Few occasions are more propitious for forgetting the past than moments of historical commemoration. Amidst fond recollections of the fall of the Berlin wall, and in a time of, at least temporary, improvement in relations between Russia and the west, few may spare a thought for what it was that ended two decades ago. On two issues history has given its ultimate verdict: the cold war, the third and longest of the three chapters that made up the great global civil war of 1914-91, will not return; the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), as a multinational state and as a global ideological and strategic challenge to the west, is indeed dead. However, on a third component of this story - the worldwide communist movement - the verdict is, as yet, less clear.
Fred Halliday is ICREA research professor at IBEI, the Barcelona Institute for International Studies. He was formerly professor of international relations at the London School of Economics. He is a widely known and authoritative analyst of middle-eastern affairs who appears regularly on the BBC, ABC, al-Jazeera television, CBC and Irish radio. Among his many books are Revolution and World Politics: the Rise and Fall of the Sixth Great Power (Palgrave, 1999), The Middle East in International Relations: Power, Politics and Ideology (2005) and 100 Myths about the Middle East (2005)
This article is based on a more extended essay, “The Cold War: Lessons and Legacies”, to be published in Government and Opposition (December 2009-January 2010)Communism, embodying the ideology and the social aspirations underlying the Soviet challenge, and the worldwide echo that challenge evoked remains to be interred. But to bury communism can only be done on the basis of recognising what it represented, why millions of people struggled for, and believed in, this ideal and what it was they were struggling against. It can also only be done when the legacy of this ideology and movement is assessed and not simply forgotten, or conveniently, and in violation of all historical evidence, dismissed as an "illusion".
Judging from the politics and intellectual debates of today, neither those who celebrate the end of communism, nor those who are now articulating a radical alternative, have carried out such an assessment: between (on one side) the still resilient complacency of market capitalism and an increasingly uncertain world of liberal democracy, and (on the other) the vacuous radicalisms that pose as a global alternative, the lessons of the communist past remain largely ignored. And so, as they say, they will be repeated.
A story foretold
The question of what kind of political and social system was communism, too near to allow of an easy perspective, has occasioned several candidate explanations. These include, in summary terms:
▪ a dictatorial tendency whereby revolutionary elites seized control of societies
▪ a flawed movement for the self-emancipation of the working class
▪ an expression of messianism
▪ a product of oriental despotism
▪ a failed developmentalist project.
Communism embodied features of modern politics that should not be abandoned: a belief in mass participation in politics, a radical separation of religion and state, a promotion of the public, political and economic, role of women, hostility to inter-ethnic conflict, and an insistence on the need for the state to intervene in economic and social affairs. Joseph Stalin and Gosplan may have discredited a particular form of "planning", but the general application of rational scientific, managerial and political thinking to human affairs, the better to manage the future, is an entirely legitimate and necessary aspiration, not least in an age of resource-depletion and looming ecological crisis. Communism had no monopoly on these ideas - any tough-minded liberal could have supported them - and the interpretation given to these values was authoritarian, bloody, in some cases criminal. This does not mean, however, that these goals, democratically and humanely conceived, are not necessary parts of a contemporary politics.
Yet it is essential to look, without ambiguity, at the failure of communism, and not avoid the issue that too many retrospective analyses have avoided: the fact that its failure was necessary, not contingent. This system, denying political democracy and based on the command economy, did not just fail because of a false policy here or there, let alone because classical Marxist theory was abandoned. As even sympathisers like Rosa Luxemburg realised in 1917 itself, it was bound from the beginning to fail.
It is common, and somewhat too easy, for defenders of Marxism in the contemporary world to argue that Marxist theory and communist practice were divergent, and that, hence, the theory bears no responsibility for the communist record. If by this question is meant whether another Marxism, a more liberal or "genuine" or "democratic" one, or, if you incline in the other direction, a more resolute, militant, disciplined one, could have prevented the collapse of the communist states then the answer is no.
There were certainly, throughout its seventy-year history, choices for the Soviet system: the "new economic policy" (NEP) could have been continued after 1928, there could have been a different trajectory in the middle 1930s if Stalin not Kirov had been assassinated, or Nikolai Bukharin had become party leader; if Nikita Khrushchev had not been ousted in 1964; if economic reform, of a kind Mikhail Gorbachev was to attempt after 1985, might have begun twenty years earlier. And so on.
As for the final period, the Soviet system could certainly have continued for another generation, if another Soviet leader, a conservative like Grigory Romanov or Viktor Grishin, had come to power in March 1985 instead of Gorbachev. But, in the longer run, neither prevailing Communist Party of Soviet Union (CPSU) ideology, nor (in my view) any variant of the Marxist tradition remotely related to 1917, could have saved, let alone developed that regime. It had reached a dead end; but that aporia, although contingent in timing and form, was inevitable sooner or later.
A force in its time
The revolutionary-socialist movement was not, however, some mistake, some aberrant illusion: it was at once a global movement of collective purposive action, across all continents, and a product of the structural tensions within the development of capitalism over the past two centuries. It is therefore pointless to begin a critique of it by seeing it as something that could, in its negative and positive features, have been avoided - or as, neo-liberal orthodoxy would claim, something that was just some historical illusion.
True, it had its illusions; but so does the capitalist ideology which posits that everyone can become a millionaire, the newly fashionable "well-being" fantasy that the process of ageing can be halted or reversed, or the irrational belief in divine beings, and afterlives, that much of humanity still espouses and, in many societies, east and west, tries to impose on others. Moreover, like these fantasies, socialism was also an inevitability, as much as the other features of the development of capitalist modernity - be they democratisation and scientific change, authoritarian capitalism, inter-state war, or colonialism.
For that very reason, the revolutionary-socialist movement was, in its very illusions and delusions, itself a creature of its times, and of some of the chimeras that beset those times, not least a belief in a "science" of human evaluation and action. That there were, and to some extent, remain elements in the Marxist tradition that contributed not just to the revolutions, but to the particular, bloody and criminal, record of these regimes is especially the case with regard to four central elements of the communist programme:
▪ the authoritarian concept of the state
▪ the mechanistic idea of progress
▪ the myth of "revolution"
▪ the instrumental character of ethics.
The four components
First, and as central to revolutionary Marxism as it is to the radical politics of the Islamic world, is the anti-democratic, Jacobin, theory of politics and of the "state": this, not the self-emancipation of the masses, or workers, or oppressed Muslims, is the core concept, indeed the core goal, of all modern revolutionary politics, secular or religious, from Lenin to Osama bin Laden.
Second, and equally central to modern revolutionary thought, is the supra-historical concept of "progress". Of course, it can, in certain ways, be defended: there has been progress in, for example, medical knowledge, or human wealth, or the development of capitalist democracy. This does not mean, however, that there is a destination of history, an "end" in the sense of a goal or telos, and of the kind implicit in most 19th-century thought. Even less does it imply that the pursuit of such a telos guides, or legitimates, political action and, in some cases, more than a few, the killing of people for being "reactionary".
