Communism Extrapolated
Communism, as a governmental system, assumes revolution is the only way to progress. To evolve into the next era requires a hard hand and a strong arm. That is the way of the Bolsheviks. If someone disagreed, then you force the issue, proof by arms. Communism fails - and the problem is greed.
Marx’s dream was idealistic and utopian, but unfortunately unreachable. What he asked for is complete equality. Not equality of means (equal opportunity), but equality of material. In sense he envisioned a world that had equalized it’s property, wealth, and goods to such an extent that personal property became extinct.
Communism tried to force the process by creating an oligarchy (tyranny by a small group of people). This oligarchy (government) was to absorb all goods, properties and so forth - transportation, sellable goods, property rights, media outlets, education, etc. This state was to take everything and then slowly give everything back to the people in an even, fair process that would allow the people to live in complete peace and equality. So how did it go? Let us look at Russia (China would also be a good example, but has recently exchanged ideology for freedom and profit, which has saved China from the same fate as the former Soviet Union).
“Everyone else in the cinema was weeping. The film being shown, in a movie theatre in a northern suburb of Moscow, was not a romance or a sentimental drama, but a documentary entitle “We Can’t Go On Living Like This.”...This was June 1990, when the Gorbachev revolution was approaching its final crisis. Why were they crying? Because the film openly told the truth that they all knew but had never been able to discuss.
“I remember several scenes: the orderly queue of neatly dressed citizens dissolving into a yelling riot when word came down that the vodka ration for that week had been canceled; the hideous prisoners, faces grotesque from habitual evil, being herded into sordid dungeons; the desolate cityscapes of concrete slabs under poisoned skies, the filthy yellow waste trickling from a crooked pipeline into a polluted sea, the excrement-smeared, desecrated ruins of what had once been churches, the corruption, and the unending official lies.
“Soviet citizens all knew life was like this. They knew the daily drudgery of finding anything decent to eat....They knew that if they wanted anesthetics at the dentist, or antibiotics at the hospital, or co-operation from their child’s teacher, or a holiday by the sea, they would need to bribe someone to get them. Even in Moscow, the show city of the Evil Empire, they knew that they dwelt in the suburbs of hell, that in mile after mile of mass-produced housing you would be hard put to find a single family untouched by divorce, that no mother reared her own children, that the schools taught lies, that secret government establishments leaked radiation into air and water. Fresh eggs were an event. ‘No’ meant ‘How much will you pay me?’ Rats were commonplace and played merrily among the trashcans of apartment blocks and in the entrances of railway terminals. Windows were filthy as a matter of course...
“While most struggled to survive, a secret elite enjoyed great privilege - special living spaces, special hospitals with Western drugs and equipment, special schools in which their children were well taught in English, special waiting rooms in stations and airports, and special lanes along which the Politburo’s giant armored limousines roared at 90 miles an hour, shouldering aside anyone who dared get in the way. The elite had privileged access to good food, foreign travel and books, and the groveling servility of the organs of the state, which oppressed the common people and extorted money from them. This society, promoted by its leaders as an egalitarian utopia, was in truth one of the most unequal societies on earth.” ~ Peter Hitchens
Jared Williams
(This excerpt was taken from Peter Hitchens’ book “The Rage Against God : how atheism led me to faith”)
Marx’s dream was idealistic and utopian, but unfortunately unreachable. What he asked for is complete equality. Not equality of means (equal opportunity), but equality of material. In sense he envisioned a world that had equalized it’s property, wealth, and goods to such an extent that personal property became extinct.
Communism tried to force the process by creating an oligarchy (tyranny by a small group of people). This oligarchy (government) was to absorb all goods, properties and so forth - transportation, sellable goods, property rights, media outlets, education, etc. This state was to take everything and then slowly give everything back to the people in an even, fair process that would allow the people to live in complete peace and equality. So how did it go? Let us look at Russia (China would also be a good example, but has recently exchanged ideology for freedom and profit, which has saved China from the same fate as the former Soviet Union).
“Everyone else in the cinema was weeping. The film being shown, in a movie theatre in a northern suburb of Moscow, was not a romance or a sentimental drama, but a documentary entitle “We Can’t Go On Living Like This.”...This was June 1990, when the Gorbachev revolution was approaching its final crisis. Why were they crying? Because the film openly told the truth that they all knew but had never been able to discuss.
“I remember several scenes: the orderly queue of neatly dressed citizens dissolving into a yelling riot when word came down that the vodka ration for that week had been canceled; the hideous prisoners, faces grotesque from habitual evil, being herded into sordid dungeons; the desolate cityscapes of concrete slabs under poisoned skies, the filthy yellow waste trickling from a crooked pipeline into a polluted sea, the excrement-smeared, desecrated ruins of what had once been churches, the corruption, and the unending official lies.
“Soviet citizens all knew life was like this. They knew the daily drudgery of finding anything decent to eat....They knew that if they wanted anesthetics at the dentist, or antibiotics at the hospital, or co-operation from their child’s teacher, or a holiday by the sea, they would need to bribe someone to get them. Even in Moscow, the show city of the Evil Empire, they knew that they dwelt in the suburbs of hell, that in mile after mile of mass-produced housing you would be hard put to find a single family untouched by divorce, that no mother reared her own children, that the schools taught lies, that secret government establishments leaked radiation into air and water. Fresh eggs were an event. ‘No’ meant ‘How much will you pay me?’ Rats were commonplace and played merrily among the trashcans of apartment blocks and in the entrances of railway terminals. Windows were filthy as a matter of course...
“While most struggled to survive, a secret elite enjoyed great privilege - special living spaces, special hospitals with Western drugs and equipment, special schools in which their children were well taught in English, special waiting rooms in stations and airports, and special lanes along which the Politburo’s giant armored limousines roared at 90 miles an hour, shouldering aside anyone who dared get in the way. The elite had privileged access to good food, foreign travel and books, and the groveling servility of the organs of the state, which oppressed the common people and extorted money from them. This society, promoted by its leaders as an egalitarian utopia, was in truth one of the most unequal societies on earth.” ~ Peter Hitchens
Jared Williams
(This excerpt was taken from Peter Hitchens’ book “The Rage Against God : how atheism led me to faith”)
