![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
[travel] Intellectual vs real communism
I am very surprised that communism was such a big thing with 1960s-era academic intellectuals. It was clear even back then that it failed horribly at the task of ensuring a good life for the common citizen. Stalin's mass exterminations and Mao's disastrous Great Leap Forward (which caused tens of millions of farmers to starve to death) were both known in the West by then. I suppose communist *ideals* lined up well with hippie ideals of the time, but I don't know whether the proponents of communism in America at the time made a distinction between the failures in Russia and China and some other version they felt might be more successful. Maybe those of you more in the know can enlighten me on this.
I'm curious if communism has ever been successful in anything bigger than a college dormitory.* I've now visited a rather large number of countries that tried it, and they all have had to abandon it, sometimes after as little as 10 years. It seems to have the problem that it is strongly dependent on a huge power structure to administer everything top-down.** This power structure attracts fascist leaders and does not have provisions for moderating their influence. Ho Chi Minh seems to have been the closest any communist leader came to practicing the true communist ideal, and even he was turned into more of a figurehead by his own party.*** It is possible communism could work in a larger system if there wasn't much at stake in the system (so fascists wouldn't be interested in running it) and the system could be set up to self-select for people who are most likely to enjoy living under such a system and act as productive members.
*The Indian province of Kerala has a democratically elected Marxist government, but their economy incorporates a lot of capitalist elements.
**Which is ironic given that most of the 1960s communists in America were very anti-authoritarian.
***I don't know much about Ho Chi Minh, but he appears to be one of the rare communist leaders who was not corrupted by the trappings of power. When he was president, he shunned the presidental palace, a leftover from the imperial days, and lived instead in a small, spare stilt house on the corner of the grounds. His last request was to be cremated and to have his ashes scattered across the country. However, the party leaders had other ideas. They rewrote his will so that he would be enbalmed, Lenin-style, in a massive fascist-looking tomb that people could visit. They put his picture on posters and billboards all over the country and on all the denominations of their money. They essentially used his legacy to legitimize their own rule.
I'm curious if communism has ever been successful in anything bigger than a college dormitory.* I've now visited a rather large number of countries that tried it, and they all have had to abandon it, sometimes after as little as 10 years. It seems to have the problem that it is strongly dependent on a huge power structure to administer everything top-down.** This power structure attracts fascist leaders and does not have provisions for moderating their influence. Ho Chi Minh seems to have been the closest any communist leader came to practicing the true communist ideal, and even he was turned into more of a figurehead by his own party.*** It is possible communism could work in a larger system if there wasn't much at stake in the system (so fascists wouldn't be interested in running it) and the system could be set up to self-select for people who are most likely to enjoy living under such a system and act as productive members.
*The Indian province of Kerala has a democratically elected Marxist government, but their economy incorporates a lot of capitalist elements.
**Which is ironic given that most of the 1960s communists in America were very anti-authoritarian.
***I don't know much about Ho Chi Minh, but he appears to be one of the rare communist leaders who was not corrupted by the trappings of power. When he was president, he shunned the presidental palace, a leftover from the imperial days, and lived instead in a small, spare stilt house on the corner of the grounds. His last request was to be cremated and to have his ashes scattered across the country. However, the party leaders had other ideas. They rewrote his will so that he would be enbalmed, Lenin-style, in a massive fascist-looking tomb that people could visit. They put his picture on posters and billboards all over the country and on all the denominations of their money. They essentially used his legacy to legitimize their own rule.