Third, and closely related to the myth of "progress" was the dangerous myth of revolution; not just "revolution", as a historical moment of transition, and a means of making the transition from one historical epoch to the other, but Revolution, indeed "The Revolution", as a historical myth, a cataclysm that was both inevitable and necessarily emancipatory.
Part of the rethinking of the socialist tradition has to be a re-evaluation of this myth, one almost as powerful and for sure as destructive in modern times as that of "nation". As with nations it is possible to make a distinction between what one may term "actually existing revolutions" (Russia, 1917, China, 1949, Cuba 1959, Iran 1979...) and the broader, ideological, myth: this latter myth, included within which was the idea of the 'irreversibility' of socialist revolutions, was shattered in 1989-91.
The related myth, that somehow "Revolution" in the mythic sense remained possible within developed capitalism, was disproved long ago, arguably by the failure of the German revolution in the early 1920s, in my view in the failure of revolutions of 1848. What Marx termed "the sixth great power", in contrast to the five powers that dominated 19th-century Europe, became more and more confined to the semi-peripheral world. Yet the reality of revolutions as historical moments - inevitable and voluntaristic, emancipatory and coercive - is central to the history of the modern world. Not only did these revolutions transform the countries in which they occurred, but, by forcing the dominant classes in the counter-revolutionary states to reform, they in considerable measure transformed capitalism as well.
Fourth, underpinning these three ideas - "state", "progress", "revolution" - lay a key component of this legacy: the lack of an independently articulated ethical dimension. True, there was a supposedly ethical dimension - whatever made for progress, crudely defined as winning power for a party leadership, and gaining power for a, mythified, working class - was defended.
However, the greatest failure of socialism over its 200 years, especially in its Bolshevik form, was the lack of an ethical dimension in regard to the rights of individuals and citizens in general, indeed in regard to all who were not part of the revolutionary elite, and the lack of any articulated and justifiable criteria applicable to the uses, legitimate and illegitimate, of violence and state coercion. That many of those who continue to uphold revolutionary-socialist ideals, and the potential of Marxist theory, today appear not to have noticed this, that they indeed reject, when not scorn, the concept of "rights", is an index of how little they have learned, or have noticed the sufferings of others.
History's verdict
Communism failed and was, given its internal weaknesses as well as the vitality of its opponents, bound to do so. However, it should not be forgotten that this attempt to escape the conventional path of capitalist development was for a time remarkably successful, not least in the ideological and military challenge it posed to the west but was in the end forced to capitulate, and to do so almost without a semblance of resistance. If nothing else, the communist collapse deserves careful study from the perspective of those who believe in elite-led or state-dictated social and economic development. This is certainly one "lesson" of communism.
There is, however, another aspect of communism, of equal importance, that is too easily overlooked in triumphalist post-1989 accounts in the west. Communism was, as much as liberalism, itself a product of modernity, of the intellectual and social changes following on from the industrial revolution and of the injustices and brutalities associated with it - in the industrial revolution, whose early impact on the city of Manchester was described by Friedrich Engels so vividly in 1844, in the cycles of boom and slump that culminated in the 1930s, and in the violence of colonial occupation, exploitation and war. If Engels were to return today, to the shanty-towns of most Asian, African and Latin American cities, and not a few cities in the developed world, he would not be so surprised.
The greatest achievement of communism may well turn out to have been not the creation of an alternative and more desirable system contrasted to capitalism, but its contribution to the modernisation of capitalism itself. No account of the spread of the suffrage, the rise of the welfare state, the end of colonialism, or the economic booms of Europe and east Asia after 1945 could omit the catalytic role which, combined with pressure from within, the communist challenge from without played.
Communism was not just a utopian project: it was a dramatic response to the inequalities and conflicts generated by capitalist modernity. The continuation of many of these same inequalities and conflicts today suggests that further challenges, of an as yet indeterminate nature, will result.
Comments
The assertion that communism's "failure was necessary, not contingent" carries with it an implication that capitalism is not similarly doomed to fail, or at least failure is still contingent on something.
Similarly, saying that "the greatest failure of socialism... was the lack of an ethical dimension in regard to the rights of individuals..." carries with it the implication that capitalism has a better record on human rights issues.
Mr. Halliday seems to think that these implicit comparisons so clearly vindicate capitalism so as to not even to require proving.
His last sentence "the continuation of many of these same inequalities and conflicts today suggests that further challenges, of an as yet indeterminate nature, will result" is a weak conclusion that places capitalism in the role of an adaptive system which meets challenges in its path towards success.
It is my belief that capitalism and communism are both subcategories of a coup by humans over the natural systems of the planet, characterized by overpopulation, looting resources and claiming domination over land. It has always been doomed.
nickcooper.com
As a former diplomat who spent many years in communist and post-communist Europe, I mainly liked this analysis. It hits one central nail right on the head:"... the greatest failure of socialism over its 200 years, especially in its Bolshevik form, was the lack of an ethical dimension in regard to the rights of individuals and citizens in general, indeed in regard to all who were not part of the revolutionary elite, and the lack of any articulated and justifiable criteria applicable to the uses, legitimate and illegitimate, of violence and state coercion."But is this not merely the consequence of something even deeper, namely an absence of any ethical view either of people at all or of the cause of every good outcome in human history, namely human creativity? Communism was the mutant child of the French Revolution, which turned its back on the idea of freely negotiated limits on human behaviour and governments alike as emerging powerfully in the USA and created revolutionary terror as an end in itself. At the heart of communism is black nihilism, where any means justifies an abstracted end. See for example one of the most remarkable men of modern times: Vasili Mikhailovich Blokhin, who personally murdered 7000 people one at a time in 1940, each killing lasting 3 minutes or so - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasili_Blokhin As for the idea that "this attempt to escape the conventional path of capitalist development was for a time remarkably successful, not least in the ideological and military challenge it posed to the west"..., it is hard to see any sort of 'success' in the mass crazed violence of the 1920s and 1930s by the state against its own citizens in Soviet Russia or after WW2 in communist China. All that cruelty and horror. For what exactly? Building weapons systems? Is North Korea a 'success' if that is the key measure? Sweden builds excellent weapons but is a pleasant place to live too. Maybe that is a better test of success?The main point about Communism of course is that it is like the vampire which is never quite dead. My final telegram from the FCO in 2007 pointed out that we would never allow a city in the Balkans to be called Mladicgrad, ie to be named after General Mladic who led the Srebrenica massacre. Yet there is part of Europe named after one of the top Soviet leaders whose name is on the documents authorising the Katyn war crime: Kaliningrad. My website discussed all this here: http://charlescrawford.biz/blog.php?single=4 It made this point:"The Really Perfect Crime is not defined by the fact that no-one knows who did it. Instead it is to commit a truly atrocious deed and then arrange things so that we all know exactly who did it - but prefer to look away from the victim, to offer the criminal a drink, and chatter excitedly about 'moving on'."And that alone is where Communism has been successful. The rest is darkness.
