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Essay: Modern-day communist countries and the communist manifesto

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To what extent do modern-day communist countries live up to the ideologies represented in the communist manifesto?

Annabelle Herrmann

IB Extended Essay

2018

Karl Marx’s and Friedrich Engels’s Communist Manifesto is a remarkable document for several reasons. One of them being, that a political movement, in this case not only including communism but also socialism, has rarely ever been so tied to a single piece of writing. Another is that most of the authors’ analyses and theories have held up well in the intervening years. While these writers could have had no idea of the sort of globalisation and associated neoliberalism that would dominate recent decades, some of their remarks seem to anticipate these developments. It is often claimed that the failure of the former Soviet Union showed that Marx and Engels were fundamentally wrong and that communism (and/or socialism) was thereby demonstrated not to be a viable socio-economic approach. This view presupposes something that is actually quite dubitable, that when Lenin took power in 1917 he remained true to Marxist ideals that he sometimes had espoused in the past.

Having established all this, this paper will however be focused on the present. It asks to what extent three countries that are often considered communist or socialist—China, Cuba and Vietnam—have socio-economic policies that remain true to the ideas of Marx and Engels. After a brief introduction of some of the central ideas of the Manifesto, a section each will be devoted to each of these countries.

The communist manifesto

In a single sentence, Marx’s and Engels’s idea was that capitalism—more specifically, capitalism as a result of the Industrial Revolution—would inevitably lead to a revolution. The only way to salvage matters would be to abolish the institution of private property; to transfer ownership of the means of production from the bourgeoisie to the people. Notice that we do not say to transfer the ownership of the means of production of the bourgeoisie to the proletariat: for these are notions that make sense only within the context of contemporary (that is, industrial or post-industrial) capitalism. While these authors acknowledge, that there have always been poor and working classes, the bourgeoisie and proletariat developed only when free-market capitalism emerged in something like its present form (Marx and Engels, p. 37).

Marx and Engels believed that the separation of labour from the ultimate product the labour contributes to producing leads to alienation: a dissatisfaction with one’s work; one which is only exacerbated by the lower and lower wages the labourers will inevitably be paid as technology makes skilled manual labour more-and-more useless. Alienation and a lack of appreciation, of many sorts, will lead inevitably to a revolution on the part of the proletariat which will end capitalism as it is now known, and will place ownership of the means of production in the hands of the people.

The Manifesto, setting aside its many prefaces and other supplementary material, consists of three parts. The first discusses the ideas just covered and stresses as well the instability of even the actions of the bourgeois class itself. It is “digging its own grave” by continually and increasingly exploiting the class of people on whom the bourgeoisie depend for their wealth (p. 21). The second section of the book goes into somewhat more detail concerning mechanisms of exploitation as well as how familiar institutions—such as private property; public education; and even family and child raising—will change with the communist revolution. Finally, the third section distinguishes the view of Marx and Engels from other doctrines that may have gone under similar titles, such as “bourgeois socialism”. It ends with a call to action—an excellent example of Marx’s famous view that the point of philosophy is not to study or examine the world but to change it.

To a considerable extent, it does not matter for present purposes whether, or how, we distinguish communism from socialism. However, since the matter is both poorly understood in general, and directly relevant to adjacent disputes, it is worth taking a moment to sort out the differences. Both views advocate the ownership of the means of production by the people in general, rather than by elites or the bourgeois (Some versions of communism, such as that of the former Soviet Union, hold that the means of production should be held by the state, rather than private companies or corporations.) Socialism, of course, is in favour of wealth equality across every spectrum of a given population. Where socialism and communism differ is primarily in two respects. First, socialists tend to be opposed to violence or coercion of any sort. This arguably rules out the sort of communist revolution envisioned by Marx and Engels. Second, socialism does not necessarily hold that there should be no private property at all. It simply requires that such property as is owned should be evenly distributed across members of the relevant society. This too is a difference with communism. There was vast wealth inequality, for example, in the former Soviet Union, even though it may not have been due to the same forces that create and increase wealth inequality in contemporary capitalist societies (Seth, 2015). Having said this, no particular effort will be made below to distinguish between socialism and communism unless it is essential to the argument.

China

China is arguably the country most closely associated, from a political and economic point of view, to the former Soviet Union. Unlike the latter, however, China is highly unlikely to dissolve, either in the near or the distant future. In fact, experts predict that China either already has, or will very soon, have the largest economy in the world. It is also at least arguable that it will overtake, probably in the next half-century, the United States’ role as the world’s leading superpower. The case of China provides a useful antidote to those who claim that the failure of the former Soviet Union proved, once and for all, the superiority of free-market capitalism over all other forms of socio-economic policies. It is therefore a question of great interest to what extent China’s current policies embody the spirit of Marx’s and Engels’s famous tract.

