By academic, semck, I mean that this is for school. And what I am doing for school is talking about the fate of communism in history in a debate like format for class.

So the question is going to come up - the leftists (i dont know whether that will be me) are going to have to explain why the communist states of the past all became absolutist states

Haha well frankly I would do it myself but I found myself coming up with extremely weak answers along the lines of "Marx's ideas were never really implemented" but...... were they or weren't they? And if they weren't, why weren't they, from a leftist perspective?

In short I am fully acquainted with the mainstream explanation of the failure of communism but what is the communist explanation, in detail, other than "it wasn't implemented properly?"

I only ask you guys because I'm sure some of you know. And then there is also Putin who I have a vain hope may be of help rather than hindrance.

Another reason could be that many communist regimes started off by means of (violent) revolution. If you and I are going to come up with a program for the US we'll probably have a discussion (where I yell at you and ignore most of what you say in my case) but if you're a revolutionary trying to overthrow the state you need weapons and chains of commands and what not. Small wonder that's what they focus on when they organize their country afterward.

WOW wait. Now you're taking a weird turn Thucy.

What communist states degenerated into anarchy?

"Another reason could be that many communist regimes started off by means of (violent) revolution."

But didn't Marx fully expect this to be the case? So if you are Marxist, what is your explanation for this? There's no way they can admit that there is something inherently flawed in Marxism. Unless... well maybe they do these days but I'm not aware of it.

"WOW wait. Now you're taking a weird turn Thucy."

??

I think the main reason - if I'm to go unconventional - that Communism fell is simply because it has been twisted and contorted to fit different agendas. For example, Soviet Communism was seriously twisted from real Communism, and I think it's safe to say that most of the Communism we see today is pseudo-Communism as well. I am with Pete in saying that people want to be free, but I also think that there are collective freedoms stemming from Communism if it's done right.

@largeham - if we take your definition of socialism, then no the USSR never achieved it. The working class were never in control, just a political cadre. And it was far from democratic.

So, what historical factors caused it to actually be twisted and contorted in such a way? Again, the answer can't be that there's something wrong with Marxism (except for the moderate leftist position, but that's covered anyway), it has to be some kind of explanation in terms of specific circumstances, right?

Something like "well it failed because the West tried to stamp it out starting in the early 20th century" or "well it failed because Russian culture wasn't ready for communism" or something like that.

But you win the gold prize if you can come up with a universal explanation that covers all the communist states. I have an idea how does this sound guys:

"Reason communism became authoritarianism: it was implemented on a national level rather than a worldwide level. There was never supposed to be such a thing as a communist state existing among other non-communist states. But it became such a thing because of nationalism - people in those times were not sufficiently post-nationalist for communism to succeed in its intended form. When the communist states became isolated by the non-communist states, they were forced into autocracy in response."

How does that sound? Thoughts?

"the USSR never achieved it. The working class were never in control, just a political cadre. And it was far from democratic."

What is the reason behind that though, PeteU, if you were to explain it as a leftist?

Is thucy more right-wing then in past discussions? Iirc you were rather left leaning a year ago...

redhouse, he is looking for a socialist/communist explanation. Not the standard one.

Take note Thucy, what I write here are my own views/perceptions of authors.

Anyway, I read The Revolution Betrayed and State Capitalism in Russia (if you can find them online, they might be good for a quick skim), but that was a while ago. The main reasons Trotsky/Cliff outlined tend to be the two reasons I outlined above (beware of Trots, for some the only reason we don't have world-wide socialism is because Trotsky was kicked out). I haven't left-communist criticisms, so I can't help you there.

The main problems regarding China/Cuba/NK, etc is how the countries came to be. Maoism=/=Marxism, Marx psoited a revolution headed by workers, Maoism is based on a revolution/guerrilla war by the peasantry. Cuba came about in a similar manner. NK and the Eastern bloc countries were essentially buffer states.

Thucy - As I said, I think it is an inherent part of Soviet communism, driven in part by the system, which requires leaders/planners, and partly from human nature,and the balance of altruism and self-interest. Quite simply, once you put people in a position of power and influence, they will seek to maintain that benefit.

And anyone who thinks any apparent democracy in the USSR was anything more than a sham or a sop to 'the people' clearly doesn't understand what democracy is.

As someone who sits on the left, I think the failure is in not letting people choose that path - AFAIK no communist government has ever won a truly democratic election - all have swept to power through revolution or coup or military might. While our decisions as voters may be flawed, or stupid, or unlucky in hindsight, they were our decisions.

And if the system is put in place through force and violence, it is going to expect the 'counter revolution' to arrive in the same manner. (This is true of both right and left).

