Communism And Marxist Ideologies And The Soviet Union

Stalin’s early promises compromised of socialism and a life free from exploitation in regards to his social policies. However, he soon realised his error and reverted to a more conservative form of rule, whereby the interest of the state was given priority. Many describe his soviet social policy during the 1930s as a ‘Great Retreat’, it was named this as his policies saw a return to earlier social policies under the Tsar and former leaders. It is debatable as to how far his actions were a retraction of previous decisions…and the areas impacted were women, family, and education. A common theme of the great retreat was the gender role in society.

The first section of Fitzpatrick’s essay discusses how Marxism was such an important part to creating classes during the Bolsheviks rule in the beginning of the 20th Century. She notes that this western belief system was popular with Russian intellectuals, especially on revolutionary left. (173) However, around the 1890’s industrialization was starting to catch up with the Marxist dreams, and the first soviets were founded in Moscow and Petersburg in 1905 helped bring down the tsarist regime in February 1917 (Suny 173).

Communist rule was confined to the Soviet Union until the end of World War II.

It presented an obvious opposition to capitalism and illustrated no interest to change or backdown from their communist ways. To project an ideal image to other countries around the world the logo of the Warsaw Pact was the perfect example of the soviets projecting an image of camaraderie and equality with the symbolic “shaking of hands”. Their image to outside forces was crucial to their expansion as shown in document 6. They state “United by the common ideal …equality, respect of territorial integrity, state independence and sovereignty, and noninterference in one another's domestic affairs.” (Soviet Statement: Friendship and Cooperation between the Soviet Union and Other Socialist States”). These statements provide a view on the soviet’s spread that symbolizes relationships with countries built on trust and equality. As the years went on these countries begun to realize the they no longer wanted to be under Soviet power and like Hungary, extracted their countries out from Soviet

The concept of Stalinism, being the ideologies and policies adopted by Stalin, including centralization, totalitarianism and communism, impacted, to an extent, on the soviet state until 1941. After competing with prominent Bolshevik party members Stalin emerged as the sole leader of the party in 1929. From this moment, Stalinism pervaded every level of society. Despite the hindrance caused by the bureaucracy, the impact of Stalinism was achieved through the implementation of collectivization and the 5-year plans, Stalin’s Political domination and Cultural influence, including the ‘Cult of the Personality’. This therefore depicts the influence of Stalinism over the Soviet State in the period up to 1941.

Under Mikhail Gorbachev the Soviet Union underwent massive social, political and economic reform that drifted away from communist ideology and this ultimately lead to the collapse of the Soviet Union and failure of communism in Eastern Europe. This essay will focus on how the Perestroika reform and Glasnost policy programs as well as other external and internal pressures contributed to the failure of communism under Gorbachev. The aim of the Perestroika and Glasnost reforms was to restructure and strengthen the Soviet political and economic system and provide more freedom and democracy within the Soviet Union while strengthening Communism. However, these changes had achieved exactly what they aimed to prevent when they were first elaborated and led to the failure of communism and collapse of the Soviet Union. While focusing on the policies this essay will also focus on the major increase in nationalism that occurred in the Soviet Republics as a result of the Glasnost. External pressure from the western world was also a factor and the role that the United States and the Ronald Reagan administration played in the downfall of communism under Gorbachev will be examined. The essay will also discuss how the disintegration of Yugoslavia and the 1991 Coup d’état led to the failure of the policies and failure of communism.

The Soviet Union’s methods and intentions differed from that of Germany’s to the extent that they wanted to manipulate the Poles to go against one another in order to unify Poland and the Soviet Union instead of eradicate the Polish population. When the Red Army invaded from the east, they: “scattered leaflets designed to arouse class hatred towards the owners of the larger estates and factories, officers, judges, magistrates, priests, and politicians” (Garlinski 34). The country still included multiple ethnic minorities which did not yet learn to live harmoniously with each other. The Red Army used this lack of unity to their advantage and aimed disassembling the Polish underground movements. The Soviets subtly proclaimed misleading slogans

After the Russian revolution, Marxist Intellectuals were amazed that the workers of Europe refused to embrace Communism. A study research centre was set up in Germany in 1923, commonly known as the ‘Frankfurt school’, but officially ‘The Institute for Social Research’, to disguise its links to Communism. If the proletariat

Karl Marx and Freidich Engels both raised the essential question of this study in the second chapter, “Proletarians and Communists.” Of the book, “Communist Manifesto” (1848) Karl Marx, he distinguished himself as a man of high caliber, and a philosopher of immense intellect. When Marx published his novel, “Communist Manifesto”, in the book, he underlined convincing ideas that detail theories of communism coexisting with multiple strategic solutions to capitalism. The author further distinguishes communism is the exceptional method of managing a government either politically and economically, in such a way no person is subjected to dealing

In his work Uncivil Society: 1989 and the Implosion of Communist Establishment Stephen Kotkin (with the aid of Jan T. Gross) closely examines the existence and downfall of the ‘uncivil societies’ and explains how social mobilisation was able to occur under these regimes without any social organisation. His view goes against popular opinion in the sense that the Communist regimes themselves were the cause of their own downfall, the ordinary citizen did play a role, however, the significance of that is given too much significance. He highlights this through three case studies: GDR, Romania and Poland.

The Soviets are aware of how to keep themselves in power and wish to expand their influence over all communist countries, treating them as subordinates, "The weakening of any of the links in the world system of socialism directly affects all the socialist countries, which cannot look indifferently upon this"

Following the revolutions of 1989, neoliberals were able to forge new alliances with Solidarity members through a participation in a new and democratically-elected government. In particular, Balerowicz played a central role in shaping the nation’s economic reform by assuming the Deputy Prime Minister post and putting forward the Balcerowicz Plan, which effectively outlined the agenda for transitioning from central planning to a market economy. As Bohle and Neunhöffer argue, neoliberals eventually succeeded in winning the support of not only the general public but also of the political elite associated with Solidarity (99). They were able to capture the public imagination by insisting on a new and concrete set of policies, which opposed European “normalcy” and freedom to the Soviet stagnation and authoritarianism.

Firstly, background to the rise of the Soviet Union is examined. Keenan states that the Communists rose to power on ideas which denounced capitalism and

Ever since Poland became officially incorporated into the Soviet Bloc and the PZPR usurped power within the one-part political system, there were numerous instances of anti-communist opposition that invariably encountered repression and persecution at the hands of the pro-Soviet government. In the context of the present discussion, however, the roots of concerted effort to undermine or reform the state-regulated socialist economy can be traced back to the emergence of Solidarity, the first Polish trade union that was not under a direct

To properly understand the Marxist concept of communism, one must start where Marx himself does, with an understanding of the evolution and revolutions that created the current class system. Unlike Rousseau and Hobbes, Marx does not begin with a hypothetical human state of nature, but instead recounts the human history of hierarchy, saying, “the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles” (Marx, 14). He then traces these struggles, from ancient Rome to the problems of his own age, proving that no matter the time period or circumstances, in all recorded history the upper and lower classes have constantly been at odds. This has resulted in an ever changing power structure, the oppressed toppling their