Unfortunately, there is not much consensus on the extent to which China embodies the communist or socialist ideals of Marx and Engels. This is largely, of course, because of the ambiguity of the relevant terms; as well as the inevitable gaps between avowed policy and actual practice. It may also be because of a persistent tendency, especially on the part of Americans, to think that no system that is successful could possibly be socialist or communist.

China has officially had a communist ruling party since 1949. It resembles the former Soviet Union politically, with a politburo holding political power over lesser organisations or groups. Socially and politically China does not differ materially, at least a first glance, from that of the former Soviet Union. One difference is that there is a great deal more solidarity among the people, who have a very long history of which they are proud. Of course, none of this is to excuse such human rights abuses as China has been responsible for; nor its attempts to curb free speech and the objective dissemination of information (BBC, 2016). The point is that it is economically that China is unique. We have already noted that the Soviet Union did not bear much resemblance to the ideas of Marx and Engels—beyond the lack of much private ownership of property. The same goes for China, except where its economic policies are concerned (Naughton).

China’s economy is a unique mixture of state-planned and free-market elements. President Xi Jinping has sought to present China as a m
odern “proponent of the free market and a champion of economic globalisation” (Huang). To the extent to which this is accurate, China’s policies are a far cry from what Marx and Engels espoused. On the other hand, Jinping himself is keen, in other moods or contexts, to stress the continuity between the Marxist and Leninist tradition in political economy. For example, “China claims to uphold the ruling philosophy of Marxism and its various mutations, such as Leninism and Maoism. And now Xi’s thought is also enshrined as another such mutation” (Huang). As this author explains, Maoism is most centrally associated with stressing the importance of the peasantry, of agriculture, and of industries of small-scale. China’s current economy, though it certain makes essential use of its vast number of peasants, bears little resemblance to Maoism in this sense. Leninism, on the other hand, is somewhat ambiguous. As noted earlier, Lenin changed his views from somewhat orthodox Marxism to something very different after he assumed power. In any case, the notion of Leninism is associated with “democratic socialism” and the view that capitalism and imperialism/colonialism are inextricably linked (Albert and Xu).

Two central points should be made about China’s economy vis-à-vis the views set out in The Communist Manifesto. The first is that, even though China’s economy is a mixture between free-market capitalism and a state-regulated economy, neither of these is particularly Marxist. Indeed, contrary to contemporary neoliberal rhetoric, few if any currently wealthy countries became wealthy without extensive governmental interference in the economy. Certainly, the United States did not become wealthy without tariffs and other protectionist measures; to say nothing of its many “bail-outs” of failed companies and financial institutions. This leads to the lovely linguistic enshrining of the American economic philosophy: welfare for the rich, and capitalism for the poor. The second point about the Chinese economy that needs to be made here is that, while wealth inequality may not be as vast in China as in the U.S., China leads the world in total number of billionaires. “And this is exactly the kind of political-economic system Karl Marx and his German philosopher Friedrich Engels called the world to overthrow in their famous 1848 Communist Manifesto” (Huang).

While the issues are complex, and there is no doubt that elements—past and present—in China wish to be viewed as continuous with the Marx-Engels-early Lenin-tradition, the conclusion reached here is that this continuity is tenuous at best; and simply illusory at worst. China has vast wealth inequality, to mention only one key point, and this is perhaps the ultimate antithesis of the view espoused in The Communist Manifesto (Tucker).

Cuba

Cuba, at least during one period, certainly came closer to exhibiting a pure socialism than any of the three countries here examined. Throughout its history, the United States has found ways to exploit other countries, territories, and peoples for its own gain. Of course, this does not make the U.S. unique. The history of colonialism is vast and morally embarrassing. However, even in the 20th century (and 21st century, for that matter) the U.S. has found ways to coerce other countries—principally, though not always, countries in the Latin America—to allow the U.S. to exploit the countries’ resources. Another familiar slogan is germane here: When I feed the poor, they call me a saint; when I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist. During the Cold War, the most prominent technique for this form of “indirect exploitation” was by punishing countries for their alleged communist or socialist tendencies. When there were no such tendencies, the CIA and the U.S. military would manufacture and plant materials in the country in question in order to provide evidence for the tendencies. The point is that the U.S. has historically been able to push around, abuse, and exploit virtually every country in Latin America, except one: Cuba. For hundreds of years, whenever a Latin American country used its wealth and resources to try to feed its people, instead of using it in “trade”, the U.S. would punish the country in some way or other. Cuba never really backed down. And it has paid a heavy price for this (Fisher).

Of course, there is more to U.S. enmity against Cuba than just this. When Fidel Castro took power in Cuba in 1959, it was an ally with the Soviet Union. This was the beginning of the Cold War, and the U.S. was understandably not keen about having a USSR ally less than 100 miles of its South-eastern coast. The U.S. tried several times to overthrow the Castro regime, most embarrassingly in the notorious “Bay of Pigs” episode. It failed every time. Then there was the Cuban missile crisis (Augustin).

