{"id":30002,"date":"2017-11-08T05:45:16","date_gmt":"2017-11-08T10:45:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/?p=30002"},"modified":"2017-11-08T10:40:54","modified_gmt":"2017-11-08T15:40:54","slug":"the-100th-anniversary-of-communism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2017\/11\/the-100th-anniversary-of-communism\/","title":{"rendered":"The 100th Anniversary of Communism"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"Hammer_and_Sickle_symbol.\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Having recognized the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, we now need to turn to another milestone:\u00a0 Yesterday, November 7, was the 100th anniversary of\u00a0Russia\u2019s Communist Revolution.<\/p>\n

That is to say, November 7, 1917, was the anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution<\/a>.\u00a0 There were other uprisings and insurrections, but that is the day the hard core Communists, under the leadership of Vladimir Lenin, took over the nation.<\/p>\n

The Russian Empire became the Union of Soviet Socialists Republics, which led to\u00a0 a series of other revolutions, conquests, and overthrows:\u00a0 The People\u2019s Republic of China, Eastern Europe, Cuba, North Korea, Vietnam, and revolutionary movements around the world.<\/p>\n

\n

The United States and other democracies engaged in a \u201ccold war\u201d\u2013which became \u201chot\u201d in Korea, Vietnam, and elsewhere\u2013with the Communist bloc.\u00a0 The Soviet strongman Nikita Khrushchev promised that \u201cwe will bury you.\u201d\u00a0 That is, Communism was the inevitable outcome of the historical dialectic, the inevitable next stage, after bourgeois capitalism collapses due to its internal contradictions.\u00a0 At the time, even many cold warriors wondered if Khrushchev might have been right.<\/p>\n

Communism\u2013with its\u00a0collectivism, totalitarianism, and command economics\u2013rejected religion, individual liberties, and \u201cbourgeois morality.\u201d\u00a0 Thus unencumbered and motivated by ideological self-righteousness, Communism was responsible for the deaths of some 100 million human beings<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And yet, it was Communism that collapsed due to its internal contradictions.\u00a0 What the Bolsheviks started in 1917 ended with the dissolution of the\u00a0Soviet Union in 1991.<\/p>\n

Today the only purely Communist countries are North Korea and Cuba,\u00a0with China,\u00a0Laos, and Vietnam\u00a0enforcing a Communism with capitalist elements.<\/p>\n

But is Communism over?\u00a0 Might it be coming back?<\/p>\n

The New York Times published an article by Oxford historian David Priestland looking back with some nostalgia over the century of Communism.\u00a0 In his article,\u00a0What\u2019s Left of Communism<\/a>,\u00a0<\/em>he plaintively asks, \u201cToday, more than a quarter-century after the collapse of the U.S.S.R., is a fourth incarnation of Communism possible?\u201d<\/p>\n

He laments the split between old-style Marxists, with their focus on class conflict and economic equality, and the post-Marxists who are more concerned with race, gender, and identity politics.\u00a0 But he has hope:<\/p>\n

\n

We are only at the beginning of a period of major economic change and social turmoil. As a highly unequal tech-capitalism fails to provide enough decently paid jobs, the young may adopt a more radical economic agenda. A new left might then succeed in uniting the losers, both white-collar and blue-collar, in the new economic order.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The article and its publication by the\u00a0nation\u2019s most prominent newspaper\u00a0 demonstrates that Communism remains thinkable, that lots of people still think it is a great idea.<\/p>\n

Certainly, the rise of the avowed socialist Bernie Sanders is good news for Marxists.\u00a0 As is the movement in the Democratic party to purge its corruption by veering to the hard left.<\/p>\n

The end of the Cold War may mean that there is no longer a self-conscious opposition to Communism and its various facets.\u00a0 Nor is there much of a self-conscious ideology of freedom to counter it.\u00a0 In this climate, perhaps Communism could be reborn.<\/p>\n

Besides, Chinese Communism may be a variety that actually \u201cworks\u201d economically.\u00a0 As China grows in power and influence, countries\u2013perhaps even our own\u2013may well emulate its system of allowing economic prosperity in the context of total government control.<\/p>\n

Certainly on university campuses we are already seeing what the old Marxists would call the \u201cvanguard,\u201d the advance implementation of the Revolution before the Revolution actually happens.\u00a0 Scholars speak of \u201cinterrogating\u201d texts and historical figures in language that recalls the Secret Police and the gulags.\u00a0 Dissenters from the political collective are charged with thought crimes and sentenced to re-education camps.<\/p>\n

And that there is so little reaction against the leftist totalitarianism on university campuses suggests that the \u201cbourgeois\u201d order that pays the bills really has become decadent, impotent, and ripe for takeover, just as Communism predicts.<\/p>\n

Read Stella Morabito\u2019s essays here<\/a> and here<\/a> on how freedom can give way to a new Communism.<\/p>\n

Maybe Communism will bury us after all.<\/p>\n

Illustration by \u09a8\u09c0\u09b2\u09be\u09ac\u09cd\u099c (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Having recognized the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, we now need to turn to another milestone:\u00a0 Yesterday, November 7, was the 100th anniversary of\u00a0Russia\u2019s Communist Revolution. That is to say, November 7, 1917, was the anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution.\u00a0 There were other uprisings and insurrections, but that is the day the hard core Communists, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1281,"featured_media":30007,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,19,20,21,35,36],"tags":[5880,541,1275],"class_list":["post-30002","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economics","category-government","category-history","category-holidays","category-philosophy-2","category-politics","tag-100th-anniversary-of-communist-revolution","tag-communism","tag-leftist-ideology"],"yoast_head":"\nThe 100th Anniversary of Communism<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"November 7 was the 100th anniversary of the Communist revolution, initiating a global movement that would kill 100 million. 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