In theory, socialism and communism sound good, with everyone doing their share and working together to provide for the greater good.
No crime, no poverty, free education, everyone has a job. Everyone has food to eat. Everyone has a place to live.
Each utilizes a planned production schedule to ensure the needs of all community members are met.
In a communist society everything is owned by the working class and everyone works toward the same communal goal. There are no wealthy and poor classes. Instead, all are equal.
Production from the community is distributed based upon need, not by effort or amount of work.
It is expected that basic needs for each worker are met by the community, and there is no more to be obtained through working more than what is required.
For example, if a worker puts in more time at work, he sees no additional reward.
The worker receives the same government benefits and rations of food and clothing as before.
Therefore, this type of economy often results in poor production, mass poverty and little advancement. This occurred in the 1980s to the Soviet Union when poverty became so widespread, and rebellions and revolutions caused that nation to collapse.
Socialism shares similarities to communism but to a lesser extreme.
As in communism, equality, or as we hear now, equity is the main focus.
Instead of the workers owning the facilities and tools for production, workers are paid and allowed to spend their wages as they choose, while the governing body owns and operates the means of production for the benefit of the working class.
Each worker is provided with necessities, so he/she is able to produce without worry for their basic needs. Still, advancement and production are limited because there is no incentive to achieve more.
Without motivation to succeed, such as the ability to own an income-producing business, workers’ human instincts tell them to do the minimum. There are no rewards for working harder than your neighbor.
Both communism and socialism are opposites of capitalism, with no private ownership and class equality.
In capitalism, reward comes naturally without limitation to workers who work harder than their neighbor.
When there is profit, the owner can freely keep it, and he has no obligations to share his spoils with anyone else.
A capitalist environment facilitates competition, and the result is unlimited advancement opportunity.
In modern society, many countries have adopted pieces of socialism into their economic and political policies.
For example, in the United Kingdom, markets are allowed to fluctuate rather freely, and workers have unlimited earning potential based on their work. However, basic needs like healthcare are provided to everyone regardless of time or effort in their work.
The welfare programs like food stamps in the United States are also forms of socialist policies that fit into an otherwise capitalist society.
So, socialism and communism both involve ceding, to the state, control over the distribution of goods and services for the masses.
This involves giving up individual rights and giving the state a good measure of control over our personal lives. This road always leads to tyranny, no matter what you pave it with, and no matter what you name it.
The historical fact is that the government in these systems, and their leaders, eventually take control of everything that’s produced—medicine, education, housing, food, transportation, etc.
The government then bureaucratically rations out—as they see fit—the means of human survival. In the end, you’ve basically got an elite corps of people with the power to decide which folks are more equal than others.
Socialism also has a way of producing bloated bureaucracies that in turn produce ever greater poverty. Along the way, this produces even more corruption and cronyism than we see today in our own government.
Censorship becomes the norm because dissent cannot be tolerated or the system would collapse.
The more than 100 million victims of communism/socialism worldwide show just how slippery a slope this is.
Now here is a theory I have.
Socialism/communism is like a religion. Think about it.
How may religions see the bible as the governing document of their faith?
All can agree to certain teachings of the bible. Even Mohammed stated that we are all people of “the book”. So did Martin Luther, and the Mormons, just to name a few.
Yet somehow, with millions of people studying the teachings of the bible, we now find ourselves with thousands of religions based on the same book.
When you look at socialism and communism, you can see a similar phenomenon.
Both communism and socialism arose in response to the Industrial Revolution, during which capitalist factory owners grew extremely wealthy by exploiting their workers.
Early in the industrial period, workers toiled under horrendously difficult and unsafe conditions.
They might work 12 or 14 hours per day, six days per week, without meal breaks.
Workers included children as young as six, who were valued because their small hands and nimble fingers could get inside the machinery to repair it or clear blockages.
The factories often were poorly lit and had no ventilation systems, and dangerous or poorly-designed machinery all too frequently maimed or killed the workers.
In reaction to these horrible conditions within capitalism, German theorists Karl Marx (1818-1883) and Friedrich Engels (1820-1895) created the alternative economic and political system called communism.
In their books, The Condition of the Working Class in England, The Communist Manifesto, and Das Kapital, Marx and Engels decried the abuse of workers in the capitalist system, and laid out a utopian alternative.
Under communism, none of the “means of production” – factories, land, etc. are owned by individuals. Instead, the government controls the means of production, and all of the people work together.
The wealth produced is shared out among the people based on their needs, rather than on their contribution to the work.
The result, in theory, is a classless society where everything is public, rather than private, property.
In order to achieve this communist workers’ paradise, the capitalist system must be destroyed through violent revolution.
Marx and Engels believed that industrial workers (the “proletariat”) would rise up around the world and overthrow the middle class (the “bourgeoisie”).
Once the communist system was established, even government would cease to be necessary, as everyone toiled together for the common good.
The theory of socialism, while similar in many ways to communism, is less extreme and more flexible. Communism is simply socialism at the end of a barrel of a gun.
For example, although government control of the means of production is one possible solution, socialism also allows for workers’ cooperative groups to control a factory or farm together.
Rather than crushing capitalism and overthrowing the middle class, socialist theory allows for the more gradual reform of capitalism through legal and political processes, such as the election of socialists to national office.
Thus, while communism requires the violent overthrow of the established political order, socialism can work within the political structure.
