Communism In The Soviet Union And Why It Failed Essay

Why are people against Communist? J. Edgar Hoover, Sidney Hook, and William O. Douglas have written articles about their opinion relating to Communist expanding throughout our Nation. Communism is a social organization based on the ownership controlled all economic and social activities. J. Edgar Hoover, Sidney Hook, and William O. Douglas have numerous points of view on Communism. Their voices and minds reveals that Communist is not who they say they are.

After World War II the Soviet Union led by Stalin maintained a strong presence and influence in Central and Eastern Europe, specifically, Poland through the communist Polish United Workers’ Party (PZPR). In this paper I aim to address the reason why communism and Marxist ideologies were unsuccessfully received in post war Poland. I will be arguing *that Marxism was made into a tool of oppression by the Soviet Union, and therefore became illegitimate in itself. I intend on arguing this theory by investigating the goal of the Soviet Union. In addition to this I will identifying instances where the Soviets and communist puppet parties in Poland had strayed from traditional Marxist ideologies. Finally I will recognize the opposition groups and parties that had formed against the Soviet oppression and instillment of inequality.

The U.S. has considered Communism the greatest threat before and after WW2 and the civil war. It also worked very well in China. During the 1950s, Senator Joseph McCarthy unfairly accused a number of innocent people of being communist and traitors.

The Cold War was based off of different political and economic views between the US and The Soviet Union. Soviet communists did not agree with the allies way of private ownership economies. Russian leaders felt as if capitalism was dying and that communism would spread through the world which caused a great tension, releasing a new kind of war, the Cold War. Winston Churchill described the separation of Soviet controlled countries in Eastern Europe and the Western Democracies known as the “Iron Curtain”. The Soviets wanted expansion and the retaliation of the US was containment. A form of containment was known as the Truman Doctrine, declaring that the United States would free people of communism, such as those in Greece and Turkey. Down the

The Zbigniew Brzezinski defined a Soviet victory as entailing “the submissive neutralization of both Western Europe (through the dismantling of NATO) and Japan, and the withdrawal of U.S. political military presence across the oceans. Moreover, victory was also defined as attaining the worldwide economic supremacy of communism over capitalism” . Part of this view is corroborated in the infamous Long Telegram by American diplomat George F. Kennan, which, among other things, claimed that the USSR wanted to further socialism at the cost of Western capitalism. . From both sources, one can assume the terms of victory for the Soviet Union in the Cold War, and, consequently, these can be compared with the actual events of the Cold War to determine how large a defeat the Soviet Union suffered. It is indeed true that the Western capitalism emerged victorious in the end. Western Europe wasn’t “neutralised”; in fact, it was Eastern Europe that submitted to Western politics as the USSR collapsed. Similarly, by the end of the Cold War it was the USSR’s political presence - rather than the US’ - that had collapsed, leaving the US seemingly unopposed as the leading global superpower. In each of these cases, it appears that the Soviet Union suffered a total defeat far removed from any conditions of victory. However, while this paper will begin by examining these areas of defeat, it will then go on to argue that the defeat was not necessarily total. Finally, it will argue that survival and

The United State’s was not subtle in their distain for communism and the Soviet Union; they fanned the ideological flames between capitalism and communism rather than putting them out. Directly after the war the US created the Marshall Plan, where they gave $13 billion to European states. In President Truman’s speech ‘The Truman Doctrine’ he talks about Greece and Turkey and threatens if aid is not given, Greece’s democracy will be under threat by armed men supported by communists. This was a strategic ploy to prevent communism, by allowing capitalism to flourish. Full-employment leaves people happy, and accepting of capitalism and less likely to turn to radical communism. However the Soviet Union was not impressed with this because they believed that capitalism was the root of fascism, and their allied states declined the funding.

Communism is a major threat to the American society because of the violence and the corruption that there is. Communism is a social economy in which the government owns and controls property and profits. “(Communism)”. This would strike the economy into labor strikes, prison, and protests.

