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Oh i'm pretty certain that the Chinese people privately want a democratic form of govt. And if they had the option to choose between the two, they would choose democracy over CCP rule. Which is why they arent given the choice.
If "they" really wanted one they could make the country ungovernable in a hurry. The people that want one, I suspect, mostly emigrate.
Communism as a brand was historically fortunate that it first took root in Russia.
In 1917, the Russian Empire was so underdeveloped and backward that communism could hardly fail to improve on the Tsar's management of things in demonstrable ways. It is a well-known phenomenon that greater gains can be had the worse the present. The D-student can improve their grades more than the B-student. High-crime areas can reduce crime at more precipitous rates than comparatively safe areas.
Note that this contradicted Marxist theory, which stated that wealthy, fully-industrialized states would be the cradle of communism. But a curious tendency of communism was to be at the same time extremely dogmatic and quite flexible when reality failed to match the dogma.
Anyway, the Bolsheviks come and begin to make simple improvements. One of the first things they do is teach everyone to read. This is a fairly simple thing to do, and a literate populace is going to be more productive than an illiterate one. That is also made the people subject to written propaganda was a useful side effect, too. Then, industrialization. This produced tangible improvements in the way of life. This, too, was a relatively simple thing to accomplish, as the Western world had already mastered the details and they could simply be imported - something Ford Motor Company (and Henry Ford specifically) and General Electric, among many other American (and British) industrialists and corporations were happy to do, but in material terms and in consultancies. This was all relatively low-hanging fruit. It amounted to great social strides. And the propaganda value is hard to overstate.
In the end, communism's fertile ground - where it had a significant degree of organic local support (as opposed to the places where it was simply imposed from outside, as in Eastern Europe, among other places) - were places that were very backward or terribly corrupt. The problem arose in mature, developed communist societies, the epitome of which was of course, the Soviet Union. It could not compete with its free market, liberal democracy counterparts. Communism could violently, and with an inordinate amount of collateral damage, wrench dysfunctional places into a moderate state of development. But it could not, due to its inherent limitations, achieve what was wrought in the crucible of competitive markets with freely-exchanges ideas.
In short, communism satisfied the needs of enough people so desperate that they were willing to accept (or ignore, or deny) its drawbacks enough that it was able to get a foothold, but a) it could go no further, and b) the world caught up with it and it really had no places left where it might catch hold. The only places it holds on now are communist legacy states where a foothold was had before its time in the sun came and went and has managed to cling. And in those places it has either abandoned even much of its core principles, is barely managing, or both.
Finally, I'll note that this thread is infested with those far more interested in virtue-signaling than in actually understanding why the communist threat was so pernicious.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by 2x3x29x41
Communism as a brand was historically fortunate that it first took root in Russia.
In 1917, the Russian Empire was so underdeveloped and backward that communism could hardly fail to improve on the Tsar's management of things in demonstrable ways. It is a well-known phenomenon that greater gains can be had the worse the present. The D-student can improve their grades more than the B-student. High-crime areas can reduce crime at more precipitous rates than comparatively safe areas.
Note that this contradicted Marxist theory, which stated that wealthy, fully-industrialized states would be the cradle of communism. But a curious tendency of communism was to be at the same time extremely dogmatic and quite flexible when reality failed to match the dogma.
Anyway, the Bolsheviks come and begin to make simple improvements. One of the first things they do is teach everyone to read. This is a fairly simple thing to do, and a literate populace is going to be more productive than an illiterate one. That is also made the people subject to written propaganda was a useful side effect, too. Then, industrialization. This produced tangible improvements in the way of life. This, too, was a relatively simple thing to accomplish, as the Western world had already mastered the details and they could simply be imported - something Ford Motor Company (and Henry Ford specifically) and General Electric, among many other American (and British) industrialists and corporations were happy to do, but in material terms and in consultancies. This was all relatively low-hanging fruit. It amounted to great social strides. And the propaganda value is hard to overstate.
In the end, communism's fertile ground - where it had a significant degree of organic local support (as opposed to the places where it was simply imposed from outside, as in Eastern Europe, among other places) - were places that were very backward or terribly corrupt. The problem arose in mature, developed communist societies, the epitome of which was of course, the Soviet Union. It could not compete with its free market, liberal democracy counterparts. Communism could violently, and with an inordinate amount of collateral damage, wrench dysfunctional places into a moderate state of development. But it could not, due to its inherent limitations, achieve what was wrought in the crucible of competitive markets with freely-exchanges ideas.
