Many people put the end of the Cold War as the failings of the Communist State against a capitalist super-power. However, there is no proof that these views are correct, most are based on assumptions and guess-work and cannot correctly convey the reasons behind the lose of the war. However, this article or thesis rather is not to prove either way, or trying to defend the communist system, but rather another side or view of it.

The question is, did Communism really exist? How could it fail if it didn’t exist? This is a good question, and I believe deserves a detailed study of the matter.

Let us quickly look over the basis of Communism as written by Karl Marx in the mid-late 19th Century. While technically, Communism was just Marx’s imprint of Socialism, he and Engels wished to disassociate themselves with the Socialist thinkers of the day, (Eg Claude Henri de Rouvroy). In there theories, he and Engels proclaimed Socialism was Inseparable with Humanity since the dawn of time and ever will be, however he saw Socialism as a practical medium into which his version could derive from.

As most of us know, Communism is about moving the power from the Wealthy to the workers, through ways of revolution or other violent means. As the saying goes, which is thoroughly endorsed by Communism, “The end justifies the means.” As figure 1 illustrates, Marx thought that Capitalism was a handy state to go onto more Left-winged politics, from Capitalism to Socialism to Communism in a number of revolutions. One question concerning this is why did he choose Capitalism to go onto Socialism? Was it because a majority of Western governments practiced it? Or was it the fact that it had better chances at increasing capital/revenue to use as a basis for the bigger things?

The first country/government founded on Marxism was the United Soviet States Republics, by Lenin and Co. Like most Marxists will say, Lenin deviated from course, and the USSR wasn’t a fully-fledged Communist State. HOWEVER, if anyone has read announcements by either Lenin or Stalin; neither of them state that the USSR was Communist, Stalin especially stated that and referred to the USSR as a Socialist State, and that the USSR Will be able to reach Communism without another violent revolution as Marx suggests.

But then why has the country always been labelled Communist if they’re saying they are not communist but Socialists? Because of the fact they were trying to follow the core policies of Marx, that and the fact that some of the policies churning out of the Kremlin weren’t exactly Socialist policies. Besides from that the founders of the USSR never, never, referred to the country as Communist, while they stated they were going to eventually be Communist, they just haven’t reached the point yet.

Every country which has tried to follow Marxism fails and deviates from course, due to the fact that Communism cannot be fully conceived without the prior successful Capitalist government and Semi-so Socialist government and even then cannot be a hundred percent while following the theories of Engels and Marx. This brings out interesting descendants of Communism/Marxism, such as Leninism, Stalinism and Maoism and whatever the hell Fidel wants to call his blend.

While all governments which embrace Communism have to be an authoritative system such as a Dictatorship or One-party System, can it be said that the Communism doesn’t work at all? While I, myself, don’t see Communism as a final destination for any government, I do see it being handy for poor/third-world countries which even with the flaws can successfully aid the country. For example, look at Russian History, it was always behind the Western European countries in industry and wealth, even with the Tsar government, Capitalism was barely thriving, however after the overthrow of the Tsars and revolution, upon the era of reconstruction by the Bolsheviks, after Lenin’s death, the USSR was invaded by Germany in WWII. By the end of the war, known as the Great Patriotic War, 25-30 million people have died in the eastern front, a majority of them Civilians, and a majority of those from the USSR.

With so much conflict, bloodshed, and damage both during the revolution and the war, Communism, with its blends, built the USSR from backwards country to the second most powerful country in the world until 1989-1991. Considering how poor the country was due to these events, most of the population, regardless of queues for some foods and goods, were happy in the improvement. As quoted from a book: “The Children have all grown up and married, and have their own children. Each has a flat. Small only one or two rooms. But with conveniences — a stove, maybe a refrigerator. One of them has a car. They simply can’t imagine life any better.” This was from a woman with memories of the 1940s, which before groups of families were living together in a big room, without any convience their Western counterparts enjoyed. Considering its population at the time, this was an amazing improvement.

China also had a similar modern history, and the current communist system modified by Deng Xiaoping, has helped not only Chinese Academically to some extent (Literacy is high, but alot of things are censored), health wise as quoted by the Wikipedia article “the country’s life expectancy jumped from about 32 years in 1950 to almost 73 years in 2006, and infant mortality went down from 300 per thousand in the 1950s to about 23 per thousand in 2006″. These are amazing improvements in themselves which can only continue before China is eventually burnt-out.

Nearly all countries which either had or are Communist have benefits not enjoyed by their Western/Capitalist Counterparts, be it Great Healthcare, as in Cuba, A high Literacy and Job rate as the USSR or China or otherwise. Honestly, it is really difficult to see if Capitalism would have helped the USSR or China as Communism did. Again while I see Communism as practical stepping stone for third-world countries, I like Socialist Capitalism system as provided in countries such as Denmark, Canada and Australia.

I know this isn’t a one point thesis/essay, but rather just discussing if a Marxist Communist State exists, and if it’s really all bad as some people suggests. I am willing to provide a bibliography of books to people who require them as to provide sources to all material related to in this article.

It might also be interesting to note that while the United States keeps telling China to give more way to Democracy, which the U.S with things such as the PATRIOT Act is moving ever more to the right… I’ll finish this article with figure 2.