I think this article does have something which those of us on the Left should think about, particularly concepts of state, progress, revolution and overall ethic.
However, there is no real engagement with the complex gradations within socialism and communism, which are generally conflated in this article. In fact, one might read this article as a general critique of totalitarianism. After all, capitalism has been equally shaped in reaction to movements of the extreme right too.
I share Charles Crawford's concern about the sterile, amoral tone of this near paean to communism. While it does concede it was ultimately a failure, it does so in a way as to leave the impression that is is just another "utopian" dream like so many others. Unlike utopian efforts such as the Shakers, communism was born and grew in blood. Even conservative estimates of the millions killed and even more subjugated by secret police in the Soviet Union, China, Cuba and other nations solely for communists to retain power eclipse by many orders of magnitude those killed by Hitler in the Holocaust. It is both disingenuous and immoral to fail to even mention this horrific yet universal aspect of communism.
A number of points in this interesting Halliday piece call for elaboration;1] Didn't and doesn't still the opposition between the dispossessed and the possessors, as between any opponents, bring out the worst when they are engaged in struggle?2] To what extent if any was communism, the real existing, then shaped by the culture, the lethargy of history in Marxists terms, the culture of Russian autocracy rooted in every family? Caudillismo, say, in Cuba?3-a] No gainsaying Mr. Halliday's point about the lack of an ethical dimension in many of the manifestations of authoritarian communism, but does he find, see an ethical dimension in any kind of capitalism, whether state capitalism or imperialist capitalism? Or fir that matter in the victory of Christianity over the so-called heathens?b] Aren't we forgetting that we have a version of dictatorial state capitalism very much as an economic success in the People's Republic?Mr. Halliday is quite right in pointing to benefitsaccruing to social democracy from the post WW IIcompetition between the two systems, and of course he is not the first to point these out. http://www.roloff.freehosting.net/index.html
The important points of two very important books were left out that reflected the culture of the Russian people especially the mobile peasantry.
Back in 1945 the daughter of an immigrant from Russia told me if I wanted to know anything of what the Russians thought about was to read that book "The Conquest of Bread" by Peter Kropotkin
That was what Communism would really be like when the State was no longer necessary. That the State
was only a temporary necessity not an end in itself was taught by Lenin in "State and revolution"
that when Capitalism died the state would no longer be necessary. But Kropotkin's book what came out
at the close of the 19th Century was the basic hope of the Russian people first expressed in the 1905 revolution and that book, not the writings of Lenin , Stalin and Trotsky were the favorite reading.
The other book written in Britain as part of "Fabian Socialists" investigation of the turmoils of 1917-1920. was entitled "The Russian Peasant" I cannot remember the writer and I lost the book some time ago in the process of moving. But it describes both the workings of the local peasant communes
that had existed since abolishing the serf system and the poor conditions and weather of
farming that necessitated migration of entire villages and towns because of drought.
The whole point here is that communism of land, property and utensils was a large part of the culture of the poor as part of surviving. On the other hand the myth of the withering away of the state made all of the Bolshevik terror possible because it was only "temporary".
Through the middle of the 19th century the main political movements and literature were Anarchy in various forms The anarchic thinking made it impossible for groups to cohere and organize anything
that eventually necessitated in people's minds,"Bolshevism" which did not in practice mean "majority" but "we be the majority".
The aim of the article is not to grapple with the many different strands of communist thought. It's about the actually existing communist alternative to western capitalism that collapsed 20 years ago. And there was certainly an official, more or less homogenous, body of communist dogmaticism. And how this movement, thought and society was (wrong) answers to the problems of capitalism. You might criticize the article for not treating the gradations within socialist movements and thought, but that after all is not the purpose of the article.
I think it is worth asking, and I think Halliday implicitly does, if there is something in (some, much, most?) marxist thought that makes it less able to criticize the dictatorial regimes of 20th century communist countries. And at the same time this raises the question of how to rethink marxism so as to make it more resistant to totalitarian interpretations.
What if the Soviet Union had not had to cope with the hostility of the western powers, particularly the US? Think about what was forced upon us just in terms of the diminution of free speech and of freedom of association out of fear of “the communists.”
And remember as well that the SU did not just collapse — just like that. Yeltsin was a traitor to his country and worked mightily, probably with the help of the CIA, to undermine Gorbachev’s push for change.
Interesting to take a look at where various forms of socialism or communism where incorporated in to struggles for national liberation. FLNC, ETA, the IRA and various other smaller movements from stateless nations have often mixed the far left and home-rule. The Cornish Democrat
The movement of the working class against the capitalist offensive the specific role of revolutionaries is not only to insist on the need for workers to take over leadership of the struggle and deploy it as widely as possible, but also to persuade them that the daily struggle of our class is the only training for a decisive battle with this system, the battle aimed at its destruction and replacement of a fundamentally new society.
We are not talking here about the "alternative worlds", the proposed "anti-globalization" movement. As we showed in our article about the European Social Forum, this is not a valid alternative, but only slightly modified versions of existing capitalism. We're talking about communism.
Ah, but Communism is dead, tell us. He died when the Berlin Wall fell and krahnuli Stalinist regimes in the east. As the most compelling argument against communism in the course is the idea that this is utopian, that it is impossible, because contrary to human nature, that is a dream insane fanatic.
Indeed, the broad masses of workers, even those who were involved in a bitter struggle against the system, communism is still nothing more than a good idea, good in theory but useless in practice.
To this we reply: the assertion that communism died in 1989, there are lies, false propaganda of the ruling class, because the Stalinist regime had nothing to do with communism and capitalist from top to bottom. The transfer of property by inheritance from one mode to another was not the death of communism, but only the end of a specific form of capitalist domination.
With re-issue of this series, written in 1970 (1), we intend not only to show what it means communism in reality, but also to show how it is far from wishful thinking, a pipe dream. Communism is not only possible but absolutely necessary. He is the only real way out of the insoluble contradictions of capitalism in the epoch of its decay.
