When Karl Marx published the Das Kapital or Capital: Critique of the Political Economy in 1867, Marx tried to reveal that the foundations of capitalism thrived from the exploitation of the labor force. The second half of the nineteenth century was dominated by industrial capitalism. The consolidation of the world’s major economic contributors, America, United Kingdom, and parts of Europe, adapting to industrial capitalism is what acted as the bedrock for the Industrial Revolution, highlighted by the invention of the Locomotive Engine.
The core problem with communism and indeed every all-encompassing ideology is that it breeds absolute power of a certain group; in the case of communism, this would be one of Marx’s most important commandment, Dictatorship of the Proletariat which is essentially a sociopolitical thought. Invariably, wielding absolute power breeds absolute corruption and mass murder, usually genocidal.
The first communist state to have existed was the Soviet Union. It under the clutches of the Communist Party lead by Lenin and was later under the dictatorship of one man, Stalin. Communism and Capitalism are two different political ideologies. But America which was the first successful capitalist state made the faults of communism public during the World War II while hiding that of capitalism itself. America showed the world the wonders of Capitalism while simplifying or even reducing the Soviet’s ideology to miserable communism.
In the eras that followed Lenin and Stalin, and post-cold war Soviet saw the decline and dissolution of the state due to the fallacies of communism. The belief that a better society will emerge once capitalism is destroyed is based on wishful thinking and willful ignorance rather than any understanding of how people actually work. This might sound like oversimplifying of a complex theory but this is essential why the soviet fell. What if it hadn’t? What if the world’s political ideology was Communism and not Capitalism?
In a world where this hypothetical did occur, capitalism would have failed, which in reality it didn’t. But analogous to communism, capitalism too is oversimplified. It’s nuances and its futility to never taken into account. If the soviet had focused on this during World War II to educate the world about the faults of Capitalism while overlooking their own ideology, the Cold War that followed might have turned out differently. The communist party, however, attracts sociopaths, dictators for lack of a better word. This is the result of the power and sadism that it offers. The ideal of communism never stops appealing to the party leaders--it is a great excuse for mass murder after all--but increasing power becomes the priority.
Genocide would have been more common and even acceptable in some cases while some 20th centuries greatest technological and scientific advancements might have never happened. In this maniacally utopian theoretical society, citizens would have been groomed, not to innovate, create, or provide, but to rather oppress. There would have been rehabilitation centers to mend addicts of this deadly drug because Communism is considered to be the opium of the masses.
(When he isn’t writing, the creative producer with The Rascalas watches a lot of ‘cat videos’ on YouTube)