All of this is mere preamble. The question is whether, and to what extent, Cuba has exemplified the philosophy of The Communist Manifesto. During the beginning of Castro’s rule, Cuba was not much different from a truly socialist state. Castro was a close friend to Che Guevara, who was as close to being a truly committed and effective Marxist socialist as any human being ever has been. Around this time, Cuba nationalised all U.S. businesses in Cuba. The nationalisation of foreign business is both anathema to past and current U.S. geopolitics, and a key element of communism—it is at least an important step toward transferring ownership of the means of production to the people. However, for various reasons (including a wavering on the part of Castro on the issue of pure socialism, not completely dissimilar to Lenin’s change of mind, described above) Cuba never embodied for an extended period of time the philosophy of Marx and Engels. The possible similarities between Lenin and Castro should be elaborated upon, at least briefly. One of the objections to socialism and communism is that, under either form of political economy, some are going to have more power than others; at least for a time. And power corrupts. While this is too large an issue to be adjudicated here, it must be acknowledged that the criticism has force. This is one reason why the Far Left has recommended, at some points at least, something even more radical than socialism, such as anarcho-syndicalism, which is not far away from being no system of governance at all. Still, one may say this for the view: its founding principle is that there is no justification for any human being to have any more power over another than the latter has over the former. This is a difficult principle to deny, at least in the abstract.

The conclusion of this section is that, while Cuba probably came closer to being a form of communism or socialism, at least for a time, than China ever has. However, for a variety of reasons—not all of them Cuba’s own fault, to be sure—the situation did not long endure. However, if we are realists, and acknowledge that there is a spectrum of views between pure capitalism and socialism or communism, we may still hold that Cuba is much closer to the latter extreme than the former. The same is not obviously true of China.

Vietnam

While the U.S. did everything in its power to destroy Cuba via indirect means—economic sanctions, the occasional attempted coup, embargoes, and so forth—it took a much more direct approach with Vietnam. Despite the fact that after the Geneva accords, following the end of World War II, Vietnam was a single country, the U.S. used the pretext of the North invading the South to justify its protracted invasion and occupation of a sovereign nation that posed no threat whatever to American lives. After all was said and done, the U.S. had dropped one bomb for every single inhabitant of the country of Vietnam. It very nearly destroyed the country, and the Vietnamese are still feeling the effects of this series o
f atrocities. Most recently, Vietnamese who were harmed by the United States’ illegal use of chemical warfare (in the form of so-called “Agent Orange”) are now suing Monsanto, who manufactured the substance (Davies).

If the U.S. had not intervened, then, having banished the Japanese and eventually the French colonisers from the country, Vietnam would almost certainly have elected Ho Chi Minh as its leader. Vietnam would then have been a communist country, at least for a while. It is worth noting that the Vietnamese people were much less concerned about the form that their political economy would take at the time than they were about simply achieving their independence from colonial rule (Fforde and Homutova,  pp. 91-92).

Set aside the fact that the U.S. very nearly destroyed the country of Vietnam for no defensible reason. What can be said about the political economy of the country today? Somewhat like China, though of course on a much smaller scale, Vietnam has today opened its economy to the free-market to some extent, though its communist leadership is not particularly tolerant of challenges to its rule. As one commentator describes the situation, “In many ways, Marxism-Leninism simply represents a new language in which to express old but consistent cultural orientations and inclinations. Vietnam’s political processes, therefore, incorporate as much from the national mythology as from the pragmatic concerns engendered by current issues” (Hays). Apart from the illegitimate equation of Marxism with Leninism, this passage seems to be accurate; though it is not clear what is meant by Vietnam’s “national mythology”. The remainder of the passage suggests that, tragically, the point is that Vietnam’s “mythology” is that it has had some influence in what has happened to, and within, its country for the last half-century or so.

Also like China, the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) in 2016 “maintained its control over all public affairs and punished those who challenged its monopoly on power. Authorities restricted basic rights, including freedom of speech, opinion, association, and assembly” (Thinh). We may conclude, therefore, that Vietnam’s current political and economic situation does not more closely approximate the Marx/Engel ideal articulate in The Communist Manifesto, than does China. Indeed, it is plausible that the extent to which China and Vietnam differ in the relevant respects here are due more to the vastly different scales on which each country operates—one on the verge of becoming the world’s most powerful country, and the other struggling to survive. However, two points mitigate this tempting conclusion. First, a struggling country such as Vietnam can hardly be blamed for trying to emulate—if that is what it has been doing—what is by far the most successful and powerful country within its geopolitical orbit. Second, China has not historically been completely immune to European and other forms of colonial exploitation. To mention only the most notorious example, Britain actually started a series of wars with China beginning in the 1840s for the ostensible reason that China refused to allow Britain to conduct an opium trade—opium was illegal in China at the time—within China. China is such a massive country, however, and has such a long history, that it has been much less immune than many other Asian countries to colonial exploitation. Vietnam enjoyed no such privilege.