Its said to read a story written from an author on such an general issue, on which, I am not only sure, but after reading these essay also quite certain,that he has not read for instance Lenins works written in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution 1905, or for instance his letters on the Balkan Crisis,Wars,1912-13, nor the Articles of the later Founder of the Red Army, Lew Dawydowitsch Bronstein -Trotzky, nor the articles of the French Socialist Jean Jorres, cowardly killed for his staunch antiwar rhetoric on the eve of WWI,nor the issues of the Pravda, the newspaper distributed illegaly in Zarist Russia, to name only a few of the world revolutionaries and newspapers ommitted by the author. That what the author names as communism, never existed, it only existed in the mind of one men- Stalin. What existed was the Party of the Bolsheviks which toppledthe most corrupt government of its times, which brought the peoples of Russia endless poverty,explotation without any rights and dignity. Once a high level UN official, coming from the US ,named Jossif Vissaryonovitsch Stalin, as the greatest contrarevolutionary of its times. Yes indeed, that is true, because since this asiatic guy came into power, he turned the wheel to the opposit and managed to kill within 20 years the blossom of communist toughts not only in Russia starting from Kirov and Bukharin, over Tuchatschevsky,Trotzky,Rakowski,Radek,etc and to exitnguish almost completely communist parties like the polish one, not to speak, on many, many others who have been "eggalized" in the fight, leading finally to the dissolution of the 3rd International under Stalins order in the early 40is. That was the end of communism introduced and performed by Stalin himself, the greatest Mass murderer of communists after Adolf Hitler, all over the World! The Author as well as the longstanding diplomat Mr. Crawford should be better advised to read the History of the open Anglo American Invasion against the young Russian revolution, and on how many human beeings lost their lives in that intervention which luckily was defeated by the young Red Army. It is far to early and very,very ambigous to state that 20 years ago communism died. What died was Stalin's interpretation of marxism, but not communism, Gentlemen. The fight goes on and the "wheel of History turns on until the victory of Communism"...as once Georgi Dimitroff a bulgarian communist brought to trial by the Nazis for allegedly setting Fire on the German Reichstag in 1933, stated in Front of the Nazi Judges in Leipzig. The Latest Financial crisis, which should be better called Financial inferno number two for the whole capitalist system is another proof for the need to handle world economy in the marxist way... while cutting short imperialist aspirations.
The ethical dimension, as you call it, was not just something missing from the decorative ensemble. The mainspring of Communist endeavour was from the beginning an ethical one: self-justification. It is a fundamental feature of human beings that we desire to be right, especially to do exactly as we please and feel justified. In my view, no analysis of Communism that neglects this religious and psychological dynamic can aspire to adequacy.
Incidentally, perhaps "capitalism" has become a term that one should no longer use, sourced as it is in Marxist discourse. For capitalism read human nature.
The author is glibly misinterpreting history. Communism as the Bolsheviks freely admit has not existed. It was the goal of the Bolshevik parties to achieve Communism. They failed in this attempt and rather than struggle on in a failed attempt the Russian Bolsheviks agreed to the end of their attempt. Russia was then subject to the worst form of neo-liberal capitalist rape as the resources were sold to the Yeltsin era oligarchs and the attempt to steer Russia to a Swedish style mix of socialism and capitalism as attempted by Gorbachev was sidetracked.
Capitalism as the recent recession has shown us cannot exist without the interference of the state. The attempt by the early Bolsheviks to create a state model that would benefit the working majority succeeded for a time but because of structural defects it failed in the long run. It does not mean Communism as a goal is a mistake, only that the method chosen by the Soviet Union failed.
China has reformed allowing for an expanded capitalist period of development but it is still to be seen if the Communist Party of China has given up on the goal of achieving communism or if it simply has determined that a less intrusive state apparatus in the market system is a better form of economic development than a centralized command model.
Adam Smith Capitalism exists nowhere on this planet. What we have is a mixed form of state regulated economies in which a strong corporate element exists that uses the state to create a market environment in which these oligarchic bodies are able to thrive. To some extent there exists a less regulated smaller scale market capitalism that is closer to the Adam Smith model but the only place where there is a true free market is in the illegal underworld and extra legal peasant economies that are still the majority in the world. They exist outside the Capitalist model, they exist as a mixture of traditional economies tied to the land and the relationship of peasants with the land and with the gang economies that exist in the sprawling urban slums that have emerged around the world as more and more people are unable to sustain themselves on the land due to the dumping of cheap agricultural produce from the industrialized west.
What we have in the world is a very mixed economy in which the irrational is accentuated by computer programs that accentuate swings in the market and where a traditional land based culture still exists. Communism is a desire on the part of all humans for equity and fair allocation of resources mixed with the acknowledged technological success of the industrial revolution. Why not distribute the wealth so abundantly generated by this technology in an equitable and rational manner?
It is only because of the myth of capitalism that we have not progressed beyond this. The Liberal construct of the rights of the individual created in 18th century social theory and abrogated by the social Darwinists of the 19th century that was then repackaged as individualism and neoliberalism in the 20th and 21st centuries with its emphasis on contract law is in its own way doomed to failure as it enshrines certain values that are not sustainable in a ecologically stressed environment where rational distribution and planning are the only models that will work. Legal obstructionism with vast amounts of human energy wasted on contract law, patent law, corporate law all devised to insure the rights of an artificially created individual the corporation is ultimately unsustainable and a waste of valuable human energy.
What is required is a fresh look at the value of the planet and the rights of all entities to live in balance with all others on this planet. As a model dependent on continued expansion of profit capitalism simply is a more prolonged path to disaster than the state structures of Bolshevism. Why do we need more efficient methods of self destruction by expansion of this cult of the individual and individual rights? Capitalism simply serves the small coterie of the corporate elites and their attendants and is no better a model than state bureaucratic capitalism was under the old soviet union. Both models led to ecological devastation and the cleanup from both is going to be the task increasingly of the next few generations of humanity.
Can you imagine a world in which 6 or 7 billion humans live as wastefully as the average American? It would be a monumental catastrophe and that is where liberal capitalism will take us unless we intervene. It cannot happen in any case the question is how will we structure the social cleanup program and how will we allocate the cost and the distribution of the remaining wealth?
Will we simply retain the model of the best damn wealth accumulation system that the elite have managed to create for themselves with a state apparatus that complies to the needs of this elite? Or will we move on and create a system that acknowledges the egalitarian values inherent in the desires of all humanity for a place in the sun balanced with a means of tempering desire with the limits imposed by a sustainable ecological system? A shared world is what we have and there is no reason why shared wealth does not come with shared responsibility. Capitalism simply does not do justice to the needs of this world.
This is a good example of our tendency to treat the present as a destination and the past as the journey towards it. The Bolshevik expiriment was an attempt to replace a terminally flawed political and economic system with something fairer, more democratic and more enduring. It had some successes but ultimately failed for reasons which will remain the subject of debate for some time.
Many of the attempts to replace feudal political economy with capitalism and bourgeoise democracy also ran into flaws. It's easy to forget that the the Bourbon monarchy was briefly re-installed in post revolutionary France and that late 19th century European democracies were easily as brutal and kleptocratic in their imperial affairs as was Stalin (the difference being that the victims were mostly brown or black) . Capitalism/bourgoise democracy prevailed over a period of time however because the systems it was replacing were terminally flawed.
While this particular attempt at a socialist alternative has now passed into the realm of myth and academic denture nashing the polical economy of capitalism is now in a state of terminal decay and some form of socialism or social democracy will ultimately replace it.
Then the journey will move on to the next destination.
Mr Halliday starts by asking a question - but then fails to define his question except by implied reference to populist terminology which is more misleading than infortmative.
