Dave, this is a bit off the beaten track for your technical Q&A, but I’m confused by everything I’ve read and can’t figure out who came up with communism, Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin or Leon Trotsky? I hear all their names bandied about, but thought maybe you’d be able to shed some light on this topic.
You’re right. Wow, this is pretty far from “how do I get my digital camera to transfer files to my PDA”, but it’s darn interesting so let me take a shot at it, shall I?
Like any form of government, communism actually evolved over many years, but the two philosophers who captured and codified the basic concepts of communism, of a form of government that treated everyone equally, were Karl Marx and Freidrich Engels. Their groundbreaking publication was “The Communist Manifesto” and it may surprise you to find that it has lots of ideas that are popular in our democracy (like schooling for all children, not just the rich). More surprisingly, Marx felt that there was a natural evolution of political systems and that totalitarianism and imperialism naturally evolved into capitalism, and that capitalism was just a step along the way to an even more egalitarian society that was communism.
Zoom forward to the growing dissatisfaction in Russia with the royal family, notably the arrogant and clueless Czar Nicholas Romanov, and in particular with the way that the Russian people were pulled into World War I and then the Russian-Sino War, without any chance of withdrawal. The Russian war on Japan seemed like a slam-dunk, a huge nation going to war with a tiny island people, but it quickly became a debacle, but Nicholas wouldn’t quit. Russians were dying and the economy was going to heck, but still the Russians were expected to support the war efforts and the Czar.
Enter a brilliant speaker and philosopher/statesman called Vladimir Ilych Lenin, and you have the makings of the 1917 revolution. As the leader of the Bolshevik party, Lenin took what he felt was the best of Marxism and evangelized to the Russian people, famously saying things like that the workers should control the means of production and that society in general should be for the proletariat, not the bourgeois (that is, the common man, not the rich). As other demagogues have found, the common person is very susceptible to philosophies that have the common man exalted, and so it was with Lenin. After a terrible war and skirmishes that lasted for years, Lenin was the leader of the Bolsheviks, and, by extension, the head of the new USSR, risen from the ashes of the old imperial Russia.
But while it was easy to formulate five year plans and issue edicts that required worker collectives to meet ridiculously aggressive production goals, it was quite a bit more difficult to actually attain those goals, and by the mid 1920’s, Lenin had introduced more elements of capitalism to the previous pure communism that had been tried. For example, in the late 1910s, Lenin had proposed that money be completely abolished as it was inevitably leading people to a capitalistic value system. In the mid 20’s, though, he reversed direction and allowed free enterprise, stating that farmers and small manufacturers were required to allocate a percentage of their output to The State, but that they could sell the remainder of their production at a profit.
Meanwhile, one of Lenin’s right-hand men was Leon Trotsky, who headed up the Red Army, making him an exceptionally powerful member of the Politburo. When Lenin’s health failed, however, Trotsky was considered for the position of party leadership but was rejected as lacking the necessary vision (and the fact that he was Jewish apparently didn’t help matters either). Trotsky eventually had a falling-out with Stalin and left Russia to live in Mexico, where he wrote “The Revolution Betrayed” about his dissatisfaction with how Stalin had failed the communist ideal. Trotsky was later assassinated by a Russian agent.
Before Vladimir Lenin died, he picked another high-ranking member of the Supreme Soviet as his successor, Josef Stalin. Less of a theoretician than a communicator, Stalin twisted and reformed Soviet communism to meet his ideals, including particularly a famous justification for the suppression of political dissenters, the so-called “theory of the aggravation of class struggle”. As a result, Stalin jailed or murdered millions of Russians of all social classes.
There’s obviously lots more to this brief history of Soviet communism, which is basically what you asked me, but I think that should help clarify who’s who in terms of the ideal of communism. My personal opinion is that Marx and Engels were the founders of communism, and that Lenin went through the difficult implementation process before finding out that it was a long-term unsustainable political ideal. From China to Laos, Vietnam to the Soviet Union, Afghanistan to Cambodia, history shows that communism doesn’t work.
Well I have a few follow-up comments. The tenants of Communism started well before Marx and Engels. For example they were highly influenced by David Owen, the Welsh textile manufacturer who founded New Harmony Indiana. But well before them critique of Socialist theorists like Hegel (Hegelian dialectic) honed their craft. Jean Jacques Rousseau gave context to both Communism and Fascism around 1780.
Trotsky also evoked suspicions because he was not a Bolshevik. He was a Menshevik. That is ultimately why Stalin had him assassinated in 1940 in Mexico. He did cooperate once the Revolution took place, evidently convincing Lenin that he gave up his more “democratic socialist” ways.
