Political Study: Communism

Within this Nazi-WWII phase of mine, I've now started to pivot towards the Eastern Front theatre. This includes documentaries and eventually a book about Stalingrad. This morning I was actually watching a documentary about Josef Stalin, when it occurred to me. I know a lot about Hitler and his fascist-Nazi ideology but very little about Josef Stalin. He had a cult-of-personality to match Hitler, and ultimately was able to deliver the knock out blow to the Nazis. The Soviet government was also a totalitarian regime, rooted in the ideology of communism. I understand the basics of communism, but not it's variations of Leninism, Trotskyism, and Stalinism. I think it's important to understand the Communist ideology before I properly begin this study on the eastern front of WWII. 

I must confess it was during my later years in college and in Chicago, that I began to somewhat like the idea of communism. A classless society where the wealthy are cut down and everyone is equal. Free of capitalism. I know it was the films Reds and Doctor Zhivago that especially inspired me towards this ideal. Naturally I was still young and enjoyed the idea of revolution and intellectualism. That is until I got a decent jobs and began to value the freedom of our market. Now I mostly see communism as another form of extreme totalitarian ideology, on par with fascism. Despite it's left leaning ideals for equality, I consider myself a hard worker who values freedom and would hate to ever be in a system that puts the state above individual liberty. Nor would I want a form of system that seeks to do away with the government. Anarchy in my opinion would lead to sheer chaos. 

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels developed the political theory of Communism in the 1840s, many decades before fascism. However it did not become a political party until the Bolsheviks established one in 1903. Under the leadership of Vladimir Lenin, the Bolsheviks overthrew the Russian Tsardom in 1917 to establish the first official communism government. After WWI, Communism began to spread across Europe and Asia like a wildfire, especially reaching Germany and China. Of course each leader developed their own version of communism, which I want to dive into here. I'll later dive deeper into Stalin's regime in a separate post, but I don't think Stalinism is so different from communism, that it would require it's own post (whereas fascism and Nazism were very different). 

Origins of Communism

This notion of communal living has been around since the prehistoric days where all members of a society were expected to contribute for the greater good. Whether that be hunting or gathering, each person (man, woman, or child) was to work for their membership. This is also a standard principle of many Christian denominations, such as the Amish. Not one person is seen as greater or more important than the other, rather a society of equals. To this day there are many rural societies that live like this, driven by their faith. However to be fair, these societies don't value wealth or material possessions. They value the simpler things in life such as nature, spirituality, and community. 

However throughout history humans naturally developed a system of trade that contributed to a class hierarchy. It's been the primary economic system since the prehistoric days, where some had more resources then others. The wealth exchange first began with material trade, to currency, to real estate and banking systems. In a way it's almost primal human nature, that the strong and smart prosper over the weak. The question throughout history was always what was to be government's role in this free market trade. That was best achieved thru the implementation of taxes which helped keep the government above everything. Yet despite these tax systems there were still the private wealthy class who owned many aspects of trade, land, and even slave labor.

During the Age of Enlightenment, the fervor against private property began to catch steam with new political ideals. The French philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau laid the early seeds of revolution against the monarchy in his political manifesto, The Social Contract (1762). Although America and France were able to achieve revolution from the monarchy, private property still remained in tact. There was however a failed coup d'état in 1796 known as the Conspiracy of Equals, which sought to establish a true egalitarian society. Led by Francois-Noel "Gracchus" Babeuf, who sought to establish a new ideal of communal wealth and property. Despite his arrest and execution, this could be seen as one of the first forms of communist revolution.

It was during the Industrial Revolution of the mid-1800s where the inequality between the working class and the wealthy became most apparent. This was a time of industrial boom, where the production of factories led to mass urbanization. The working class known as the proletariat struggled with poor living conditions, long hours, hard work, and low pay, while the wealthy class known as the bourgeoisie lived like royalty. It was only a matter of time before the workers united to establish labor unions and strike against the power elite. This fervor ultimately led to political upheaval and a spread of Revolutions across Europe in 1848. These revolutions were led by the working class societies seeking to establish a new form of nationalism and liberty. They were ultimately all brought down, however it was during this time that Karl Marx established a roadmap to achieving a communist government.   

Marxist Political Theory

Karl Marx was a German Jew who studied law and philosophy at the University of Berlin. During this time he also worked as a journalist where he began to develop his revolutionary ideals. He was especially influenced by the philosophy of George Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Marx began to develop his own critique of religion, monarchy, authority, the system of capitalism, and the class society. His writings eventually got him in trouble with the Prussian monarchy, which forced him to leave to Paris in 1843-1845. There he synced up with fellow radical socialist thinkers such as Frederick Engels. Marx and Engels began their collaboration at this time which laid the groundwork for their political manifesto. 