I would agree with that PeteU, after say the mid-20s or so. The Bolsheviks had mass support in 1917. Part of the problem (this is for Thucy as well) is that large parts, especially the more revolutionary elements, of the working class were killed during the Civil War.

Ah, gotcha Thucy. Sorry to have misread, then.

I do think PeteU's got a point though. Communism innately involves restricting what people can do. Unless you can force people to want other things than they do, that's going to involve a lot of force. And forcing people to want other things than they do? Yeah, that involves force too. (Also, it's impossible).

We can look at this from the aspect of faith.

The reason why a fervent communist won't be discouraged by all those failed communist states is the same reason why a fervent Christian won't be discouraged by the failures of the church. He knows that perfection is unattainable, but he also knows he must personally try to get as close to it as possible, and to help any institution or country that is trying the same.

The communist ideal seems to be as strong as the Christian ideal. The fervent communist will calmly conclude that each real-world failure strayed from the communist grand plan (an equivalent of God's will in Christianity) at some point of its development.

Zmaj, we might as well say the same thing for neo-liberals, the only reason we fail is because the market is not free enough, the invisible hand of the market must reign free over society.

Now to answer the question:
If we want to look at specifically the USSR (as West Germany kinds disproves this argument) then Marx accurately predicted an inherent problem with his socialist model.

Karl Marx understand benefits of capitalism, he acknowledged that capitalism is great at creating wealth, but his problem with it was that this new wealth would be concentrated into fewer and fewer of the bourgeoisie.

He therefore advocated a capitalist society that would build up the industrial base required for socialism and then have a proletariat takeover of said industry.

He specifically referenced Prussia, France and Great Britain as the areas that the socialist movement would take off, simply because Prussia, France and Great Britain where the only countries with the industrial capacity that he thought met the needs for socialism to work.

Russia in 1917 was not ready for socialism, and Stalins 5 year plan was required to change that, but his 5 year plan fell short, and despite its rather successful implementation (excluding the millions of people who died as a result), the USSR was still unable to compete with the far superior industries of Western Europe and USA.

This was the reason for the inevitable downfall of the USSR, the country simply lacked the resources, both land (using the economic, not geographic definition of land) and capital to implement socialism properly and as a result couldn't compete with the US. It wasn't a failure of socialism that caused the downfall of the soviet union, but the constraints left on the poor country by the people, both externally and internally expecting to much of the young socialist republic.

Karl Marx wasn't expecting socialism to compete with capitalism, but to replace it and in this sense Karl accurately predicted things to come. Europe (and now America following it with the election of Obama) is becoming more left wing and the benefits of Marxist economics are starting to be realized in Europe. People now have access to free healthcare and other goods that are expecting in a socialist society but absent from a capitalist one.

The revolution wasn't a literal revolution, but the proletariat using his power in the voting booth to slowly implement socialism in the way that Karl Marx envisioned.

you can see the socialist leaders who have won numerous elections across Europe as proof that this has happened.

This is the argument that I would use, from a socialist perspective, of why the USSR failed.

Thought I am sure Putin is going to come in and start blabbering that the USSR failed because Gorbachev wanted it to and it would have won the cold war if a more Stalin like leader was in power during Gorbachev's time.

"It wasn't implemented properly" is not a communist opinion at all. That's a response from a smartass left intelligentsia in the eyes of actual communists. Washing your hands clean over people trying to actually achieve the proclaimed common goals of the left.

Communists would rather argue that your definition of authoritarianism is skewed to fit the right-wing narrative. The people in communist countries had guaranteed standard of living and therefore little incentive to actively participate in the politics. And they could participate if they wanted after all - they could become a member of the party and influence the country from within (and in countries like Czechoslovakia, they could even join non-communist parties that accepted the political guidance of the communist party). The reason why the elections looked rigged was because only the best candidates decided to run and so they ran alone - and people voting for them showed a message of strong national unity to the West who always tried to hype up the nonexistent rifts in the society, which only a handful of individuals engaged in. Freedom is not an end in itself, the important thing is the capability to fully exploit the freedom you have. Therefore, e.g. the freedom to travel abroad is meaningless if you don't have the resources to do so. Furthermore, people might exercise their freedom against the interests of the state, which is identical to the interests of the people, and therefore rather than allow some rights to prove detrimental to the welfare of the society, it was better to not grant people those rights at all, or at least not make them inalienable. The importance of the public welfare could be demonstrated on the prohibition of parasitism, i.e. voluntary unemployment. An unemployed doesn't benefit to the good of the society (he actually leeches on his compatriots) and should be therefore punished. On the other hand, the right-wing idea is citizens have the freedom not to engage in contracts they don't want to participate in. That notion is flawed, because in that case, the rights of an individual are in contradiction to the rights of the rest of the society. The whole narrative is skewed because the idolization of an individual obscures the fact that all individuals can be equal and equally free only when we take into account the society as a whole, which is the projection of the needs and wants of all individuals. Is the unemployed homeless New Yorker more free than he would be in Moscow, where he wouldn't be homeless and have something to live for, have the joy of using his skills for the betterment of his neighbours and the whole country? That question is rhetorical. Ergo, what the right labels pejoratively as authoritarianism is actually superior to the dog-eat-dog "freedom" of the West.

