Greetings friends! Communism!
Capitalism! Socialism! Liberalism! You
must have heard these words quite often.
But do you know the real meaning of these ideologies in its true sense? What has been their impact on our world? What are their advantages and disadvantages? Welcome to a new Blog series
"where I will try to explain such concepts, topics and things in a
simple language," "about which
we talk frequently," but hardly
anyone amongst us has tried to go
in-depth to understand their meaning. I
would like to start this series with today’s Blog which is on Communism. What are Communism and Communist ideology? "In one line, communism means," "“From each according to his
ability," To each according to his
needs.” "Meaning a society, where
every person works according to his ability" "If one person is more fit, is muscular
and can lift heavyweight," then he
works according to his own ability. "If
another person is a little weak, is disabled and cannot work extensively," then he too works according to his ability
and contributes towards society. And
such a society where every person gets things according to his need. "You will say here, “Bro, this is a
strange kind of society."
I being a fit and healthy individual will work hard "and in return, I will only get some
money that fulfils my need!”" "Exactly,
how will this work?" I will explain
this in the Blog moving forward. But Communism is basically a society or you can say that it is a way of
structuring people where there is no
money. It is a moneyless society. It is a stateless society. There are no countries. No borders have been drawn between countries. It is a classless society with no discrimination between the rich and
the poor. "Such a society where
the means of production," "such
as land, farms, industries, factories, all of them" "are operated and owned by the
labourers, by the common public." "Whenever
we hear the word communism," "Karl
Marx, the Soviet Union and countries like China come to our mind." "But in reality, if you go through the
basic definition of communism," the
foundational ideas of communism are actually thousands of years old. "Throughout human history, you will get
to see these examples." "Think
about 10, 000 years ago. How did humans live?" "Humans lived in a hunter-gatherer
lifestyle, in tribes." Many
anthropologists believe that it was the primitive form of communism. When you live in jungles in tribes "then there is no concept of money,
country." No country exists. "Many tribes might have had class or
hierarchy," but some tribes might
not have even that. All people existed
together. There would be no private
ownership. It isn’t that one individual
from the tribe can say that this thing
is mine and JUST mine.
"In these tribes, when you searched for some food" or hunted then you shared with everyone. The shelters were also shared with everyone. Most of the things were shared by everyone. Everyone lived like a closed community. If you want to know more about it then I would definitely recommend reading the
book 'Sapiens'. I have put the link in
the description below. It tells us
everything about human history. But
these are old tales. "If we talk
about today then," Karl Marx is
called the father of Communism. Karl
Marx was a German philosopher who
published the Communist Manifesto is 1848.
What was written in this Communist Manifesto? "Before we understand this, we need to
understand" the era Karl Marx was
living in ? What were the conditions
around him? Karl Marx grew up in an era
when the industrial revolution had just begun.
Industrial Revolution brought about big machines and factories. The labourers working in these factories
quite often worked in a very bad
condition. The owners of these factories
were often rich people who exploited their workers. The owners of these factories made their
workers work for the maximum hours while
giving them the least amount of payment.
"The profit coming out of these factories," most of it was basically taken away by these
factory owners "So basically
according to Karl Marx, there were two classes here;" one: the class of rich factory owners who
took away most of the profits The second
class is of the workers/labourers who
work in the factories for hours but get nothing in return.
"As a solution to the problems, Karl Marx imagined such
a society" "where there are no
differences between the rich and the poor,." "In a way, he imagined a utopia." Utopia is a perfect society that doesn’t
exist in reality. And he named this
utopia Communism. "In his communist
manifesto," he revealed the details
as to how communism can be achieved. "He
said that workers together can overthrow the monarchy that exists," whoever is the king or whichever government
exists. Such a society will be built
where the means of production i.e the
factories or the farms will not be owned
by a single owner but rather the entire public.
"According to this communist manifesto," "the communist society, there won’t be
any class or discrimination" "between
rich and poor or on the basis of race, religion." Free education and healthcare would be
provided. There would be no inherited
wealth. "If someone is rich then
that doesn’t mean that all his future generations too," would be rich. No concept of Inherited Wealth There will be no concept of private
ownership. No person can say that this
farm is mine or this land is mine. Everyone
will own all the land and all the factories.
There will be an even distribution of wealth. There won’t be rich or poor. There will be
equality. And everyone will be the
owners of everything. Everyone owns
everything! "So, these things are
quite idealistic but at the end of the day," everything is quite theoretical. You will ask how these things can be
practically implemented. It is nice to
say but how can it be done in reality. "At
the end of the day, Karl Marx was a philosopher." He did not see the practical implementation
of communism.
Practical implementation in reality in the true sense was majorly seen after the Russian revolution
of 1917. "In Russia, communist
workers together overthrew the Russian monarch" who used to be called the Czar at that time. And their leader Lenin for the first time implemented communist ideas on a big scale. Lenin took some revolutionary steps for his
time. The human rights of the labourers
were recognized. The working week was
limited to 8 hours per day and 5 days a week.
