Essay/Term paper: Communism in the soviet union and why it failed

Essay, term paper, research paper:  Economics

Communism in the Soviet Union and Why it Failed

Communism is defined as "a system of political and economic organization in
which property is owned by the community and all citizens share in the enjoyment
of the common wealth, more or less according to their need." In 1917 the rise
of power in the Marxist-inspired Bolsheviks in Russia along with the
consolidation of power by Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin, the word communism
came to mean a totalitarian system controlled by a single political party. This
came to justify that the means of production is controlled and the wealth is
distributed with the goal of producing a classless or possibly a stateless
society. The ideological meaning of communism arose in 1848 with the
publication of the Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. They
believed that communism is inevitable and is an outcome of the historical
process. They believed that the "struggle between an exploiting class, the
capatalists at present age, and an exploited class, the workers, would enter a
crucial stage in the period of capitalism where industrialization occurs and
that the effects of industrialization is to heighten and intensify the internal
contradictions in capitalism." To put it bluntly they believed that the
ownership of industry would be in fewer and fewer hands where the workers would
plunge into a state of ever-increasing misery. These impoverished workers grow
in numbers and organize themselves into a political party which would lead a
revolution in which they dispose of the capitalists. The proletariat would
establish a society governed by a " dictatorship of the proletariat" based on
communal ownership of the wealth. According to Marx this phase of human society
is referred to as socialism. Communism is the final transcendence of this
revolution in which there is a break up and elimination of the state and no
class division. That is the primary reason that it was called the Union of
Soviet Socialist Republics. In 1991 the Soviet Union collapsed. What was the
problem with this system of government, if this is a workers paradise what
happened ? What did the Soviet Union do wrong to cause a breakdown of their
ideal system ? In this paper I will explore the rise of the Soviet power and
causes of the 1991 breakup.

The person who started the whole transition into a communist empire was Vladimir
Lenin. He felt that the working class was not capable of starting this
revolution on their own and needed a professional group of revolutionaries to
guide it. This led to Lenin and Bolsheviks coming into power in 1917. The
Bolsheviks renamed themselves the Communist party and under the leadership of
Lenin took control of government and outlawed all of the other political parties.
In 1918 they became the ruling party of Russia and formed a dictatorship so
they could ensure the Soviet transition from capitalism to socialism. The
communist party arose in opposition to both capitalism and socialists of the
Second International who had supported their capitalist governments during World
War I. The name communists was specifically taken to distinguish Lenin's
followers in Russia and abroad from such Socialists. Following their victory in
the Russian Civil War in 1918, the Soviet Communists followed a cautious policy
of limited capatalism during the New Economic Program until Lenin's death in
1924. Lenin's successor, Joseph Stalin, forcibly accomplished the transition
from capitalism to socialism. During his years in power the party grew from
about 470,000 to millions. He nationalized the Soviet industries and
agriculture. A rapid industrialization program was pushed on the people even
though they lacked materials. Police terror was also used to suppress dissent
and opposition. This became known as Stalinism.

Communist rule was confined to the Soviet Union until the end of World War II.
The Soviet Red Army liberated several countries in eastern Europe from the Nazi
Germany control. The soviets sponsored and helped form the communist
governments in Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Poland, East Germany,
and North Korea. Stalinism became the basic model for most of these new
governments. After Stalin's death in 1953, Nikita Khrushchev began a rapid rise
and in 1956 repudiated Stalin's "tyrannical excesses" in his famous "Secret
Speech" at the 20th party congress. The next year he became the parties leader.
Krushchev ended the practice of "bloody purges" of the party membership, but his
rule aroused dissatisfaction among the other party leaders. He was kicked out
in 1964. Leonid Brezhnev succeeded him and was general secretary until his
death in 1982, when he was succeeded by Yuri Andropov. Andropov died in 1984
and the position was passed to Konstantin Chernenko. After Chernenko's death in
1985 the leadership was passed on to Mikhail Gorbachev.

Both as an ideology and a practical system for the organization of a state,
communism entered a period of crisis in the late 20th century. By the 1980's it
had become quite clear that state-owned systems of economic production were
unable to provide the same standards of living obtained in many countries with
free market economies. The unequal concentrations of wealth in capitalist
countries were matched by glaring concentrations of power in communist ones. It
had become clear that the maintenance of a one party communist rule tended to
limit personal freedoms in a way unknown in parliamentary democracies. The rise
to power in the Soviet Union of leader Mikhail Gorbachev in the mid-1980's set
in motion a farther reaching reassessment of the efficiency of the communist
ideals and practices. In 1989-90 the communist parties of eastern Europe
abandoned their monopoly of power and the communist governments in these nations
either fell or submitted themselves to free multiparty elections. In the Soviet
Union Gorbachev's attempts to liberalize the Soviet politico-economic system
provoked that system's collapse altogether in 1991, after which communism
rapidly withered as a viable ideology in Russia and the other former Soviet
Republics.

In the winter of 1990-91 many asked how the Soviet Union would end . While
Mikhail Gorbachev was arrested the real target escaped, Boris Yeltsin. The
failure was not only contributed to the myth surrounding the new Russian state
but it also pushed the Soviet Union beyond any parameters envisioned by the
process of reform they were attempting to stem. When Gorbechev came into power
he knew that his country was stagnating but they termed it a "pre-crisis
situation". They did not realize the depth of this problem and believed that
their nation only needed reform. Six and a half years later the Soviet Union
and Soviet Communism were dead.

The Soviet Economic crisis was clearly visible in the declining growth rates,
increasing scarcity of exploitable resources, and the worsening imbalance
between military production and that for the general economy, especially
consumer goods. The Soviet economy seemed ready and mobilized for war. In the
consumer sector a very large portion of the capital stock was not only under
productive but was also at the limit of its physical capacity. According to the
Russian Prime minister Ivan Silayev, "only 15 percent of investment in the
Russian republic went to consumer industries. Military industry, on the other
hand, was constantly being supplied with new technology." Several Generals,
especially ones involved in technical services, tried to break the hold of
traditional strategy that emphasized numerical superiority, only to be shot down
by high command.

The Soviet bureaucracies shifted from the Stalinist era into a more corporatist
system. They neglected their goal of service to the state and society in favor
of self interest. Political and economic corruption, which has existed
throughout Soviet History, increased systematically in the years prior to
Gorbachev. The size of the "second" or illegal "shadow" economy eventually
accounted for 25-30 percent of the market and became essential for the economy
to function as a whole. By the end of the Brezhnev era many politicians where
accepting bribes openly. This corruption of the bureaucracies only separated
them further from the people they where put in place to serve.

Not only was corruption a problem but the quality of leadership deteriorated as
well. This was not only true in intelligence and organizational talent but also
in a physical sense. Most of the members of the central committee were aged and
lacked spark. The respect and fear they once generated was rapidly declining in
an increasingly young and educated country. This weakness of political dissent
within the Soviet Union was also important to the crisis. It planted seeds of
antitotalitarianism and anticommunism in the native soil. Also the potential
for political action sunk to an all time low in the community.

The final problem that they encountered was in their relationships with other
nations and ethnic groups. This may have been the most potent flaw in their
system. Non-Russian ethnic regions contained under developed, peasant cultures.
These groups were able to resist with surprising force subordination to Russian
culture or submersion into the Soviet state. This lack of development led to
cultivation of old ethnic identities and the process of modernization only
created new strains.

The Soviet Union lost all of its internal vitality, the powers of the regime
were still intense. Decay was probably unavoidable but the disintegration did
not seem immediate. The counter actions to the already failing government are
what caused the final demise of the nation, the actions only accelerated the
demise of communism.