hal9000

There is no real communist nation around now. N. Korea is really a monarchy with Kim Jong as the king. In Cuba you have a tottering regime that is based more on the cult of personality of Castro, and he runs a dictatorial system, not the workers paradise of communism. And what has passed for the big show case communist nations in the past, Russia and China appear to be on the road to capitalism. If it is such a good idea, why can't it ever succeed? As there are some dedicated leftists here, perhaps they can tell us why communism is such a dismal failure in practice.

August Spies

Well none of those countries were communist, at least in the marxist sense, they were State capitalist (a Lenin term by the way). There are a lot of reasons why they failed, but no offense... where have you been. Russia seems on the way to capitalism? didn't that happen a while ago?

echidna

Israel's kibbutz's seem to run pretty well (save the odd terrorist or two).

hal9000

Perhaps Russia has made the complete transition to capitalism, but really that is beside the point. Why has every communist nation failed is the point of this thread.

moon

By far the best analysis of the successes of the Russian revolution and its decay into bureaucratism is Trotsky's Revolution Betrayed

You have to be careful when you say that "communism" has "failed." None of the states that have called themselves socialist have been socialist. Yet, there were some staggering successes in terms of economic development. What these states have shown is the superiority of a centrally planned economy.

Trotsky makes the point that socialism needs democracy like a body needs oxygen. Without democracy, it is bound to fail. What the Soviets experienced was an economic growth that is unprecedented in history. Yet, there grew upon the socialized economy a parasitic excresence in the form of the Stalinist bureaucracy. By the 1980's it was clear that the unaccountable bureaucracy could not direct the economy any longer without democratic participation of the populace. Yet, this would have meant the return to the democratic principles of the Bolsheviks, something they were loathe to do as it would mean the end of their power. Instead, they simply handed over the Soviet Union to the capitalists.

What followed after the breakup of the USSR is the most dramatic economic collapse in history. There is nothing that even remotely compares. The economy of the former USSR contracted by 60% in the first 5 years after the collapse. Nothing like this has ever happened, apart from countries who have lost catastrophic wars. The economy of the former USSR is a shambles, and is held together mostly by force. Despite a dramatic decrease in the population, the bureaucracy is now about twice as large as the old Stalinist bureaucracy.

From 1950-1990 Russia experienced an average yearly increase in population of 1.5 million. From 1991 to the present the population has declined an average of 40,000 per year. This is only one of the dramatic indications of the total failure of the market economy.

hal9000

Are they communist, or Jewish?

moon

Cite?

hal9000

Interesting moon, but still communism has not been successfully implemented anywhere, has it? Why is that? Why does the inferior regime of capitalism prevail in every case?

Monkeybot

Uh, both?

On a serious note, while I'd be perfectly willing to cede that most of the "communist" states listed in the OP were actually state-capitalistic, IMHO, that just pushes the question back a step: why has Real Communism been so difficult to implement? (Or perhaps a better question is, why is it so hard to implement on a large, nationwide scale?) Why has it so often turned into these state-capitalistic dictatorships? (I'm asking honestly - what is the explanation for this?)

echidna

LOL, one cannot be both at the same time ?

Jewish kibbutzes are often used as working examples of practical communes.