Misconceptions About Communism, Part II

I've put together more clarifications regarding some more popular misconceptions about Communism.

6. "Communism goes against human nature."

This is problematic from the start. First, what gives anybody insight into what is truly human nature? Marx dealt with this himself in the Communist Manifesto where he outright denies the existence of any universally fixed human nature. Marx argues that human attitudes and behaviors are constantly changing and shaped by their economic systems and conditions for which they find themselves. He even cites historical examples to counter the claims that support capitalism. While it is often posited that capitalism is the best because it exemplifies human predispositions of competition, Marx counters this claim with reference to early hunter-gatherer societies, where men had to rely on cooperation for their own survival, and thus demonstrating entirely different attitudes regarding their relation to one another than what we see in present-day capitalism.

If something is described as human nature, then by definition it follows that it must be seen across the spectrum regardless of all other factors. That being said, any fixed human nature would be observable across any given social conditions - whether economic systems, race, class, nation, ethnicity, religion, etc. This, however isn't the case either, since different priorities are placed amongst different cultures regarding cooperation versus competition. Furthermore, we are no more justified in believing that self-interested competition is the natural predisposition of human beings than any other claim which tries to explain universally inherent qualities to the human experience.

7. "All socialists are Communists."

This typically comes from the more conservative spectrum of political ideologies, that either mistakenly or intentionally blur the lines between varying ideologies on the left. The statement that "all socialists are Communists" is indeed false. Rather, it would be more appropriate to say that all Communists are socialists. Socialism describes a wide variety of ideological and philosophical positions. Socialism in general refers to a broad range of social/political beliefs that can vary from moderately mixed economic systems to the type of socialism as seen in the Soviet Union. Sweden and many Left-leaning labor parties in Western Europe are socialist, but certainly not Communist. Conversely, communism (as an ideology) is much more specific. In Marxism, communism is more than just an ideology, but a specific society that has transcended the limitations of class society and evolved to a higher stage of socialism. Even socialism, in Marxist philosophy, is more specific. Socialism in this sense refers to a stage, prior to communism but succeeding capitalism, marked by the dictatorship of the proletariat.

Many self-proclaimed socialists today have nothing to do with communism or Marx, nor do they necessarily advocate the type of societies that would have anything to do with revolution or the proletariat. Some socialists advocate the use of mainstream politics and elections to try to win positions in government and try to implement change this way. Communism rejects this view as impossible, and advocates revolution. Hence, there is a wide gulf between socialism (in the general sense) and communism.

8. "The collapse of the Soviet Union, and the Warsaw Pact states, demonstrates communism is a failure."

This is a very simplistic view of a very complex problem. There are a number of causal factors that led to the demise of the USSR; however, how many of them can be directly attributed to communism in general? I'll explain some of the problems with this common misconceptions.

First, socialism as a general economic arrangement was largely abandoned by the time of the 1960's. The policies of liberalization initiated by Khrushchev that both weakened the position of the party as well as the socialist economy started a trend that would culminate in the 1980's under Mikhail Gorbachev. with perestroika and glasnost.

Secondly, the Soviet Union never achieved (nor claimed to have) communism. In fact, the label "communist state" is redundant and contradictory. Communism is the highest stage of socialism which makes the state (a tool of class-oppression) ultimately non-existent, since class-structures have been eradicated altogether. The Soviet Union never entered the stage of communism (nor did any other society of the 20th century for that matter). So the claim above is incorrect in that it mistakes socialism for communism.

Third, the conditions facing the Soviet Union were particular to the attempt to establish socialism in the Russia and its neighboring republics. Marx originally conceived socialism as a stage coming about (through revolution) after capitalism had reached the pinnacle of its development; however, capitalism in Russia never went in to full effect. The Soviet Union had to take address a number of issues that wouldn't face socialism in other societies: they had to resolve the problem of infrastructure and production that would've typically existed under capitalism, but instead do it under socialist organization. Relatively speaking, the progress that was made was outstanding. The relatively short amount of time for the Soviet Union to turn itself around into a super-power was an extraordinary accomplishment. This was a necessary one though, as to move forward towards higher stages of socialism it was necessary to bring the economic base up to par. Thus, the experiment of the Soviet Union wasn't entirely a failure to begin with, and although it had some mistakes, it's neither fair nor correct to attribute those flaws to socialism/communism in general. Rather, these can be explained by the pre-existing conditions that made Soviet socialism distinct from all other varieties of socialism. After all, Marxism-Leninism denotes the establishment of socialism on material conceptions of society -- it naturally follows then that conditions present prior to, and during the movement towards socialism will play a significant role in determining the outcome in general.