In short, communism satisfied the needs of enough people so desperate that they were willing to accept (or ignore, or deny) its drawbacks enough that it was able to get a foothold, but a) it could go no further, and b) the world caught up with it and it really had no places left where it might catch hold. The only places it holds on now are communist legacy states where a foothold was had before its time in the sun came and went and has managed to cling. And in those places it has either abandoned even much of its core principles, is barely managing, or both.
Finally, I'll note that this thread is infested with those far more interested in virtue-signaling than in actually understanding why the communist threat was so pernicious.
Actually we we were doing fine with the 'history' part, at least until ending with our own rather 'ironic' bit of 'virtue signaling' (...lol)! But even if one disagrees with your 'judgement', still agree with the overall thrust, that Russian Communism responded to a 'need', and everyday folks were comparing it to all they ever knew, and all they ever had.
Communism as a brand was historically fortunate that it first took root in Russia.
This is a truly excellent post that explains a lot. Marx posited that the "working class" in Britain had a high revolutionary potential. I think you hit on why it doesn't and the Russian peasantry did. This also means that Communism is self-defeating. I would like that to be the case but in the PRC it seems doggedly persistent.
Communism never took hold in the kinds of countries Marx and Engels thought it would - the most advanced, developed economies. But those countries had a sizeable middle class. Communism was never popular where there was a robust middle class.
Instead, it took hold in countries were there was not a middle class to speak of, only elite ownership classes that made up <5% of the population, and the rest some sort of peasants. Russia, Latin America, Asia before development. These are exactly the countries Marx thought it would never work, because according to his theories, Russia was still in the feudal stage of development, two stages too early to transition to communism. Marx said communism was inevitable; as the capitalists got more efficient, more successful, the worse it would be for their workers and the faster the revolution of the proletariat would occur. But decades after Marx's death, communism seem not to be gaining much steam; the working classes were not creating a consciousness. Why was it not happening? That frustration was indeed the central question of Vladimir Lenin's 1902 pamphlet Что дѣлать? [What Is To Be Done?] His answer was that the Revolution had to be put into the working classes by a political party.
The existence of a middle class as a bulwark against communism, and protecting that middle class from slipping into poverty en masse especially in recessions, proved Otto von Bismarck correct: the way to defeat socialist and communist agitation is to take away the source of their agitation.
To circle back to the question, I don't think there are many people who find communism desirable. Maybe 5% or so would even consider the idea.
If you make sure your middle class stays middle, and provide for clear paths to the middle class for those not in it, you won't have a communist problem. Start letting your middle class become poor and problems are going to start happening, especially if at the same time you do something stupid like get into an ill-advised war and lose. Then you give the Lenins of the world an opening.
I will note that North Korea is not communist. It's an totalitarian autocracy. The idea that a leadership in a communist system would pass along hereditary lines is antithetical to what communism was meant to be about. Vietnam, China, Cuba, they are also oligarchies or autocracies with communist branding. The USSR was always the most loyal to the source material of communism, but not even that much. Well, maybe China in the first 15 or so years of communism.
Last edited by redguard57; 08-01-2021 at 01:33 AM..
Communism never took hold in the kinds of countries Marx and Engels thought it would - the most advanced, developed economies. But those countries had a sizeable middle class. Communism was never popular where there was a robust middle class.
Instead, it took hold in countries were there was not a middle class to speak of, only elite ownership classes that made up <5% of the population, and the rest some sort of peasants. Russia, Latin America, Asia before development. These are exactly the countries Marx thought it would never work, because according to his theories, Russia was still in the feudal stage of development, two stages too early to transition to communism. Marx said communism was inevitable; as the capitalists got more efficient, more successful, the worse it would be for their workers and the faster the revolution of the proletariat would occur. But decades after Marx's death, communism seem not to be gaining much steam; the working classes were not creating a consciousness. Why was it not happening? That frustration was indeed the central question of Vladimir Lenin's 1902 pamphlet Что дѣлать? [What Is To Be Done?] His answer was that the Revolution had to be put into the working classes by a political party.