Lenin is championed as the good communist, ONLY because the world did not have a breathe of knowledge about Lenin other than the fact that he was a revolutionary. He did adhere to Marx “Agrarian Utopia” ideas, and that is why the first of his 5 “Pogroms” (attacks) were to murder all the farmers he referred to as “kulaks” or “kurkul” in Ukrainian. Then he sent the peasants onto the land. The result was starvation. His solution was to exterminate 11 million Russians and Ukrainians in a 5 year plan starting in 1918, completing the last 4 “pogroms”; executing 300,000 Jewish orphans, 1.1 million orphans of all races, 500,000 Adult Jews and Tatar (Mongols), and 9 million citizens at large by quota. It seems the lacking American education system is unware or doesn’t want you aware of this. He murdered 210% more of his own people than Stalin per year of power. Lenin in 5 years until he was an invalid in 1923, Stalin 27 million from 1924-1953. I have walked the burial fields of Lenin’s purge in Zaporozhye Oblast, outside Dneipropetrovsk, Bela Kun, Belagorsk, etc. And the Nazi’s mass grave at Babi Yar on the outskirts of Kiev. I was educated there!
Dear Dave, your article on communism was very impressive.I too have a knowledge of Lenin/Marx & others. Will you please allow me to use some of it to write one myself, as we are only 99 days until election time. Of course I would write in my style, trimming off most of the fat & make it as brief as possible. I’m really just asking to use some of your research facts.
Awaiting your reply, Joseph (Joe) Anthony
Lenin did not want Stalin as Leader, at all….
@Dave Thompson: what about Libertarian Socialism?
Also, not to burst your bubble, but *any* government, even self-organized, implies the use of force to assert its authority.
Take your simplistic Right Libertarian ideas somewhere else.
@Errol Hall:
So Jesus was the first to threaten people to fund a middle-class bureaucrats?
Sharing != Socialism
All socialism implies the initiation of force against innoncent people.
Dave I am really impressed in your knowledge of the subject! The mistake of saying that Stalin was picked by Lenin is very easy to make. Stalin is said to have kept Lenin secluded towards the end of his life and to even have been the cause of his death by some historians. There is no doubt that Stalin made people believe Lenin was his friend and wanted him to be the leader of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). Something I find an amazing fact is that Stalin while in control of all of the USSR did not actually hold a governmental office. His position was the General Secretery of the Central Committee of the CPSU, a political party just like the Democrates and Republicans in the U.S.A. the only difference is that the CPSU was the only recognized party. Stalin was extremely abitious and well organized but he relied on simple minded people who were easy to control and easily intimidated by his power. Stalin considered himself a Marxist and despite the fact that Lenin ended their friendship when he realized Stalin’s real views and ideas. Stalin went on to “continue” Lenin’s work. He took Lenin’s skewed ideas on Marxism and flipped a lot of them upside down and then destroyed any chance the Soviet Union had at becoming a true Socialist/Marxist society.
Dave, while you’re right in outlining the history of the former USSR and the rise of communism and Marx contribution, I’d like to remind you that the first real communist was Jesus Christ (I’m an atheist). If you look at the teachings of Jesus and his stance against the money merchants of his days you can’t help by conclude that that was the rise of socialism.
Trotskyism is the general communist belief in perpetual world-wide revolution. Trotskyites also believe the communist party should be all inclusive. Leninism is the philosophy that the party must be limited to a group of professional revolutionaries.
Tell me: What exactly was the difference between Trotskyism and Leninism in a nutshell? Briefly…
Thanks Much
Marx and Engels did in fact come up with the idea of socialism. It was put into practice by Lenin, but was skewed and twisted and called Communism. Lenin HATED Stalin! Evidently Stalin had offended Lenin’s wife. On Lenin’s deathbed he wrote a letter to the Communist Party telling them that Stalin was not the man they thought he was, how wrong some of his ideas were and that it was Trotsky who should be the next head of the Communist Party. After Lenin’s death, Stalin out manuevered Trotsky and through trickery, deceit, and violence became the head of the Communist party.
Hi,
Thanks for posting this. I am doing a graduate paper on this topic and through my reasearch i have found that the ideas of Communism were forcibly evolved by Lenin. The proper evolution of this “Utopian” needed to pass through two other stages before reaching its pinnicle. Those stages were First Capitalism, Which at the time of pre-Bolshevik occupation was unatainable becuase the industrial system in Russia was VERY weak. Therefore the second (Socialism) was never ran through properly. The end result was a tyranical dictatorship. Marx would have been sick to hear his ideas being used like this by Lenin and especially Stalin. Marx was a Genius in all manners of the word. his theories on Communism were Idealistic. they could only happen through evolution and not through being forces such as when lenin encited the 1917 Bolshevik revolution. If Marx were alive in Lenins time I doubt that he would even thought that it would work. So i stress this very heavily, Marx’s ideas on communism were dead on, Lenin’s interpretation and exicution of those ideas were what was messed up.