A quarter of a century after the Fall of Saigon, Vietnam continues to exercise a powerful hold of the American psyche. No deployment of American troops abroad is considered without the infusion of the Vietnam question. No formulation of strategic policy can be completed without weighing the possibility of Vietnanization. Even the politics of a person cannot be discussed without taking into account his opinion on the Vietnam Ware. This national obsession with Vietnam is perfectly national when viewed from a far. It was the only war that the United States has ever lost. It defined an era of American history that must rank with the depression as one of this nation’s most traumatic. It concluded with Watergate and led many to believe that the

Some may think Marxism and Leninism go hand and hand but they are from similar to one another. It is the contrast between these two political theories that sever the bridge between theory and practice. Vladimir Lenin’s view upon Communism far differed from that of the theorist Karl Marx which leaves us to question as to how could one deem the two interchangeable? How could Lenin proclaim to be a Communist with that completely alter what Marx and Engels provicized to be their view of Communism within the “Communist Manifesto”? Why would people confuse a seemingly democratic view with State Capitalism? The answer to these questions is a simple one for it is all based about lack of one’s interpretation which in turn led to such a conflict of ideals. The misinterpretation in this theory and practice hones it on the misinterpreting of the duties of the Central Government. Misinterpretation is an issue that has troubled the world for centuries upon centuries because interpretations of theories and even other forms of writing has always been based upon the instilled by the interpreter not the creator which seemingly cause conflict.

Communism is an economic system where the government owns the means of production, and is one where there is no private ownership because it is under the control of the communities or the state. Since its proposal in 1848 by German Philosophers, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, in their book, “The Communist Manifesto”, there are many who have been influenced by the writings of Marx and Engels. This has led to many revolutions and establishments of governments with the “communist ideals” of peace, solidarity, and labour.

China and Oceania are strikingly similar to each other. However, both countries are ruled by two different political ideologies. To this day in China, the government organizes themselves under the Communist party. Communism is, in theory, a classless society in which all wealth and property are owned by the community as a whole, although in reality, there are few variations of this definition as every society is different. Every building and plot of land is owned by the community. The true goal of communism is to have a society without rulers, but Mao Zedong forged his own path and abandoned this principle. When Mao Zedong gained control over China, he first hunted down the remaining nationalists, capitalists, and landlords in a period

Many political beliefs exist. Everyone has the right to chose what to believe in, what ideas to have, what to seek and how to achieve his goals. Political science is not very defined and strict. Specific rules saying that if one believes in a certain idea he should join a certain party do not exist. Certain things match certain group of people and other things this group of people would not accept. The same principle can be applied for countries. Communism appears to be successful for China, but it failed for Eastern European countries. It is very important the proper way of government to be found and used by the government of a country. The failure of the government can lead to failure in

To this day people who were ruled by communist government still feel the pain and results from it. Communism can be seen as a theory and a system of both political and social organization that has had a great impact on the world through most of the twentieth century. Let us begin by defining what communism is, where it all began, who were some of the key people that played a major role in communism, and when it fell apart.

Many people would consider a perfect world as a place in which all things are equal. This equality would encompass the many categories ranging from salary to food. No one person would be considered higher or more important than another and a person’s only concerns and actions would be for the good of the general group. Essentially there would be an absence of social classes and greed. Communism has promised this utopian society and since as early as 19005, Russia has taken steps towards its direction. As a means to change the economic and political structures, a revolution was started. However, years went by and Russia only saw the significant decrease of Soviet citizens caused by forced famine and liquidation. The failure of the communist movement can be seen in its flaws of its ideology. Arthur Koestler depicts and explains the fundamental flaw of communism, in his work Darkness at Noon, as the first person singular, simply known as “I”. The philosophy of Stalinist’s perfect soviet society are ruined because of this “grammatical fiction.”

v The fall of communism in Poland also inspired the fall of communism throughout Eastern Europe in 1989, in a period sometimes referred to as the “Autumn of Nations” (a play on the Springtime of Nations used to describe the 1848 revolutions). Lech Walesa stated in an interview that he and the Poles "lost many battles along the way, but [they] peacefully won the war" (qtd. in Morris). A similar, drawn-out process to defeat communism occurred in other Eastern Bloc countries around this time. Pope John Paul II once said the following: "Freedom is not just something to have and to use, it is something to be fought for. One must use freedom to build with it personal life as well as the life of the nation" (qtd. in Walesa). Other nations in Eastern Europe followed this path, similar to Poland's, of fighting for freedom (Walesa).