"Prior to this, workers worked for 12, 13, 14 hours in the
factories." But Lenin first
introduced the 8hours and 5 days which
is quite common in the world today. Everyone
works Monday to Friday for 8 hours per day.
Women were introduced to education.
"For farming, the land was taken away from rich landowners" and redistributed amongst the farmers. The factories were nationalised they were taken under the control of the
government. "But if you remember,
the original ideas, written in the communist manifesto," it wasn’t written that the government will
control everything rather it said that
the public will control everything. "So,
you can say that the communism implemented by Lenin" was a little different from ideas thought out
by Marx.
"Now think about it friends, if such big steps will be
taken" in such a big country such
as the Soviet Union it isn’t possible
that every person living there would agree to it. "Some people will say that what the
government is doing, we disagree with it."
Or disagree with the way of doing it.
But Lenin believed that what he was doing was an absolute right. He did not have the ability to take
criticism. "For this reason, he
banned the rest of all political parties"
and established a one-party state.
"In fact, a state where it was not allowed to criticise the
party." Secret police used to spy
on the people "and if anyone
criticised the government, he was put in jail." Any person opposing communism or suspected to
have spoken against "used to be
jailed, deported, or executed." "So,
this Marxist-Leninist political structure is called Soviet Communism." "Today, most people associate Communism
with this Soviet Communism." "But
obviously, every Communist did not agree with this Leninism." There was a very famous Polish communist Rosa
Luxembourg who was strictly against
Leninism. She used to Libertarian Marxism. Such a Marxism philosophy where people are
given freedom of speech. They are given
their freedom. "But anyway, Lenin
died in 1924." "After him,
came Stalin who implemented his own ideas of communism" which were worse than Lenin. Stalin’s communist ideology went farther away
from the Marxist ideology. Stalin tried
to increase the output of the factories.
"For that, he tried to make the labourers work
more" and the workers started
working in the same conditions that Marx
had initially mentioned. "The only
difference was that this time," the
factory owners were not any rich business owners but rather the government. Soviet Union government kept their workers in
the same bad conditions and the economic
conditions were so bad that millions of people
died due to famine and hunger. "Because
of this, many people call Stalin’s ideology, State Capitalism." It doesn’t have much to do with communism rather it was a structure of capitalism that
was state-controlled. "After this,
came Mao." His communist ideology
was much more extreme and all the more violent.
"There is a very famous dialogue of his," “All political power comes from the barrel of
the gun.” "In some way or the
other, he advocates for violence." His
ideology is called Maoism and the word Maoist comes from here only.
The Naxal-Maoists who have picked up weapons in India believe in his ideology. It isn’t surprising that they are so violent. "Inspired by the Soviet Union," many countries around the world tried to
implement communism. "In all these
countries, their own ideas of communism were implemented." How should communism work according to them
and practically how it worked? But one
thing was common in all these countries.
All these countries had dictatorships.
Most of communist countries transformed into dictatorships. Why did this happen? I will talk about this later when I will talk
about the failures of communism. But
millions of people died because of this.
"On one hand, dictators like Stalin and Mao killed people" because they thought that they were against
communism. "On the other hand, were
Hitler in Germany and Mussolini in Italy,"
"Franco in Spain, killed people in their own countries" on the doubt of them being a communist. "In fact, it is said about Hitler and
Mussolini that" one technique they
used to come to power scared people of communism. was to scare people into believing that they were the only ones to protect them from
the evils of communism. This is how
these people came to power and became dictators. "So, by now, you must have understood
one thing friends." It is not a
black/white thing to be or not to be a communist. Consider it a spectrum. You can make a graph
in fact. "One hand is communism,
capitalism and on another" are
dictatorship and supporting freedom and democracy. So some dictators such as Stalin are
communists but also dictators but some
dictators such as Hitler are on the side of capitalism but are still dictators. And some other such people who believe in
capitalism and support democracy will
come under this section.
What were the reasons behind communism failing so badly? We will talk about this later in the Blog. But
first I would like to talk about what were the successful ideas that the world has borrowed from communism. You can say such ideas that turned out to be
successful in communism and the rest of
the world has implemented it today. "The
first idea is of a classless society, one where there is no class
difference." There is no
discrimination between upper caste and lower caste or the rich and poor. "Today everyone generally accepts that
racism, casteism, sexism are bad." It
is a bad thing to discriminate between people.
It is a good thing to give equal opportunity to every person. "Although, I would definitely say that
some communist countries" have
taken this idea to the very extreme. "They
took ""no discrimination between people"" to mean" that there should be no difference between
people. "Every person will be given
the same house, same car and same standard of living." There should be no difference in beliefs
among people. No one should believe in a
certain religion or ideology. This is
the reason why communist dictatorships came into being. "In fact, if you focus on the
architecture in communist countries,"
then you would see such buildings
which are styled quite like a boring dystopia. There is no creativity and people are not
given a chance to express their beliefs The
second idea is of no inheritance. "Each
one of us raises our voice against nepotism, dynasty politics." It is quite something similar to Karl Marx thoughts.