Marx was once again expelled from a nation due to his radical political writings, which forced him to move from Paris to Brussels in 1845. It was here that he and Engels published their most famous political writing, The Communist Manifesto (1848). This wasn't just an outline of the political structure of communism, but how to achieve this state of government. It was thus a cry for class revolution, where the proletariat must rise up against the bourgeois. This pamphlet in essence was the creed of Marxism, the revolutionary ideal to achieve communism. Furthermore Karl Marx established a political party in London, known as the Communist League to put these ideas into social practice.

The key components to Marx's theory was action vs idea (historical materialism), and the only way to properly achieve the revolution was not thru idealism but thru a physical uprising. Marx thus laid the theoretical groundwork of the class struggle and that all value came from human labor. The bourgeois are able to achieve their wealthy surplus by exploiting the working class with low pay. They are also able to maintain the social gap by controlling all aspects of society from the law, culture, media, politics, education, and even religion. Therefore according to Marx and Engels the only way to achieve an end to this inequality would be thru a working class revolution. After the revolution there would need to be a transitional period of socialism (a cooperation between the private and public sector), before complete anarchism (where the government withers away). 

So to be clear communism seeks not only a classless society but a stateless society. In this sense it shares the same end-game as that of anarchism. However where communism differs it that it believes it must happen gradually thru transition. First there must be a socialist state where the government oversees the class equality, then a slow transition to a state without a government. Over time the ideal would be embedded in society as one of self-governing and voluntary equality. However I think it's ignorant to think that people could remain fair and balanced without a government. In a way communism is nothing more then a transitional path between socialism and anarchism. Therefore it could be seen as a branch of anarchism (socialist-anarchism). Once again where it differs is the manner on how to get to that end game. Gradual change vs rapid change.   

Unfortunately for Karl Marx, despite his involvement in public speeches and politics, he never got to see his vision come to reality (aside from the brief 2 month Paris Commune of 1871). He was ultimately the theoretical idealist, who laid the groundwork for the actual physical revolution itself. One of his most famous writings came later in his career in 1867 with the publication of Das Kapital. This further laid out the economic components of communism by pointing out all the problems with capitalism. These writings began to gain major momentum throughout the early 1900s, most notably in Germany and Russia. Marx's political ideals would eventually influence key communist parties such as the Social Democratic Party of Germany in 1875 (SDP), the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) in 1898. These parties quickly branched off to more revolutionary ideals such as Vladimir Lenin's Bolsheviks and Rosa Luxembourg's Spartacus League.  

Leninism/Bolshevism

While Karl Marx believed the revolution would first catch fire in the industrial-capitalist countries like Britain, Germany, or the United States it was not quite the case. It was actually in the feudal society of Russia where the working class began to put Marx's communist ideals into action. In 1895 Vladimir Lenin helped organize the first Marxist political group in St. Petersburg, known as the "Union of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class" of which he was later arrested and sent to Siberia for. This group transformed into a socialist political party in 1898, known as the Russia Social Democratic Labor Party. However by 1903 there was a key split among the party of two factions; the Mensheviks favored a moderate diplomatic approach, while the Bolsheviks favored a radical revolutionary approach. 

The RSDLP joined in the 1905 Russian Revolution, which was essentially a mass movement of worker strikes and resistance against the inept Tsar regime. The revolution however lacked proper organization and was easily squashed by the Tsardom. Vladimir Lenin spent most of his time in the early 1900s in exile for his revolutionary writings (Siberia, Germany, Switzerland, and France). However he still played a leadership role within the RSDLP party, and helped steer it into it's own political party in 1912. The key components of Lenin's Bolshevism was to completely overthrow the Tsarist regime and replace it with a working class dictatorship. This dictatorship would essentially be a proletarian government which would redistribute wealth and land to create a classless society.

Lenin's vision was completely on par with Marxism. He first intended to seize power thru revolutionary force and then establish a socialist transition before a complete communist state. The only major difference was Lenin believed in a centralized form of leadership to act on behalf of the proletarian, whereas Marx felt the revolution should be an organic assembly of the working class. Lenin was able to finally coordinate his coup d'état in 1917 thanks to the unpopular opinion of WWI. The February Revolution was a proper Marxist uprising, an organic spontaneous assembly of the working class that overthrew the tsar. However it's only problem was that it lacked proper structure and leadership. Which is why Lenin was able to easily overthrow this people's government a few months later in October.   

By 1917 Vladimir Lenin put the Marxist ideals into practice by establishing the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. This became the first socialist government that was centralized into one single party that adhered to the ideals of Bolshevism. Mensheviks and any other political or tsarist parties were quickly disbanded from holding any public offices. The land and industry were completely nationalized and redistributed among the peasants. Factory and business owners co-operated with this new state early on, as is necessary for a socialist state. Naturally however this new radical form of government take-over met high opposition, primarily among those loyal to the Tsar. This of course was scene as a counter-revolution, which led to almost three years of Russian Civil War from 1918-1921.      