Halliday uses misleading and idiotic terms, applied by even well-informed commentators who, presumably, find it impossible to hold the line against tabloidese phrases like "the collapse of communism" (just as others find it hard to continue using the correct term for a figure of one million million because the dominant US media decided that it would unilaterally use the word billion for a figure one-thousandth smaller - and impose this usage on the rest of the world). Halliday is an academic with a knowledge of history, so I assume he knows very well that not one socialist regime anywhere in the world ever claimed to have achieved communism. Not even the GDR's claim to "actual existing socialism" was a claim to have reached the Marxist goal of a communist society. Calling the socialist regimes "communist" is a bit like calling the Congo a democracy simply because it has the word "democractic" in its official title.
Socialist regimes (at least those led by people with any understanding of Marxism) understood very well that socialism was not communism. Marx was a bit vague on what communism actually wouod be like in practice, and on what precise means would be needed to achiev it after the achievement of socialism. It may even be true that many Marxists regarded communism itself as a kind of utopian goal to be continually striven for as a means of improving and developing.Cuba, which is pretty much the only socialist regime left now, is ruled by a Communist Party, but I have never heard a Cuban spokeperson talk about Cuba as having a communist society, only the USA and its supporters make this claim (and most of them, unlike Mr Halliday, do not know what the word means).
So, what Mr Halliday is really talking about is Marxist inspired socialism (or just socialism - given that the Social Democratic version of socialism has proved to be nothing more than neo-liberalism mixed with a little welfarism, when it can be afforded) Certainly enormous crimes were committed in the name of defending socialsm but the hi-jacking of revolutions by murderous despots is hardly a feature peculiar to socialist revolutions. Also, as other correspondents have already pointed out, the body-count for capitalism is massive and, depending on what massacres, bloodbaths and avoidable famines you include, probably outstrips the numbers of those klled by deliberate acts of socialist regimes by a considerable margin.
It is not necessary to be a Stalinist to notice that when capitalist regimes commit acts that lead to high death tolls these are judged by completely different standards to those applied to socialist regimes. When Churchill's wartime cabinet decided to prioritisde the war effort over alleviating the Bengal famine, was he judged to have been responsible for the million-plus civilian deaths that resulted. When the CIA provided lists of Indonesian communists and sympathisers for army death squads in the mid-sixties, was Lyndon Johnson blamed for the hundreds of thousands of murders which resulted. Who are we to blame for the millions of deaths, in Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam during the Second Indo-China war - the Indo-Chinese struggling to free themselves from foreign domination and the enforced partition of their counrtry or the US invaders and their proxy dictatorships?
As for ethics, the author is simply playing games with this concept. We in the "liberal democracies" live in states which claim the moral high ground on every issue, while simultaneously permitting (even promoting) murder, massacre, famine, mass-poisoning and structural inequalities which condemn half the human race to live precariously on the brink of destitution and starvation.
When multi-millionnaire oil-traders in London seek to enrich themselves even more by dumping toxic waste in a poverty-stricken African country with virtually no health service, do they risk being charged with murder or even manslaughter? Of course not - if they are caught the most they will suffer will be some poor press and a fine, levied on their corporation, leaving them to continue to enjoy their opulent lifestyles. So to claim that we have some kind of ethical underponning and respect for individual civil rights as the basis of our society and our economic system is just a sick joke.
Having read more of the comments to this piece I am even more amazed at how so many posters can analyze 'communism" (I take the point several have made that one regime or another was not truly "communist" etc. but suffice it to say they all committed in the name of communism horrific atrocities of nearly incalculable proportions) in such a detached and selective perspective. How can the history of this form of government, society and economy in a vacuum that virtually ignores the horrors that those who have attempted it have caused. A perverse example of this is the following apparent equation by one commenter of these indelible stains on human history with mere "flaws." ("Many of the attempts to replace feudal political economy with capitalism and bourgeoise democracy also ran into flaws.")
Some of these comments have a zany tone to them as if the writer is waiting for the Great leader to emerge from his grave and lead us all into a new communist paradise. So, communism hasn't been tried? What about Soviet Russia in the wake of the civil war? What about the catastrophe in Cambodia? What the world needs now is a new ethical code that can guide us out of the self-interest trap into a cooperative and conflict-free future.
A perverse example of this is the following apparent equation by one
commenter of these indelible stains on human history with mere "flaws."
("Many of the attempts to replace feudal political economy with
capitalism and bourgeoise democracy also ran into flaws.")
Have a look at Late Victorian Holocausts by Mike Davis for example. Or look at the Irish Potato Famine. In both cases, in the name of the free market, boat loads of grain were being exported under the very noses of people starving to death. Or perhaps you'd like to look at the removal of the Great Plains native Americans by systematically destroying the bison on which their economy was based. If that's not enough for you then examine <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/correspondent/2416049.stm">British behaviour in Kenya in the 1950s</a>. This is just a small selection. Spanish, French, Belgian, Dutch and other imperial histories will provide plenty of alternatives.
I think Cincinnatus jnr, that you are being very selective about what constitutes an indelible stain.
All of these incidents are horrible but how in the world can any thinking person equate any of the other matters with the breathtaking scope of the killing, torture and oppression done in the name of communism. I will gladly discuss any and all of the excesses of other political, economic and social systems and we can go into as much detail as you like but in the end the scale of the bloodletting at the hands of "communists" makes all others pale in comparison. That it is nearly totally ignored in these ascetic, academic and abstract discussions of this evil is appalling and is perhaps the best example of the amorality necessary for such "movements" to take hol;d in the first instance.
I will gladly discuss any and all of the excesses of other political,
economic and social systems and we can go into as much detail as you
like but in the end the scale of the bloodletting at the hands of
"communists" makes all others pale in comparison.
I think I've demonstrated that it doesn't. The crimes of both Stalin and Mao are no worse than the crimes of other empires. The Irish potato famine alone makes Stalin's crimes pale. More than 10% of Ireland's population starved to death and as many were forced to emigrate. Not an unfortunate unavoidable accident but a matter of deliberate policy. The means to alleviate the carnage were immediately to hand but the ideology of the market place prevailed.
There is no special evil about the "Communists" over and above the evil which can be attributed to any imperialists. A little footnote would remind you to look at the behaviour of the "white" armies in the civil war. On taking any town their first action would be to round up the Jews (genrerally blamed for the rise of Bolshevism) and hang them. In Ukraine alone 100,000 were murdered in this way. Had these people prevailed the Holocaust would have occured quietly and privately behind internationallyrecognised borders. The Bolshevik victory stopped this.
I do not know what history you read but there is simply no way the numbers of deaths, without even mentioning those in the various gulags and other oppressive measures of the various regimes using "communistic" systems, are replicated under any other totalitarian regime, or even combination thereof. Indeed the total polulation of Ireland in the time of the potato famine (and even then I challenge you to show a systematic totalitarian effort to kill all those that died like you have in the communist states) does not even approach the numbers involved in the communist cases.
