) – which itself was fractured, the Jewish Bund, Anarchists. Similar situation in Germany.
This is my concern too. I’m sympathetic to @couldbeanyone in that I’d advocate deference to the Marx/Engles definitions, but it doesn’t really matter if that’s how the terms should be defined if nobody uses them that way. On the other hand, there are no useful de facto definitions that I’ve been able to identify. The vulgar distinction that communism is totalitarian and socialism need not be doesn’t foster informative dialog.
It’s been more than 25 years since I’ve read Marx, so I may get some of this wrong. While I recall the ultimate definition being what you suggest, that was one of my problems with Marx. His system wasn’t a way to achieve a desired outcome. His system was the desired outcome. It’s a carefully-detailed Utopian fantasy. To the extent that Communism is defined by achieving this Utopian end state, it’s absolutely correct that Communism has never been tried. Yet that’s an obvious cop-out that we can’t allow people to get away with. This begs for a definition of Communism that we can apply to the real world.
Nonetheless, I think we can look to Marx for some of the distinctions between Socialism and Communism. Socialism was a stepping stone on the way to Communism. Communism lacked both private capital and government. All capital resources would be used for the benefit of society under the management of the most capable. Socialism, on the other hand, was characterized by representative government with universal suffrage, and retained some of the trappings of capitalism. Capital could be owned by the state, or privately held and heavily regulated (controlled) by the state.
If we consider this, it could be both reasonable and useful to characterize the Soviet Block and Mao’s China as communist. Even though it was clearly a situation of the government owning the capital, it’s clear that the party was not representative government and ruled under the pretense that they were managing that capital for the social good. Some of them even believed it.
On the other hand, I think the Paris Commune and Chavez’s Venezuela are better described as socialist. They at least started off as representative, and most capital remained privately owned, even if there were no limits on the government’s control over that property.
I don’t think it’s fair to describe Sweden as socialist. Yes they have high tax rates, but they’re way too hands-off their business community to classify with the likes of Venezuela. It’s fun to spout off about those Scandinavian Socialists, but it just confuses the issue.
I make no pretense about these being definitive definitions of Communism and Socialism, but it’s how I tend to think about them.
Thanks @brianwolf . I wasn’t aware of this bit of history. Did Georgians retain any other ownership of capital, or was it limited to farmland?
That’s absurd. We have free and fair elections, two parties, and peaceful transfers of power. Every Communist nation had one-party dictatorship with sham elections. We have trial by jury, not show trials. We have freedom of speech, a free press. We can jokingly call the NY Times “Pravda on the Husdon,” then ignore it and get our news from hundreds of other sources. Soviets literally had Pravda, and the only alternative was to try to tune into Voice of America.
If you speak to an actual Marxist, they will tell you that democracy is a sham, that a small elite of wealthy (the “one percent”) manipulates public opinion through their control of the media and advertising, then use campaign donations and other forms of influence to buy up all the politicians. They rig it so there’s no real difference between the two parties, and no matter how the people vote, the elites always get their way in the end. Thus a revolution to overthrow “the system” is the only way to wrest power from the elite and return it to “the people.”
What I find increasingly disturbing is how closely this narrative mirrors the rage against “The Establishment” by more and more voters who call themselves conservatives… thoroughly Marxist ideas are sprouting up in the most unexpected places these days…
In socialism, the government regulates the way assets get used and heavily taxes the proceeds to distribute the income.
In communism, the middleman is eliminated. Assets are seized by the government and run by the government.
Yes they did the nobles retained their houses and their money at first. The Noah Jordania the first President of Georgia, and a communist, intended to educate the people out of their ignorance and teach them to give up their land and money for the benefit of all. He thought it might take one generation to do that. However he also put into place tools of oppression and the Regular Army of Georgia was over taken in size and strength by a People’s army loyal to the party alone. Other preparations that look sinister in the light of history were also made but they were never really employed against anyone but a few Bolsheviks. If the Red Army had stayed out of Georgia the Communist revolution there would have be very interesting to see play out and may have been the only example we could have had of Communist revolution carried out peacefully.
That is wrong. Peter didn’t kill them. God did, and it wasn’t for keeping a profit. The passage explicitly states that they had no obligation to give everything to the church. They were killed for lying about their giving, claiming they gave all they had.
It’s really not. In communism, the central authority takes from whoever has wealth and distributes it.
In acts, people just gave when they saw the need. No authority compelled them.
If I had a dollar for every person, pro- or anti-Communist, who I’ve encountered referring to this biblical example of communism as communism, I’d not have enough to buy the new camera I want but it would get me close. Most of these people will also point out the important distinctions between the two types, but some don’t and will use this example as justification for Marx-style communism.
And in the Acts story, people weren’t just giving when they saw the need, but were selling everything they had and giving it to the church leaders. You are right, of course, that the wrong for which Annanias and Saphira were punished was not the act but the coverup.