And to fully answer the initial question. Marx did not com up with communism, it was already an idea before his time that is why we call his idea “Marxism” the end result would be called “Communism” but it was already an existing idea. Lenin’s program should have never been called communism, its a disgrace to the actual idea and it has given the term a sour taste to its historical reference for the rest of time. It should have been called OFFICIALLY Leninism. And as time went on it was in fact leninism that evolved into Stalinism, Maoism ect…. Communism has never been a working political system in the world and it will never be becuase of the petty humans that are able to control the public.
Sorry for the spelling errors, im in a hurry
CK
I would like to thank you for answering this question with some level of intellect. However, you failed miserably in keeping your answer apolitical. The question in no way included what you think of marxism. I would like to point out that when Lenin came to power, Russia was a bankrupt nation ravaged by war and a lack of industry. Lenin focused much more on what was best for the toiling masses, not the communist ideal. Marx himself said that a certain economical and industrial requirement existed for true socialism to be put in place. Lenin tried his best to transform Russia from a backward country to one with a more industrialized nation so that Communism could be initiated. I would also like to add that the vile “communist” governments of China, Cuba, North Korea, and the “stalinist” USSR do NOT represent a true workers’ government that Lenin dreamed of. Stalin manipulated and destroyed the Communist movement for his own thirst for authority; something Lenin warned the Congress about in his last testement. This split the movement in two (one side followed the Stalinist faction {dictatorship), and one followed the Trotskyist faction {free speech, art, culture, democracy through workers unions}; Stalin’s side prevailed because of it’s ruthlessness and assassinating Trotsky. As Lenin, Marx, and Trotsky said, Communism in one country cannot survive; international worker solidarity and democracy is the only true form of marxism and the only one that can work. The Trotskyist faction, in an effort to distance themselves in any way from the totalitarian states that Stalinism built; refer to themselves as “Socialists” because “Communism” means something totally different than it did in Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Trotsky’s time. The Communist Party supports and hails Stalin as a hero he was not, he was the biggest mass murderer in history, killing more Jews than Hitler did by several million. The idiocy of Mao, Pol Pot, and Kim Jong led them all to adopt the Stalinist model, because they lacked the intellect to be original. Stalin used Lenin’s work to elevate himself and WWII elevated him to the international stage, Mao Zedong simply copied Stalin’s machine, Kim Jong copied Mao, and the cycle continued. A new hope is rising in Latin America; Hugo Chavez is building a future for the Trotskyist faction alongwith Bolivia, Nicaragua, and Cuba (Chavez has shown Castro errors of his ways in copying the Soviet model of Communism)
I’d just like to point out a small mistake in your explanation. Lenin never ‘picked’ Stalin, as in Lenin’s own testament he mentions Stalin being rude and obnoxious and unable to carry on the work that Lenin had started. Trotsky, on the other hand, was the one who was praised by Lenin despite his arrogance. Stalin only came to power by manipulating the Politburo with his position as party secretary.
Dear Dave,
First let me say Hello and thank you for your contribution to the masses. I believe the fundamental sharing of learned information between people is the very basis of evolution. So, thank you for helping to perpetuate the survival of our species. This is my first time writing to you and ironically, I have a follow-up comment/question. I agree with your interpretation of the development of communism and appreciate your reader for asking such a question. As I see the former Soviet Union bicker like a family trying to exclude all others from the “estate will”, I also see a far greater struggle much closer. Here, in the United States of America, our constitution and our very foundation are being revised. It is becoming painfully apparent that Marx was accurate in his depiction of a capitalist society becoming a society of limited and extreme classes (or the “have’s” and the “have not’s” as Erich Fromm would say). China, with their communist flaws and occasional human rights violations and mass murder (population control), has had the most stable society that our history is currently aware of. Although growth and creativity are limited to spiritual ideals as opposed to scientific discovery in a society such as China’s. My question is this: Should our goal as Americans, as well as Humans in the 21st century be to establish a fundamental society asborbing the various traits of each societal model, tempered with the lessons of history, and coupled with the compassion and sensitivity of spirituality (we are merely ONE species in the Universe)? I think that Eisenhower was on the right track, as well as F.D. Roosevelt. They may not have been motivated by the vision of a Global trade market, but they knew we would eventually all have to get along as a species. Perhaps the 21st century is the dawn of a new era in Human history; the Era of Humanity.