So let’s go back to my theory. If socialist/communists agree with the teachings of the Communist Mainifesto, why do we see so many variations of communism/socialism throughout the world?
For the same reason we have Baptists, Catholics, Protestants, Mormons, etc all using the same book, but practicing their faith differently.
Christians look at other Christians and agree on the book, they just don’t agree on the interpretation of what it says. In their eyes, the other religion is “just not doing it right”.
Same thing is true with those who follow the teachings of Marx and Engels.
Socialists/communists look at other socialists/communists and say, “You’re just not doing it right”.
Bear in mind, socialism was adopted as a party platform in France, Spain, Germany, Italy, Russia, Yugoslavia, England, and yes, even the United State in the 20th century.
Lets look at the history.
The first two years after Stalin’s death, reflected the insecurities and lack of unity among the new leaders of the Soviet Union. Nikita Khrushchev, the new leader of the USSR, later noted that Stalin had told his successors, “When I’m gone, the Imperialist powers will wring your necks like chickens.”
As such, the successors were on the defensive from the day they started. Anybody who rose up to threaten them were dealt with severely.
In July of 1953, when the Armistice was signed in the Korean War, Moscow agreed to provide financial backing, technicians, and technology for more than 100 construction projects in Communist China. In a display of increasing respect for the Chinese, Khrushchev traveled to Beijing in 1954, the first of many foreign trips Khrushchev made as party leader.
The most significant turn in Soviet Foreign Policy that year; however, was regarding Yugoslavia and its leader Tito, who Stalin claimed was no better than the United States and its President.
The problem was Tito was pursuing his own brand of socialism. In May 1955, Khrushchev led a delegation to Belgrade to talk to Tito.
Khrushchev now hoped to get Yugoslavia to join the Soviet block. In Khrushchev’s visit with Tito, he agreed that each socialist country had the right to determine its own form of socialism.
Folks this is where it all started.
Kruschev said, your thoughts on socialism are good Tito, you’re just not doing it right.
In Khrushchev’s previous speech to the Party Congress, he stated that the break with Yugoslavia in 1948 was Stalin’s fault and a big mistake.
Despite these concessions, Tito remained committed to his own socialist path and had no desire to become just another country in the Soviet Block.
In Poland and Hungary, hearing of Khrushchev’s visit with Tito, these countries now launched an effort to pursue socialism in their own way. They thought maybe Kruschev “wasn’t doing it right”.
These were unintended consequences of Khrushchev’s attempt to get Tito on board.
Just like with Yugoslavia, and Tito, the Soviet Union and China did not agree on the true teachings of Marx and Lenin. China did not agree with Khrushchev’s continuing criticism of Stalinism.
So now China says, “Russia isn’t doing it right”.
Mao Ze Dong wanted Soviet help in modernizing China and developing a nuclear force. Khrushchev was not willing to give China nuclear weapons and was unwilling to risk war with the United States.
The summer of 1960 Khrushchev ended Soviet economic and technical aid to China and recalled all Soviet experts in the country.
Khrushchev now called Mao “Adventurous” and a “Racist”. The Chinese referred to Khrushchev as a “Buffoon”.
So China now takes the lead in spreading their versions of communism/socialism throughout Asia, which included, Vietnam Cambodia, and North Korea.
It is interesting to note that the Japanese are mainly given credit as the catalyst for the spread of Communist thought in China, because Japan invaded China on July 7tth of 1937.
During the years this war was being fought, puppet governments supported by the Communist Party were set up in rural villages.
Peasants supported these governments because not only did they give them a say, but the governments “provided self-defense, education agricultural cooperation, support for full-time guerillas, and other needs of the villages”.
Basically these local institutions taught peasants the meaning of government, especially during times of war.
In addition to teaching government, the mass movements endorsed by the Communist Party sparked “the feeling of belonging and of having a stake in government.
This was entirely new to the Chinese masses; and it brought with it an exhilarating sense of self-determination.
Although the same philosophy guiding the Russian revolution guided China, differences of opinion existed from the beginning. These grew over time, eventually leading to a major political rift known as the Sino-Soviet split.
The early Communist Party in China adhered closely to Russian political philosophy. However, Mao Zedong, a founding member of the Chinese Communist Party, disagreed with the concept of a workers’ revolution in China.
Reasoning that the majority of the Chinese population were peasants, Mao refocused the goal of Chinese communism toward the concept of a peasant revolution.
China restructured its government and eliminated much of its culture during two movements known as the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution.
During the Great Leap Forward, which took place from 1958 to 1961, the government took land from peasants, who were then organized into farming cooperatives, a policy that ultimately led to famine.
The Cultural Revolution was a state-sponsored eradication of traditional Chinese culture that took place from 1966 to 1976 and resulted in the destruction of temples and schools as well as the murder of people associated with traditional values.
After Mao’s death, China restructured its government, and shifted to a system known as market socialism, which differed from the USSR in its reliance on a free market. This system is still in place in China, which now has one of the world’s strongest economies.
So, while Communist China did have an immoral leader, Mao tse-tung, the Communist Party was able to adapt to the times by putting economic reform before political reform. Ultimately this historically brilliant move led by Deng Xiaoping was arguably what kept the Communist Party in rule and will do so for many years to come.
So there you have it folks.
Is the current push we are seeing for socialism in our country simply that our leaders in Washington think the system works and that all previous leaders who attempted it, simply, “Weren’t doing it right?”