The existence of a middle class as a bulwark against communism, and protecting that middle class from slipping into poverty en masse especially in recessions, proved Otto von Bismarck correct: the way to defeat socialist and communist agitation is to take away the source of their agitation.
To circle back to the question, I don't think there are many people who find communism desirable. Maybe 5% or so would even consider the idea.
If you make sure your middle class stays middle, and provide for clear paths to the middle class for those not in it, you won't have a communist problem. Start letting your middle class become poor and problems are going to start happening, especially if at the same time you do something stupid like get into an ill-advised war and lose. Then you give the Lenins of the world an opening.
I will note that North Korea is not communist. It's an totalitarian autocracy. The idea that a leadership in a communist system would pass along hereditary lines is antithetical to what communism was meant to be about. Vietnam, China, Cuba, they are also oligarchies or autocracies with communist branding. The USSR was always the most loyal to the source material of communism, but not even that much. Well, maybe China in the first 15 or so years of communism.
This is true. Karl Marx was a product of the time in which he was born. For the entirety of human history before, there had existed a tiny wealthy elite and a mass of poor powerless. He simply couldnt foresee a world where the middle class - "petty bourgeoisie", would comprise the vast majority of any population. He did not foresee constantly rising wages, minimum wage laws, antitrust and anti monopoly laws, consumer protection laws. Nor could he imagine a world where the largest, most successful capitalist enterprises are publicly traded, and that a large number of the general population would possess ownership interest in these firms.
The reason backwards Russia adopted communism is a lot simpler than that.
Communism in practice is a command economy. Command economies also include places like Park Chung Hee's South Korea on the opposite side of the ideological spectrum. The interplay between planning and markets varies, but free markets they are not.
Command economies are actually pretty good at playing catch-up. The development patterns are there (textiles-> ag mechanization -> light industry -> heavy industry) blazed by incumbents. Monkey see monkey do.
Command economies are atrocious at resource allocation at the frontier. Which is why the Soviet economy faltered in the 1960s after decades of impressive growth.
Russia, as a backwards country, was far from the development frontier and so would benefit from a command economy. The UK and France, which were at the frontier, would not.
Incidentally this flips the Marxian material dialectic upside down. Communism, fueled by land reform, is a stepping stone on the way to capitalism. It's a catch-up strategy.
The bolded is an intriguing thought.
However, it's not quite so simple. Russia as a backward country (you didn't really mean "backwards", did you? haha), in ruins after the first World War, was in desperate straights. Lenin felt, that it needed a major boost to get back on its feet, and that communism couldn't provide that. So he invited some of America's top capitalists to Russia to kick-start the economy, and called it the New Economic Plan (NEP). Stalin did away with that, and introduced slave labor via the gulag system, to build some aspects of the enormous country's infrastructure.
Communism is supposed to do away with exploitation of the working classes, but, as it turns out, only by capitalists. It's ok for the communist state to exploit its citizens.
Communism is supposed to do away with exploitation of the working classes, but, as it turns out, only by capitalists. It's ok for the communist state to exploit its citizens.
Hence George Orwell's novella Animal Farm.
Incidentally, George Orwell was a British Socialist who differentiated socialism from the communism as enacted by Joseph Stalin in the Soviet Union.
Oh i'm pretty certain that the Chinese people privately want a democratic form of govt. And if they had the option to choose between the two, they would choose democracy over CCP rule. Which is why they arent given the choice.
Not necessarily. I have a Chinese friend who supports Communism for certain aspects. She was a child during the Chinese Civil War and her parents were so poor that they wanted to give her away. They ate weeds because they could not afford to buy food. She still visits China every few years and says that now under Communism they have good medical care and food, increased public safety, and good public transportation. I guess it's all a matter of relative context.
Russia, as a backwards country, was far from the development frontier and so would benefit from a command economy. The UK and France, which were at the frontier, would not.
Incidentally this flips the Marxian material dialectic upside down. Communism, fueled by land reform, is a stepping stone on the way to capitalism. It's a catch-up strategy.
Excellent points even if Lenin and Stalin didn't intend it that way. I personally think that Russia under the Czars was on the border between authoritarian and totalitarian. Thus the people would readily accept totalitarian rule whereas that might be a "tough sell" in France and an even tougher sell in the UK, which historically has been the most libertarian. That is one of the reasons that France and Italy have had active Communist parties whereas Labour is not really a Communist party.
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