Trotskyism

It's fair to say that Vladimir Lenin was a dictator, but not of ultimate authority like Hitler, Mussolini, or Stalin. He was essentially overseeing a transitional socialist government and thus relied heavily on support from his inner circle of Bolsheviks. Lenin was not a cult-of-personality, yet saw himself simply as the chief administrator of the proletariat. He was aided by key affluential members such as Leon Trotsky, Josef Stalin, Lev Kamenev, and Grigory Zinoviev. Trotsky was considered Lenin's right hand man, a Jewish political theorist on par with Karl Marx. He was one of the founding members of the RSDLP however was neutral during the Bolshevik/Menshevik split. He eventually got onboard with Lenin's leadership after the 1917 revolution. 

Trotsky oversaw the counterrevolution effort after Lenin's government was established in 1918. This became a multi-faceted effort to purge all political opponents, thru his establishment of a Red Army. Despite being an intellectual, Trotsky would often travel with his red army to instill discipline and high morale. The Red Army faced various political enemies throughout the Russian Civil War, such as the White Army (coalition of monarchists, and anti-Bolsheviks), nationalist movements (Ukraine, Georgia, Poland), anarchist movements, and foreign intervention (Britian, France, US, and Japan). Trotsky was able to crush all capitalist opponent who sought to bring a swift end to this new communist regime.

Despite his glorious victory of the Russian Civil War, Trotsky's greatest enemy was not anti-Bolshevist rather someone internally from his own party; Josef Stalin. After Lenin's health began to quickly deteriorate in 1922, Trotsky and Stalin suddenly found themselves at odds vying for the succession of authority. Trotsky and Stalin's ideals began to differ significantly from Lenin's Marxist structure. One of the major components of Trotskyism was the desire to spread Communism internationally so that it could continue to compete with capitalism. However Stalin sought to establish a nationalized regime, free of any foreign influence. Even though Trotsky was the smarter intellectual with the backing of the Red Army, Stalin was able to outmaneuver him thru political alliances. After Lenin's death in 1924, Stalin succeeded him as leader and quickly had Trotsky expelled shortly after.  

Stalinism

While Trotsky controlled the Red Army, Stalin sat in a key position as General Secretary of the Communist Party. This enabled him to create a network of loyal allies which included a tri-pact with Lev Kamenev and Grigory Zinoviev, known as the Troika. Their sole purpose was to ensure that Trotsky would not become successor. By this point Stalin had developed his own ideology quite different from Trotsky's worldly ambitions to spread communism. Stalin preferred to strengthen the nation thru absolute totalitarian authority. While he managed to eliminate private wealth and ownership, a social hierarchy still existed based on the leaders of the Communist Party. By 1927 in order to avoid any civil conflict, Stalin had Trotsky expelled from the party and exiled in 1929. Trotsky went into hiding in Mexico for some time, but was eventually assassinated by Soviet spies in 1940.

Stalin did not continue Marx and Lenin's ideals of transforming the nation from a socialist to a communist self-governed state. Instead he increased his totalitarian power with secret police, propaganda, censorship, and political purges (similar to the Nazis). It was still a socialist economy, where everything was controlled by the state. Industry, labor, and agriculture were funneled into a system of collectivization where everything produced went to the state. The officials would then redistribute the resources as they saw fit. Peasants still remained like slaves, where any underperformance of their crops would be brutally punished.   

During his rise to power, Stalin established an aggressive Five Year Plan to completely overhaul the nations economy. Although this mostly consisted of forced labor, the infrastructure of the state significant improved with better factories, railroads, and modernized cities. The military strength was also modernized to compete with the growing threats of fascism. However Stalin's society was far from the ideal of communal living, yet rather a dystopian industry of slave labor. The nation underwent various bouts of famine, most notably in Ukraine 1932-1933. Stalin also implemented terrible labor camps, known as gulags, and massacred nearly a million political opponents during the Great Purge of 1937.  

Maoism

These communist ideals eventually spread throughout Asia, primarily China during the 1920s-1930s. Mao Zedong became one of the key leaders of the Chinese Communist Party CCP in 1921 seeking better conditions for the peasants. During WWII, China suffered terribly from Imperial Japan and the need for new leadership was greater then ever. Mao was able to establish a guerilla army of peasants and marched thru the mountains gaining support. Following the end of WWII, Mao's communist faction began to defeat it's political opponents and eventually won the Chinese Civil War. Mao then established the People's Republic of China in 1949 while many of his opponents fled to establish the nation of Tawian. Similar to the USSR this was a communist nation on par with the vision of Karl Marx. 

The differing elements of Mao's version of communism was that it was a peasant uprising and not an industrial one. Also he did not intend for the government to "fade away" as Marx intended, yet rather grow stronger similar to Stalin's totalitarian regime. He established a one-party state, with a cult-of-personality, and dealt with political insurgency thru Red Guard police and labor camps (laogai). He was against imperialism, and more concerned with nationalizing the rural nation thru the system of collectivization. Where Mao differed from Stalin's regime, was that he was considered a national hero of China's independence. He essentially reshaped China into a modern industrial nation and thus became a cultural symbol. His ideals would further influence other communist movements such as the Cuban Revolution (Fidel Castro and Che Guevara), and the American Counter-Culture movements.