"Another reason could be that many communist regimes started off by means of (violent) revolution."

And many didn't. The most developed Eastern Bloc countries had rather mild transition of power. The communists didn't have to shoot anybody in the Czechoslovakia for instance. They won the elections, formed a government and only become the sole power in the country after democratically pure process when the non-communist ministers ostentatively resigned from their posts and were replaced by communists. East Germany was also no slaughter. The argument fails to compel even more after accounting for the violence used during the American revolution and subsequent war with Britain. An unjustified revolt and civil war if we take the perspective of Britain.

Re: weird turn. That was equalizing the turn to authoritarianism to failure. Communism failed after it had been authoritarian for decades.

Also, the constant pressure from the West certainly didn't help in creating open, democratic countries. Allende was a democrat, which only made it easier for the US to topple his legitimate regime by counterrevolution.

The constant threat of war meant national security in socialist countries had to be put before the freedom of people more than it would be otherwise. Case in point, the development in the USA post-9/11, the curbing of civil liberties and such. And that's merely because of terrorists, not a nuclear superpower wanting you dead.

@ulytau - Yes, the Soviet occupation of East Germany was entirely bloodless, and the subsequent imposition of a communist regime was entirely the choice of the liberated German people....

The current issue of Nat. Geo. has a feature on Cuba which I would highly recommend as a general overview of the economic situation there.

Don't discount the role of economics in the discussion. Under a regime where supply is tightly controlled, demand has ways of being satisfied by illegal and black market means, which essentially undermines the ability of any government to control the market. When people are able to flaunt the artificial constrictions on supply, the results would be tighter controls on the population, creating a downward spiral to authoritarianism.

I don't know if this is relevant or even true, mostly conjecture on my part, but it makes sense in my head.

I can't think of any reason why it would turn into anarchy though.

There are plenty of problems with this question. I'll do a bullet point list because I don't want to do an Obi-long post.

1 - All states are authoritarian or dictatorships. How states differ is in which class is control of the dictatorship. In bourgeois "democracies", the bourgeois is in control, and the proletariat is suppressed. In proletarian democracies/ socialist countries, the proletariat is in control, and the bourgeoisie is suppressed.

2 - The dictatorship of the proletariat is a necessary transitional phase for a socialist country, because socialism is a transitional phase from capitalism to communism. It's necessary because the bourgeoisie is not going to disappear without a fight overnight. Especially in an international situation where you're surrounded by NATO guns which they are quite happy to use at every and any opportunity. We saw that as soon as socialist countries loosened its grip on the bourgeoisie, attempts at counterrevolution commenced.

3 - We have seen what happens to countries that try to become socialist without the dictatorship of the proletariat. They get overthrown. See: Chile - 1973, See: Guatemala - 1954, See: Indonesia - 1965, See CONGO: 1960. See: Iran - 1953. The countries which successfully resisted imperialist attacks all had dictatorships of the proletariat.

In short, people need to read about what Marx said about the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. The long and the short of it is, revolution is not supposed to be a dinner party. There's a class war going on whether you acknowledge it or not.

"Don't discount the role of economics in the discussion. Under a regime where supply is tightly controlled, demand has ways of being satisfied by illegal and black market means, which essentially undermines the ability of any government to control the market. When people are able to flaunt the artificial constrictions on supply, the results would be tighter controls on the population, creating a downward spiral to authoritarianism.

I don't know if this is relevant or even true, mostly conjecture on my part, but it makes sense in my head.

I can't think of any reason why it would turn into anarchy though."
Doesn't Putins thread about the Prohibition discredit this argument?

"@ulytau - Yes, the Soviet occupation of East Germany was entirely bloodless, and the subsequent imposition of a communist regime was entirely the choice of the liberated German people...."

East Germany was a reaction to the illegal creation of West Germany. Let's get that straight. West Germany was put into NATO and nuclear weapons were placed there as Berlin became ground zero for a potential nuclear war at US instigation. The Warsaw Pact occurred in reaction to all of that.

But since history of the Cold War is completely whitewashed people just spout propaganda.

I didn't read any of the Prohibition thread, so I wouldn't know.

But I doubt it. It's Putin and he was likely wrong.

illegal but not unsuccessful :P