Essay/Term paper: Communism

Essay, term paper, research paper:  College Papers

This definition is right and is fully accurate, but it only
demonstrates the theory of communism and doesn^t explain how it really
worked. It doesn^t say that the theory never worked out, because it is
impossible to make it work. I am going to tell some things about
communism in USSR where my parents lived all their lives, but when I
was born it was already dying out. So, mostly everything that I am
going to tell is based on what my parents and grandparents told me
about life in USSR. Communism suggests that everybody is equal in
rights and economically. That meant that everybody would be paid the
same for all kinds of jobs, so the janitor and doctor or lawyer would
be paid the same amount of money for totally different jobs. That is
obviously unfair and impossible. Since everybody was supposed to be
equal, no one in the government could have too much power, and that is
why they made took people who were elected from each area and these
were supposed to be the government. They were supposed to make the
decisions, elect all the other government officials and all the other
very important things. That made the ordinary man think that the
government is controlled by people just like him, with only high school
education (some even without it), poor, being in politics for the first
time in their lives. That is impossible. Such people can run no
government. The most annoying thing is that almost no one noticed that,
and if someone did, they were immediately terminated without any
questions. There was a small group of people who controlled everything
in the country. It was mostly the KGB and the General Secretary. Just
look at the name they picked, it suggests that he not the most powerful
man in the country; he is just a small general secretary. That^s all he
is. How obviously stupid all this seems now. But at that time it was
almost a religion, if one did not believe in it with all his/her heart
he/she were terminated or sent to concentration camp where they either
died or lived there for many years until all their doubts were beaten
out of them. Jewish people were some of the people to who the
government was the most unfair. They couldn^t get a good education,
good job, anything good or well paid. There were only two ways: the
army (or navy) or some pitiful civilian job, like a janitor, or some
other dirty job with a salary, with which you can barely buy something
to eat. These are some of the many experiences that my parents and
grandparents lived through during their lives in the USSR. My
experiences in that country are not that big. By the time I began to
understand something about life and what was going on around me,
Gorbachev came to power and he was the first man to try to change these
stupid communist rules. He opened up the country, he let in the other
currencies, and started the well-known Perestroika. The main part of
Perestroika was Glasnost, which means permitting open discussion of
political and social issues and freer dissemination of news and
information. That meant that people could finally openly talk about the
government, and say what they like and don^t like about it. Gorbachev
also let people have private property, so people started their own
businesses. That gave a real chance to poor people and also Jews.
Perestroika was the first step to democracy. Communism was falling very
fast. Everyone liked this new kind of life. This is what I have learned
myself. My last experience with communism is watching the Russian news
right now, and seeing those communist party meetings on the streets,
and seeing that there are no young people in there. All the people who
bring red flags and pictures of Lenin and Stalin with them are mostly
people well over fifty. And I understand them. For them life before
Perestroika was very good, they had their old easy jobs, good pay, good
apartments, cheap food, nothing to worry about. Perestroika brought
them problems, like constant problems with retirement pay, very
expensive food, for which they had no money, most of them lived and
live in poverty. And for the young people, the new life brought many
chances, they could now show what they can, prove their abilities, have
their own property. They could now just buy themselves an apartment,
when in communist times most of the people had to live in their
parents^ or grandparents^ apartments. One couldn^t just go and buy an
apartment. One had to sign up and wait in line for many, many years and
only their children could finally get a small apartment, which would
also be considered being very lucky. For some people communism was
good, but for most of them it was a disaster. No man is created equal,
and no one can make all the people equal. It is obvious that the
communist theory is impossible to be true in real life. It could have
never worked. Communism was started by poor people, who never worked
and didn^t life working. Their goal was to take away all the money from
the rich people who worked their butts off all their lives, and divide
it equally between all the people. Sounds fair, doesn^t it? That is how
the revolution of 1917 started and how communism was brought to life.
That is how the nightmare began.