From a historical point of view, communism isn’t a doctrine belonging to modern society. In fact, Karl Marx described the concept of primitive communism when he discussed hunter-gatherer societies. The idea of a society founded on social egalitarianism can be traced back to Ancient Greece and later to the Christian Church, which further reinforced the concept of shared property.
Modern communism, as we’ve come to know it, was born in 19th century Russia, when Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels further refined the meaning of the word and wrote the ideological body of communism in a pamphlet entitled The Communist Manifesto.
The story, which would shape modern history, began in 1917 when Lenin and the Bolshevik Party rose to power after seizing the window of opportunity created by the October Revolution.
From that moment, Russia ceased to be a monarchy and became a country that mirrored the ideology of Marx, Engels, and Lenin. Although communism is not limited to Europe, the grasp and the struggle for dominance felt stronger than ever on this continent, as the Soviet bloc strived to gain the upper-hand in the fight against Democracy.
In 1991, the Soviet Union disbanded, and the country constituted itself as a semi-presidential republic, where the president is considered the head of state. Currently, the Russian Federation is a democratic state represented by multiple parties.
Here are the ten plausible reasons that led to the disbandment of the Soviet Union and, subsequently, to the downfall of the communist doctrine in Europe.
By default, a communist country, such as the Soviet Union, valued utilitarianism above everything else. This meant that every action performed within the state had to have a palpable ending. Artistical endeavors such as poetry, sculpture, and painting, were not considered a good means of making a living.
Moreover, even the artistical drive was measured and controlled by a censorship committee, whose job was to determine if the work of an artist can actually serve the country or not. The arts usually entail a free way of thinking, something that did not go well with the Party.
The only creations published after passing the censorship committee were those that hailed the accomplishments of the Communist Party or those that encouraged others to believe in ideological utopias such as the class struggle or the supremacy of communism over capitalism.
Artists and thinkers alike who did not conform to the Party’s view were often persecuted and even faced charges of high treason.
Collectivization is another way of saying that private farming was not allowed. The force collectivization law was a doctrine enforced through Soviet Russia between 1928 and 1940, which coincided with Stalin’s rise to power.
With the industry taking off, the country needed food to support the ever-increasing mass of factory workers. At the beginning of 1930, more than 90 percent of the farms were conscripted in the collectivization program, which meant that all the items produced on a farm will be equally distributed among the population.
In other words, collectivization was another way of denying the right to private property, a doctrine which was adopted in the hope of optimizing the food production industry.
Naturally, the doctrine has been refuted by many farm owners who criticized the party views. Unfortunately, Stalin and the communist regime eliminated all those who opposed forced collectivization.
Similar actions were taken by other communist leaders, who wanted to demonstrate the Party was the bearer of truth.
In communism, individualism makes room for the collective. Ideals like freedom of speech were considered dangerous to the Communist party. The forced collectivization act and the lack of artistic freedom are just two examples of how communism chose to circumvent some of the fundamental human rights.
Of course, all civil rights were negated in the hope of establishing a society that functioned like a Swiss clock, without any deviation and to create a man that worked without questioning his role or place.
One of the main reasons why communist ideology ceased to exist is because it was not able to adapt to outside conditions. Certain forms of communism, like the one practiced in China, managed to survive this long because it was able to react to outside stimuli such as the global economy and social changes.
On the other hand, the Soviet Union faced the idea of dissolution from the moment it decided to close its eyes to what happens beyond its borders.
Innovation is one of the most important aspects that offers cohesion to society. Without change, society will fall prey to archaic practices. As a closed society, the Soviet Union focused more on production than actual innovation, an action that led to its early demise.
The economy dictates that the price of a product is formed when the offer meets demand. Also, there are other financial mechanisms used to determine prices and to regulate competitiveness on the global market.
On the other hand, the communist doctrine thought that the only way of distributing wealth was to form a so-called command economy, an organism that would determine how the resources should be spent.
Naturally, this type of economy will substantially increase the disparity between those who were in charge and the layman.
There are countless aspects which pointed out that this flawed system impeded the Soviet Union to manage its resources.
From the rise of the Khmer Rouge group in Cambodia to Stalin’s rise to power, the history of communism is riddled with tales of atrocities committed against those who did not embrace the communist doctrine.
Famine, mass executions, overwork, are tools of the trade which shaped the communism blood-thirsty demeanor.