In conclusion

Especially with the unfortunate, nearly universal move to the right that has been precipitated by the disastrous most recent U.S. Presidential election, together with the nationalism that has been stoked in Europe and other places due to the enormous influx of refugees as a result of civil war and surrounding conflicts in Syria and Iraq, international sympathy for movements such as communism and socialism is arguably at an all-time low. A more fundamental point is that, painful though it may be to admit it, it is possible that the ideal that Marx and Engels laid out in The Communist Manifesto was simply not realistic. As the cases of Lenin and Castro arguably show, however idealistic and committed to the cause one may be in the beginning, power has a distinct tendency to corrupt. In a way socialism is about the inappropriateness of any person, or any group of people, having power over others. Yet it is, as was prefigured earlier, difficult to imagine any system of government, or any economical system, that does not—at least temporarily—bestow upon one party or person power over another party or group of people.

Then there is the question of the abolition of private property, at least as conceived under a bourgeois/proletariat dichotomous system. While Marx and Engels are clear that they do not object to the notion of private property as such, these nice distinctions are lost upon most of their readers and those who hear of their views. This brings us to the issue of American hegemony. For better or worse, the United States has, since roughly 1950, been the most prominent single-country-force in the world in deciding diplomatic and economic issues. For some time, the U.S. enjoyed the sycophantic support of Britain, especially under the Blair regime, but this changed over time. It remains to be seen whether Brexit will not increase the U.K.’s dependence upon the U.S.

Of course, the United Nations was established to avoid this sort of dependence upon a single country. Yet, as one of only five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, the U.S. can simply veto any resolution that it does not like. The best example of this abuse of its veto power pertains to Israel and the Palestinians. For over 50 years, Israel has invaded, occupied, and built settlements on Palestinian lands—quite clearly in violation of international law. There are only two countries that seem to reject this view: Israel and the U.S. Yet America has vetoed, every year and with unflagging energy, every single U.N. resolution condemning Israel’s illegal actions. Indeed, the U.S. not only approves of Israel’s actions, and prevents them from being censured, but it funds the settlements as well: bestowing upon Israel over $30 billion in aid every year, largely in the form of military equipment. The point of all of this is that the U.S. still holds a tremendous amount of power and influence in the world, and since it wholeheartedly condemns and criticizes socialism and communism, this is one chief reason why socialist and communist political economies have not ever been given a fair chance to flourish or even exist.

A final consideration is the new neoliberal economic order. Largely through helping to establish institutions such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Trade Organisation, the United States has rewritten the rules not only of international trade, but of how countries can manage to exist. The fundamental point is that any developing country that wants to have a chance to succeed in the world today must play by the rules of the world bank, the IMF, and the WTO. This effectively, and in itself, rules out the possibility of any form of communism or socialism. The economic imperialism and colonialism that countries such as the U.S. use these organisations to engage in are the descendants of the now discredited forms of colonialism through violence and ethnic cleansing.

In conclusion, this paper has considered some of the main tenets of Marx’s and Engels’s justly famous Manifesto of the Communist Party. It was noted that the central views articulated therein concern the divestment of property from the elites (the bourgeoisie) to the people in general. More precisely, these authors hold that the means of production cannot be held by private individuals or countries on pain of leading to a communist revolution—a revolution in which the proletariat finally has enough of the alienation occasioned by the dis
tance between its labour and the products it helps to produce, on one hand, and the ever-decreasing wages caused by increased proficiency of technological means of production such as factories. Marx, as an historical materialist, thought that this was predetermined to occur. A charitable reading of the text, however, understands it more as a series of well-founded predictions—many of which predictions, furthermore, have withstood the test of time. The paper also discusses three ostensible communist or socialist countries of the present day—China, Cuba, and Vietnam. There are important differences between each of these countries. China is now, or soon will be, the most powerful country in the world. Cuba has been plagued by U.S. sanctions and attempted coups and assassinations throughout the last three-quarters of a century. Vietnam, of course, was very nearly destroyed by the United States without any sufficient provocation. In each of these cases, albeit in different ways, it is argued that the political economy of the country in question is very far from the ideal set out by Marx and Engels. China has been the most concerned of the three countries to stress connections between itself and communist regimes of the past. Yet it is arguably the least faithful of the three to the original communist or socialist ideals. The final part of the paper, apart from summarizing what has come before, offers a number of suggestions for the failure of these three ostensible communist countries to live up to the standard set by Marx and Engels so long ago.

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