Karl Marx had said that there should be no inheritance. "And if we look at the implementation in
reality, then " "in many
democratic countries in Europe," there
exists an inheritance tax. "If you
are wealthy, and you are gifting that wealth to your children" and letting them inherit it then that wealth
would be taxed. The third idea is worker
rights. The exploitation Karl Marx
talked about; we get to see that in many places. "For this reason, in most democratic
countries" we get to see workers
unions and labour unions. "For
example, the farmers protest going on has many farmer unions
participating." What are these farm
unions? All the workers come together
and raise their voices together. Whenever
they feel that they are being exploited then
all these unions stand together to amplify the voice of the workers or the farmers. Karl Marx had also said that most factory
owners exploit their workers. They make
them work the maximum hours and give them the minimum payment. "To avoid this, the concept of minimum
wage exists in most countries" A
lesser salary than this would not be given to any worker. "Similarly, there are ideas of free
education and free healthcare" that
have been successfully implemented in many developed countries.
"Now, let’s come to the failures of communism." "What was the reason that whenever it
was tried to implement communism," it
always kept failing. What are the
fundamental problems of this communist ideology? The biggest problem of communism in my
opinions lies in its basic definition. Every
person will work according to their ability
but will get things according to his need. Now think about it yourself. If I am a fit and healthy person and I am working really hard according to my
ability but what do I get in return? I
get the same thing whatever everyone else is getting? What is then my incentive to do more hard
work? If I work less then I would get
the same payment. "Work even
lesser, I'd still get the same." No
reason exists to improve my work. What
will I get If I am more efficient and innovative? I will get nothing. I will get what I have
been getting since always. "Now
think about it, if every person living in society starts thinking like
this," no competition in the
society. There would be no development
in technology or in any other field. This
is quite a philosophical reason behind the failure of communism. The practical reason is that when you try to
make a classless society "in a
reality where everyone is the owner of everything," This society has a power vacuum. The space at the top is empty and there is no
one to lead.
"Due to this power vacuum, there will always be space
for a dictatorship." One person who
will tell direct the way of work. And he
will then become a dictator. "Through
this very dictatorship, one-party rule is established." People’s freedom is snatched away. There is no democracy. And if anyone speaks against the party then
they are either arrested or killed. "On
top of it, when this dictatorship is established," "the government will control all
factories, lands, all distribution processes." The things which are to be distributed
amongst the people will be under the
control of the government When one
person or party will control everything then what will happen? Corruption.!
The people in power will keep getting corrupt because they have so much control in that they can decide everything about the public. What kind of houses will people live in? How much land will they get? How many factories will they get? In reality whenever there have been efforts
to implement communism "practically,
it ceases to be communism." Some
party comes up and dictates how things will work. Which is quite different from the original
definition. What is the principal
definition of communism? The original
definition is that every person is the owner of everything. "But if one party, one government tries
to control everything" then it
ceases to be communism. It will now be
called socialism What is socialism? I will explain it in detail in the next Blog of this series. "After hearing all this, one question
will come to your mind." Does a
successful practical example of communism exist?
where communism has been implemented in the true sense? where it did not turn into a dictatorship? The answer to this question is yes but only
in small communities. Whenever the scale
gets bigger up to the level of a country
then communism is always seen to be failing. Communism has thrived in small communities in
some places. The biggest example of this
like I told you at the beginning of the Blog "were
early humans who lived in tribes, worked together" when there was no concept of money. "In today's modern world too," there are few examples of it as well where it
has worked in small communities. "For
example, OSHO’s ashram in the US" on
which a Netflix documentary series has been made as well. People lived in a small commune together.
Everyone worked with each other. There was no concept of
money. It was called Rajnishpuram. You can call it a successful implementation
of communism. But it is not right to
call it successful even. Because if you
look at what actually happened to it in the end
you will know it turned to be a big failure as well. "But in India, there is still one
example of it." There is a
community in Puducherry named Auroville.
2000 people live in a community where
"there is no concept of private ownership of land, housing and
business." All the people living
there work for everyone and take care of
the entire community Everyone has been
assigned their work and there is not
much concept of money either. How does
the community of Auroville works? I
think I can make a separate Blog on this
itself. It will be quite nice to make a
ground report by visiting the place. "After
this, the next Blogs of the series will
be on capitalism and socialism." "So
that if you did not understand something in this Blog,"
you will understand them in those Blogs. comment
below about your opinion. What are the
successful ideas of communism and what are its failures? "so that I keep making such
educational, informational blogs for you in the future." See you in the next blog. Thank you so much.