Afaik this happened with every single instance of a communist country. Communism seems like a pretty good idea on the surface, but then why does it always become autocratic?
Afaik this happened with every single instance of a communist country. Communism seems like a pretty good idea on the surface, but then why does it always become autocratic?
Equating all socialism with the authoritarian regimes of the 20th century oversimplifies a complex political tradition.
Dictatorial tendencies are not intrinsic to socialism but are contingent on specific historical and political contexts.
Russia: The Bolsheviks’ turn to authoritarianism was partly due to the civil war, external invasions, and a lack of democratic traditions. These circumstances led to the consolidation of power to preserve the revolution, not as an inevitable feature of socialist theory.
In other contexts, socialist movements (e.g., in Scandinavia) have successfully implemented social democratic policies without authoritarianism.
The role of individual leaders and political choices in shaping socialist experiments. Figures like Lenin and Stalin made decisions that prioritized centralized control, which deviated from the principles of worker self-management and democratic participation.
These deviations were not a necessary outcome of socialism but reflected the particular decisions and dynamics of those historical moments. So a small sample size of major socialist states and people cloud judgement.
External hostility often pushed socialist regimes toward authoritarian measures. For example, the USSR faced significant opposition from capitalist countries, which influenced its militarization and political centralization. This external pressure created a siege mentality that undermined the potential for democratic governance.
Democratic socialism has thrived in various countries, showing that socialism can coexist with democratic principles. Examples include the welfare states of Scandinavia, where socialism has enhanced equality and social welfare without undermining political freedoms.
GREAT answer!
THIS. This is THE reason most Marxists give for the necessity of authoritarianism in the first stages of transition to a Communist society.
That makes pretty good sense to me, but what about China? They are no longer in the first stages correct? What’s their excuse?
Post Qing/Early Republican China was an absolute mess of competing factions, and it’s here that the CCP - with strong Russian backing was born.
The 1920s and 30s saw the government of the Republic of China decide that defending itself from Japan was less important than crushing the Communists, and was embroiled in civil war (and a continuation of the warlord battles consolidating power post-Qing collapse) with both sides receiving foreign support.
In the end, the Japanese invasion became big enough Chaing Kai-shek was forced to work with/not actively fight against the CCP, which the Communists took as an advantage to resupply and restock and engage in guerilla war against Japan while letting the Republic’s forces waste manpower and supplies with the pitched battles, so the Communists were able to overwhelm the Chinese Government in the reopening of the civil war after the end of the Second World War.
Early Communist China spent its life on a war footing, expecting (quite validly as declassified US documents show) the Korean War to push into China itself if the UN forces weren’t held in the peninsula, or the Civil War to warm up again with Chiang trying to retake the mainland with US backing.
This led all led to, from during the Long March in the first part of the Chinese Civil War and into Mao’s rule of the PRC, the establishment of a strong authoritarian government ideology. And while after the failing of the Great Leap Forwards and the resulting famine, led to Mao’s politiking ending the push to a less centralised power body with the Cultural Revolution and his taking back centralised power over the country.
Mao’s legacy has lingered, and the '89 protests led to a decided nailing shut of the slow shift wider democratic rule in the PRC, at least until Xi is gone and his picked successor is deposed, as the CCP feel that remaining in power is more important than anything else.
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Not sure if /s
This is something that I wish more people who talked about this would acknowledge and engage with. I get it, authoritarianism isn’t good. It’s not like we want that. It’s not the goal. But it’s really easy to sit on the sidelines from a relatively cushy life in the imperial core and judge all the people out there who are dealing with the historical reality of colonialism and feudalism and the current reality of imperialism. They are actively engaged in the practical task of liberating themselves from forces, both external and internal (old power structures/privileges) that seek to violently return them to a condition of servitude. The decisions they made have to be viewed through the lens of that context.
That doesn’t mean we can’t discuss and criticize them, but it’s worth engaging in the nuance of the history rather than out of hand dismissing their attempts as inherently illegitimate, evil, and/or misguided. What were the conditions they were operating under? What dangers did they face? Were their actions the best strategy for achieving the future they wanted? Was what they gave up too great? Did they have the capability to take a more open path? Have/had their decisions irreparably led them astray or were/are they still on the path to that eventual communist society on some time scale?
If you think they’re wrong for what they did, you still have to be able to answer the question of how you protect your revolution from forces that will spy on you, sabotage your industry, fund right wing militias to terrorize people, sanction and blockade you, or even invade you? Or if you think the path wasn’t even violent revolution in the first place, what is your answer to how you get to where you want to be when the power structure that would need to allow this is also invested in not allowing this? It’s a bit harder to see how this is made difficult or even impossible in liberal “democracies,” but it should be uncontroversial to acknowledge that some kind of force was necessary to escape from illiberal systems like Feudalism in Russia/China or from colonial regimes like in Vietnam.
The one thing I’d push back on from your comment is about the welfare states of Europe. That’s not really what socialism is about. They’ve made life better for people in their own country, yes, but it’s on the backs of those exploited in the third world. That’s why communism is inherently internationalist. “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” You need to be able to build a movement that can work to lift everyone up with you, or at least not drag them down for your own benefit. I’d be interested to have more of a discussion on this, but that’s the standpoint I’d start from.
democratic socialism has thrived in in imperial states