It is one thing to champion communism or its variants, but please do not insult our intelligence by suggesting otherwise. In addition, the numbers of persons so abused by communism, while horrific (I stand by that adjective), is not the real point of my original post--it is that it is disingenuous at best, and perverse at worst to discuss the history and ultimate failure of communism without even a mention of those who died and were otherwise abused by those states. Those people (and they were people even if of the evil propertied classes etc.) deserve at least that.
Just as an example among numerous sources, Professor Rummel has stated:
"In sum the communist probably have murdered something like 110,000,000, or near two-thirds of all those killed by all governments, quasi-governments,
and guerrillas from 1900 to 1987. Of course, the world total itself it shocking. It is several times the 38,000,000 battle-dead that have been killed in all this century's international and domestic wars. Yet the probable number of murders by the Soviet Union alone--one communist country--well surpasses this cost of war. And those murders of communist China almost equal it.
DEATH BY GOVERNMENT, R.J. Rummel
New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 1994.
As far as the Irish Potato Famine is concerned, David Ross states:
Approximately one million people died and a million more emigrated.
Ireland: History of a Nation, David Ross, New Lanark: Geddes & Grosset, 2002, p. 226.
In the current world economic recession, many people are working hard with a pile of books in an expectation of finding out a better way to exit the current situation, and some others are exhausted with the war news, notwithstanding, the article ''communism'' is coming up with a warning shock of a lot of philosophy referendum, the writer is working hard too.
The communist allies or Soviet ghost had no longer existence, but what they left to human being are still unforgetable with sufficient records. The writer, with a huge pile of his own knowledge and reference, is bringing up the front a brief of contemporary world history.
We are living in the first decade of the 21st Century that, from its beginning, witness the prominent events such as America 11th September 2001, Afghan War, Irac War, World Economic down turn and now the warning that ''The Communism is coming back'' from this writer. After reading carefully this article, what it left is to mind that his warning may be a warning indeed.
Recently, a remarkable event in America is The President Barrack Obama voted, he is the winner in the racing to The White House and becomes famous with his statement ''The change has come to America''. The Author to this article seems align the two words ''change'' to ''revolution'', he brings up the four elements of communism and extends his explanations to the third element : the myth of revolution. With that explanation, he does imply the similarity of those two quoted words.
This writer is not only presenting his philosophy but also creating some debates for discussion, the followings are outstanding:
-The similarity of Revolutionary Marxism to the radical politics of Islam world ( 1st component of the 4).
I definitely agree that somebody may love or hate some other, but one should consider the manner used to present one's love or aversion. Any rubbish should be classified before we bin it.
-The alignment of Osama Bin La-den to Le-nin ( 1st component of the 4):
Ironically, ''Le'' is rather similar to ''La'' but opposite to each other in sex. In a serious article in philosophy, this pattern in wording cannot avoid contra-concept.
In reality, Osama Bin Laden has been trained then he reaches to top above his colleagues and may be recognized as a pioneer in terrorism, he can be aligned with Hittle of the second world war. His achievements can be enlisted as Tween Tower Breakdown on 11th September 2001 by then giving job to George Bush while he was idle in the White House. Then, unlike Hittle, Osama Bin Laden has been successful in attracting Foreign Direct Investment to Middle East-his home land-whereby the total value may mount thousands lives of man kind and a huge amount of weapon and money. Though, thinking of Osama with all of my aversion, but I yet recognized him as a person who is successful in his occupation.
At last, for the late termination to this comment, I should indicate that the author's intention is to write for academic elite, especially his wording. The professional terms are used rather often such as ''emancipation, messianism, radicalism or aporia''. As matter of fact, I cannot blame a professor for his using academic words in writing, but as long as my perception to the articles in Open Democracy, the more plain English words used in writing, the more readers he is attracting.
Charle Kuhn
Rummel is utterly unscientific. To begin with he very conveniently takes his cut off point as 1900 thus avoiding comparison with the excesses of other European and North American empires. For example, he is right to point out the brutality of Stalin's deportations but should these not be compared with the methods used to make most of the North American continent available for white Christian colonisation?
The famines are reported as if they are an exclusive feature of "communism" and directly the result of it. But the famine of 1921 came on the heels of a dreadful civil war, itself following the devastation of the Great War in a country where periodic famine was almost routine. Does he suppose that the famine would not have taken place if the White armies had prevailed?
The 1932 famine in the Ukraine was undoubtedly a vile atrocity but it compares to scale with the Irish famine where (as you have corrected me) a million died and a million fled to escape death out of a population of 8 million. Why does he not make the comparison? And, like so many of the atrocities you and he attributes to communism, it was as much to do with Russian imperialism as"communism".
Perhaps the most dishonest feature of his list is the inclusion of every rag and bobtail nutcase lunatic who hung on to Marxist coat tails in order to claim legitimacy. The regimes in Korea, Albania, Ethiopia, Rumania and many others but especially Kampuchea had the most tendentious links to Marxism. Most of them had been involved in power struggles long before they had anything to do with any kind of Marxist theory. You might as well say that the Spanish Inquisition or the Lords Resistance Army are typical of Christianity. A list of anti-communists could just as easily be prepared to include Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan alongside the US and the UK. It would be ridiculous to do that but no more ridiculous than Rummel's list.
I've no intention of defending Stalin or Mao. They were both utterlly repellant human beings and their actions have (probably) harmed Socialism rather than advance it. However, they were no more vile and oppressive than many of those who ruled alongside them and just before them. And, horrendous though it might be to contemplate, they were both probably preferable to the people over whom they prevailled.
Glad to see that Cincinnatus has taken the measure of Big C. (I thought I was the only one.)
To Big C, 1 million dead in the Potato Famine--and where is the evidence that this was intentional, please?-- is pretty much the same as 110 million dead in the name of Communism (though I note that Big C's emotional heat is reserved for those who encompassed the 1 million not those who gloried in the 110 million).
To Big C, 110 million dead is a mere "flaw", while 1 million dead in the potato famine, allegedly done because of capitalism is hence the real crime.
I really suggest that Big C read the biography of Vasili Mihailovich Blokhin on wikipedia, as Mr. Crawford suggested. This person personally executed 300 people a night, every night, for 28 consecutive nights in April 1940. After personally murdering 7,000 people, Comrade Blockhin was greatly honored by Stalin. His photo on Wiki shows him loaded with medals. I guess that's just a "flaw" in the system to Big C, yes, the regrettable but unavoidable backwash of the necessary Revolution. Not something *really* bad, like capitalism.
To Big C, 1 million dead in the Potato Famine--and where is the evidence that this was intentional, please?
Irish grain exports actually rose during the famine. The famine was easily preventable and allowed to continue in the intersts of market freedom.
.. pretty much the same as 110 million dead in the name of Communism
(though I note that Big C's emotional heat is reserved for those who
encompassed the 1 million not those who gloried in the 110 million).
