What Led To Communism And How It Affected The Governed

The spread of communism was mostly thanks to an influential writer, Karl Marx, who helped propel the idea into reality. To clarify, Karl Marx wrote the “Manifesto of the Communist Party,” and was an extensive supporter for it. However, the manifesto had hardly any impact, yet the idea spread until almost half the world lived under communism in 1950. In essence, communism is a type of government that makes people life in a monotonous life and gives the government all the power, causing the people to suffer if there’s an error in their judgment. In China, the government uses its power to restrict information, sway court decisions, select the people who gain governmental status, and amounts of births someone is allowed to have. Although unverifiable, when posed with the question of what was it like living under communism, one Reddit user retold the opinions of their parents, saying, “…there are bad things about it, like the isolationism, censorship, and lack of free speech…” By the same token, there were good parts to communism, the user also explained that “There was no homeless, no unemployment… food and housing…” and earlier wrote that their father saw it as a needed evil to modernize the feudalist country.

Communism wasn’t meant to be evil or bad, it was to give power to the people, have them work to support each other in harmony, a central government wasn’t even supposed to be included in the reign of communism. As opposed to the original ideals of communism, when it has been implemented was/is a single ruling government that would have full control over the people and “with great power comes great responsibility”. Even though Mao Zedong meant to have China prosper with a new planting technique, for example, it ended up causing a famine that starved China, and in the Cultural Revolution, “millions of people were killed or prosecuted”(stanford CC). Along with famine in China, there was a famine in the Soviet Union due to less farming from confusion and resistance, but there was also The Great Purge that occurred between 1936 and 1938 that murdered an estimate of 600,000 Soviet Citizens and deported millions of them. Another significant flaw in communism is the lack of motivation for the people to work harder than what’s been demanded of them. Based on the information given from various articles, the fault falls upon choosing the people’s jobs for them without including input of what the people want to do. Moreover, communism provides just the basic needs in return for the hard work the people do, no more, nor less, unless they decide not to work, causing them to be given nothing, fore they did nothing. In the end, this means that no matter how hard you work, working more than you have to is unnecessary, granting only what you would’ve been if you did the minimum possible, leading to “… people in difficult jobs to quickly lose their motivation…” (listverse). If people are expected to work harder with nothing to push them harder, how are people expected to become innovative, with governments that don’t have to listen to the people’s input, how are they expected to make good choices when the government may not truly know how to help them or what the wrong decisions are?

Opening To begin with, communism impacted the economy in a negative fashion. In Cuba, their economy is struggling and Tim Worstall stated that the “living standards soared by a factor of four while those in Cuba stagnated for five decades”, earlier mentioning the lack of benefits from socialism, a toned-down version of communism, or communism’s easier going younger sibling. As opposed to the awful parts of communism, it can achieve some good. For China, becoming a communist country meant changing their savage was and becoming modernized and helping empower women, creating a united force called China with one government rather than a bunch of jumbled tribes out the rip off each others’ throats.

War

Especially with political problems such as this, when focussing on stopping communism in it’s entirety, there are many ways to go about this, one of which is war. War, so far, has been the only solution tested for destroying communism back in 1947. Despite being able to work together as allies during World War II, the USSR and the US fought in a Cold War, or war fought be dancing around each other and supporting other countries where they would butt heads, just two years after World War II was won in 1945. Due to the tensions between the two superpowers as well as conflicting interests dealt with governing people, the Cold War began, becoming a battle amidst the ideals of capitalism and communism. During the said war, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, also known as NATO, was formed, creating an alliance between the US,, and more against the Soviet Union, fighting in areas like Vietnam and Korea. On the account of this solution being war, it’s not a preferable solution. Wars cost lives, whether it be a hundred thousand, one million, or even a billion, which could include to innocents, definitely soldiers, a family member, a dear friend or despised foe, but any is a heavy burden. Equally important, is that the cold war such as this one relies on the desire not to or lack of to attack the other side head-on. Furthermore, if two major powers engaged in a hot war and had the mind to use anything they could to win, the consequences could affect the entire world, poisoning lands, horrific mutations that keep on passing through several generations, or even obliterate the entire Earth if the hot war became an uncontrollable supernova. In brief, war to be less devastating, it who have to be a cold war so things don’t get too heated, and the decision-makers would have to be able to outwit the enemy and have to power to back their plan up so they can succeed in defeating the enemy, in this case, communism. Although the Soviet Union collapsed in the Cold War, this didn’t end all of communism. For example, Korea had split, leaving a communist north, even though they deny this, and Cuba is still considered communist along with Vietnam, Laos and China.

Evidence and Reasoning

Communism is appealing in hindsight because it shows you the positives, the people will rule, you will work and earn the same as your peer, and everything’s fair and equal. Truly, it’s correct, but not pleasant, if you work extra hours while your peers work just bare minimum, you all just get what you need and no more, how is that fair? Have you ever stopped to look back and think of flaws such as this, is so, then that’s fantastic, if not, how many people do you think would be blind sited by the benefits to sliding past the problems? By bringing to light these flaws, we can try to influence people’s opinions to go against instead of communism.