In the end, the society envisioned by Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin and others is just a utopia, making communism the grandest and most dramatic social experiment ever performed by humankind. From the lack of rights to obsessive control, communism was like a time bomb ready to explode at any moment.
The communist society founded on equality states that regarding remuneration, a factory worker earns as much as a neurosurgeon. Furthermore, people performing tougher jobs life working in the ER or handling a nuclear reactor did not receive incentives for their work, because that would anger the ordinary worker.
Without incentives, people performing tougher jobs will not be motivated enough to work better or to innovate.
Like any despotical regime, communism was founded on tyranny, which entails the use of terror and fear as tools to control the crowd. History has proven on many occasions that every society based on oppression has rebelled against the regime.
What is your opinion on this? Why did communism fail, according to you? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments below!
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Communism in deed collapsed because by human nature and without any safeguards, leaders failed to avoid greed, human rights violations, and to put in place democratic institutions. Utopian collectivism, command economy etc were not formed on socio-economic lines. In other words communism as a business model failed to generate the social profits and so peopl simply withdrew from it letting it collapse
Article is very biased against Communism, full of prejudices. Reads like propaganda.
Isn't the article titled why communism fails? 10 year olds could have worked out that the article will point out communisms flaws
AFAIK, and I've spent dozens of hours in the nooks and crannies of Wikipedia political science, spent years in political activism, studied psychology and PoliSci in university, and had many, many debates with very clever people: there is no version of Marxist communism that fully respects human individuality. Some hybrid versions of socialism and left-libertarianism, sure, but in order for Marxist communism to work the State must have absolute power over citizens, which is authoritarianism. Even if the State allows for some democracy, the degree of authority needed by the State to guarantee compliance is so large that citizens will always be tempted to rebel or abandon the system.
Miniature versions of social egalitarianism and exchange economics, like the tribe social model and the economics of the merchant, are very old and work very well. We run in to problems when, through mass society, power can be concentrated beyond the threshold that human minds evolved to deal with. Used well, that power is a strong force for prosperity; used poorly, and tyranny is the outcome. I'd even argue that tyranny and prosperity are direct antonyms in this context. All atrocities in history and modern times that were committed by large groups against another were caused by the misuse of power by a leader - and thus tyranny.
The only successful political structures of the future are those that adequately check the maximum amount of power that can be accrued by any one person or group. The main virtue of Constitutionalism and self-limiting government, as well as capitalism, are that effective mechanisms for power limiting are in place; unfortunately, those mechanisms have become too weak over time. And tyranny has resulted, though it is characteristically more subtle than the more obvious State-driven tyrannies in history.
Either way, many people are fed up with the current system, because it no longer safeguards the regular person from tyranny. Marxist communism is alluring, because it makes a claim about the origin of tyranny (your employer taking some of your productivity as profit) and gives a solution (take control of the means of production and take the profit back). This is exactly the psychological appeal of a cult: "your life is horrible because of X, well I can help you defeat X, just drink this koolaid and listen". The missing piece (pointed out by other commenters here) is "who makes the judgement?", which is a point overlooked fully by Marx, and is the reason that communism in the Marxist tradition is always doomed to failure. Sure, some elements of communism are ripe for application to more complex and freedom-centered forms of social organization, but the main takeaway here is *nearly by definition, Marxist communism always tends towards authoritarianism* and there is no escaping it.
Further, because communist systems have so often resulted in extreme State-sponsored murderous tyranny, the notion warrants no more serious thought - just like arguments in favor of using nuclear weapons in human conflict.
Marx, like Freud, is a renowned half-thinker: both gave us a great volume of ideas that seem wonderful without further examination. It turned out that the best of their ideas were nothing more than great thought experiments, to exercise the brain to precisely refute seemingly sound ideas.
Communism will never fail hail Soviet Russia
You say, "Communism will never fail..." That is where you are wrong. If you look into Russia's history you would find that Russia used to be the Soviet Union which was communist. The Soviet Union failed so bad that the country basically needed to be rebuilt. Communism failed in the Soviet Union. Sorry to burst your bubble, but communism has already failed once, who says that it wont happen again?
The unfortunate thing in all policies and political institutions is that human nature is geared toward the want and need of power and control over their fellow humans. History puts that plain enough for all of us to understand.