No it's not the same. The one million dead in the potato famine is an accurate number. The 110 million is utter piffle.
You state authoritatively that "The 110 million is utter piffle"
Please provide your data to the contrary. Even if the 110 million is 50% off, doesn't 55 million people (remember we are discussing actual human being even if they had committed the vile crime o0f being against totalitarianism or perhaps something worse like "hoarding" some food). To say you disapprove of Stalin and Mao ignores all the other "lesser' despots who in the guise of "politburos" or whatever other elites they chose to call themselves, committed the countless (I mean this literally since w will never know how many they actually killed or otherwise brutalized) atrocities in the name of "communism" or whatever other word they chose to use.
Whether other forms of governments or economic systems does not in any way offset these grotesque systems and I stand by my contention that the scale of their destruction in terms of deaths and oppression makes all others pale in comparison. Indeed it continues to this day in Cuba, China and other countries where freedom is enjoyed only by the select few.
I see that John Cleese is a major donor for this liberal website. How appropriate for this article which is so much like a Monty Python skit.
A note from the former CSSR (now Slovakia), on the 20th anniversary of the Velvet revolution:
After seeing the "celebrational" programmes on TV, I must ask myself more than any other day: What world I'm living in? Dear people, as a person whose parents and friends lived in that system, and have the first hand experience, it is outrageous, how the history is being rewritten, how one-sided is its presentation to the upcomming generations. Hours of broadcasting without anyone from the former party members? Even the "murderer for sure" - on the court - has a right to be heard and to defend himself. There was not a single word from anyone from the former nomenclature. (And I heard very alternative narratives of the history of the "fall of the communism", but unluckily not in mainstream media.) 20 years after the "bad regime" fell, the TV is blind and deaf, just in the same way as it was then. The commemorative programme was just a long music-video, with lot of refined cutting and catchy songs - that put things in theonlyrightone perspective of nowadays...
I'm not making any illusions for myself (and it is outrageous to hear pseudopsychological ramblings about "ostalgie", or any kind of recolouring history in better shades) about the regime that was. You know what is surprising the most? When a western friends come to me and start express sorrow about our "tragic past". They tell me (us) how it was here, during communism, when we've lived here. Absolutely lacking any experience, not even context what was before, what led us to communism, how it internally and extrenally evolved and mainly how was life here, they just see it as a scene of Orwell's 1984. Btw, Orwell himself was sociallist and his works had enough inspiration in a "free world"...
Question to think: Couldn't it be, that what you saw in the media before 1989 in the West might be as biased and deformed as what was on a communist media of that time? How do you know, that you were the good ones, with free media and clear worldview? If there is just "the fence" or "the bars" and people on both sides, who is in the prison and who is free? One might answer that "by freedom to do things". But do not interchange "do things" and "buy things". Rather imagine a part of the world that disagrees with how the rest of the world plays (capitalism) and trying to play differently. Yes, we could buy things you could, but in the other perspective, we did not want to buy things, that were not produced and sold fairly, for fair wage for the workers, in the context of fair employer-employee relationship. Yes, that is just theoretical idea. But relevant one. If you think of it, how differently it could be achieved, than isolating oneself into the separate block? Yes it had a tragic dimension - not every one wanted it, people were killed because they disagreed and that is not to be relativised. But, could you - in the West - choose a different system? Oh, you could protest and speak about it and try - but were you heard? Communism persecuted other ideas, capitalism ignores it.
Now all media try to erase our memories. Communism was bad. We suffered. It was unbearable. Everyone feared. But the very simple truth is, that people lived their lives here. They fell in love, married, had sex, divorced, gossiped, ate, travelled, celebrated, went to exhibitions, museums, created art and watched art... Yes, there was censorship, but why then, for example all the movies from that era seem more courageous, intelligent and freely speaking then the contemporary ones? And I know at least the culture of my country much better, then any westerner does.
Let's see both sides. Our contemporary elite class of then-revolting artists says: "we had no right to speak", "the totality prohibits the free self-expression". I can oppose. The totality and its censorship is a point to relate to, it stimulates the non-first-plan ways of self-expression. It creates art, it forces a man to find the other ways of speaking "between lines". Saying something not plainly, but in a metaphoric form. And it forced a viewer to search for hidden meanings. Now, we have no arts, just consumer products of "having fun". No art, as it cannot pay for itself. It is a bit bitter, but it can be perceived vene in this strange way.
I will not dare to justify political persecution and killings of millions. Just a few notes: Many of those self-proclaimed "political prisoners" were just people who were simple crimminals. Many of those "censored artists" were refused just because of the lack of talent, beacuse not all the censors (or those who gave state money) did not understand art. There were topics that were not discussed and now they are - and the topics that could be discussed, but today they are not, because they are not commercially attractive. Then, the party prohibited, now the market rejects. Then, you were banned to appear and criticise because you were "reactionary" or "contra-revolutionary" and now you are refused, because "no one is interested, people want to have fun, people want to hear different things". Then it was nomenklatura, now the media elite who decides what is convenient, wanted and necessary to say. Then we could not choose but one party, now we are able to choose in a ballot - but only from the parties give to choose from. I cannot choose the choice. Yes, by the law you can always come into the politics and change things - but you could come to the onlyoneparty even in communism and try to reform the system from within. Now, even if you can create your own party or enter existing one, really really realistically, you can not pass the sieve of the (dis)interest of the "independent" media (related to parties and owned by corporations) or climb up the established-parties' hierarchy without conforming to the its "ways"... And in contemporary "democracy", after the elections, the parties finally fake that their representatives argue in media, but they do always the same policies. Left or right, conservative or liberal - they must do some pragmatic policies and mostly they steal for their own families and businesses and supportive lobbyists. It's one party, just pretending to be 2 or 5 or 100. Then, in communism, the propaganda was used, now the language of the commercials is much much much more primitive and stupid than anything that you watch from communist era. Archives do exist, please do search and watch it yourself! Then the news spoke of the "harvest in the coop", "imperialism of the west" and topped it with cultural folk event - now it speaks about some car crash, Iraq, but eventually bad harvest for the enterpreneurs, communism and terrorism and also shows some folk event or three happy newborn puppies. It is a mix of horrors of the world, political fiction, agriculture, common life and bucolic idyl - as it was even then. And moreover, we do not lack propaganda even now, now it is called "edification". Finally, if we close the accounting of the systems by not-to-be-forgotten killing of human beings, besides reading "Black book of communism", which I encourage you to read, please do read also "Black book of capitalism" and "Black book of collonialism"...
Many westerners, even intellectuals have still very deeply rooted and very secret distrust to the East. Slavian, Chinese, Muslem and other cultures. I'll speek rather only for the Slavs. You consider us half-barbars, that are never able to be democratic and moreover "normal". And only way to convince you, that we are "normal", is to be exactly as you, isn't it? The same economics, the same system, same culture, same entertainment, same second language, same consumerist way of life, same views and opinions...
I must say that I'm strongly opposed to how the "cultural differences" phrase is misused to justify oppression and murders. Like in muslem country, when some people are not allowed to live their own sexuality (and are killed in some countries, or forced to conform to man-and-wife family concept) - it is commented with a phrase - and unfortunately those are left-wing liberals who say it - "We cannot measure them by our democratic standards, their culture and concept of individual rights is different." Human rights are always and everywhere the same. Every man wants to live and love. The question is only how to arrange what is common to us. What is private and what is commmon? private is what affects oneslef. Social is what affects more than one. Sex is individual. Taste is individual. Choice of education is individual. But business relations, progress that can be achieved only by cooperation, environment and resources shared - - are not private, individual or privatisable affairs. Individual affairs to individual, common matters to society. Simple as that.
Having said this, back to the point. One thing is a system (or regime) - the social arrangement. Another is an economic. Let's separate communism (idea), communal or elected-commitee decisions (idea) and state capitalism (reality) and one-party dicatorship (reality). There is a part of the world, that tried to arrange things differently. It failed with the human rights. It failed maybe even with its own revolutionary ideas and goals. As the other side did too. (Think how Hayek justifies Pinochet, think other USA and Latin America right-wing dictators, think selling of the guns to the third world,...) West cannot forgive us that we tried our own way? Even while doing many horrid things, we did some good. At least we tried something new. Give us at least this little credit. We counter-balanced you. In this way, I would agree with the author of the article.
The problem here is, that no one even tries to think in a more balanced way. Communism is like an metaphoric equivalent of "germ hysteria" of 1950s. (Think of the DDT and thalidomide kids.) No one dares to doubt the black-and-white or red-and-blue vision. But really, there was not Empire of Evil, as there was no Empire of Good.
The problem nowadays is that "communism" is reduced to a phrase, to a word. And the words are used in a manner, that is unspeakably monstrous. Economic, politic, emotional, personal, social - all is reduced to communism. Human right abuse - communism. Lack of food - communism. Stealing of the commons (there was a private property in CSSR reality, as there was a state or common property) - was certainly the fault of communism. Murders of jealousy - communism deteriorated human relationships... But wait. Communism is an idea - ideology - that has its definition. Robbery, murders, not being able to stand to the ideas - are something different. Robbery is robbery. Murder is murder.It is not communism.
The tragic consequence is, that many of our people now hate "communism". They do not hate that people were persecuted, killed, sent to lagers, that people steal, or deceive, or propaganda/edification was used to shape their minds. They hate just a word "communism", not the concrete concepts of evil deeds. You can still kill, steal, use propaganda - if you do not call it communism - it is ok. And that is dangerous.
If a man suffers a medical trauma, when he accuses others as the causers, he is not considered as "already healed". In therapy, healthy is a state described by rational analysis, being able to see things in a more balanced way (what was bad and what good was brought by the event) and maybe even forgiving. Our society is brainwashed to see communism (or whatever it was) era as plainly bad. And so, we are still sick with communism. Not because it happened, but because we are not allowed to heal, to accept, to discuss in a serious way. To say what was good and what was bad. And to prevent those bad things to repeat, not just prevent a word "communism".
Our elite of the 1989-revolution artists live 20 years of accusing, telling horrid stories and making low-style fun of communism. As we say (in other cases) "kicking into the dead corpse". That false courage after the battle might be even a reason, why communism still raises a sympathy - not a balanced one, but as one-sided as the antagonism directed against it.
We, the nations of Eastern block could have an advantage. You, in the West experienced just capitalism. We experienced both - capitalism and communism. Whatever tragic, both experiences are valid and both have something to say, give some point of view. They happened because of something. Words like usury, exploitation, imperialism, corporate eldorado, (stupidity of) petty-burgeoise, class, worker - are still a valid words with vivid meaning. As communism, even capitlaism and pseudodemocracy has its "bad words"... and those above-mentioned are emongst them. Use them and you are ridiculised for life...
But it seems, we threw this experience of the other system, other way, at least that attempt, into the trash can. We were told and accepted, that "everything we did was wrong and now we have to do it right - like they do in the west". We've only returned 40 years back. We were made to think, that we had to start where we had stopped in 1948, before communist coup d'etat.
Communist did not win all the votes, but won a majority in those elections. Following consolidation of total power was surely organised by Moscow. And wasn't it West - on Jalta - throwing us to the Stalin's sphere of influence? ... In the beginning, many people participated on the post-war reconstruction and building of the progressive socialist futures with a candid verve. Some agreed, that the property of the wealthy capitalist (just owning, not working) created by those who really did the work should be taken - nationalised and used for the common good. From the point of view of the owner - if something you've built is taken away from you, it creates anger. But, you never build anything on your own. To build eneterprise, you must always have the helpers. The question (even for today) is - isn't it that common creation is to be common ownership? Can one own, what more than one have created? Can you own something that you did not create just yourself? Is it sufficient to pay just a wage for the work of others? Shouldn't you share the ownership of the product? And why, after the communism ended, the factories that were built during the communism commonly, were given to idnividuals? Isn't the privatisation as outraging as nationalisation? Some agreed that the property of the church accumulated in the middle ages by force had to be taken back by people - even a new generation of communism. Why these properties were given back to church in 1989, if it never achieved them fairly in the first place?
And the biggest pity: We missed a middle way. Respecting what is up to individual and being solidary as a society. Achieving progress as a mass, but preserving the diversity (of thought, faith, sexuality, love, relationships, opinions) as it is the only way how society can survive. Uniform society is bound to tragic end. Extremely individual society has already ended - as there is no society. Understanding the need of democratic choice, but as well responding to the hidden human necessity of leader, paternal/maternal figure. It is real (relevant) necessity - see the popularity of Putin, Stalin, Chomejni, Ahmadinejad, Pope, Kennedy, Bush or Obama - a hope for better life personalised in a cult of The One is ever present. The monstrous ways it realises is just a consquence of our incapability to fulfill this need in a positive way, in hearing - maybe - what's behinde this need.
I hope that future will be more balanced. Individual and social. Democratic and totalitarian (in good senses of words). Socialist with human face (as we demanded in Czechoslovakia in 1968) or capitalist with the human features as well. Conservative and liberal. Progressive and preserving. It's like taoism, it's absolutely natural, same as everything in the universe is. There is a day (it is necessary for life to happen) and there is a night (necessary for life to repose). Too much darknes and cold kills - as too much light and heat kills. There is no good blessed light and there are no forces of darkness (the most tragic heritage of monoteism). But it will be a bit shame, that we will be thaught this again by the West... We were there in 1989. Unable to see it.
What beautifully balanced thinking: An antidote to some of the hyperbole which has come from certain quarters. It reminds me of a saying of a Latvian Friend of mine: "We always knew that the Communists were lying about Communism. Now we have find out the hard way that they were were not lying about capitalism." Hopefully there is still time to learn on all counts.
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