Chapter Twenty-One: The Rise and Fall of World Communism

Hello Historians,

Overview-

A major theme of jokes about communism involved a lot of hypocrisy of its system that promised equality and an abundance for all but delivered an uncertain economic life for the great privileges for the few. The growing belief in the ability or willingness of the communist regime to provide a fairly decent lifestyle for its people was certainly an important factor in the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the end of communism in the land of its birth.

Global Communism:

Nowadays modern communism four its political and philosophical roots in the nineteenth-century European socialism, that inspired the teaching of Karl Marx. Even though most European socialists came to believe that they could achieve their goals peacefully and through the democratic process, those who defined themselves as communists in the twentieth century tarnished such reformism and advocated uncompromising revolution as the only possible route to a socialist future. Russia or the U.S.S.R, was the first country to experience such a revolution.
One-third of the population have lived in the societies that were governed and ruled under communist rule. The significant presence of communism was in fact the Soviet Union (Russia) and following in second place was China. Throughout the years, communism remained the powerhouse for both Russia and China, even today in some parts of Russia and in some parts of China, communism is still prevalent. Mongolia was another asian country to be infiltrated by communist rule. It somehow got involved with the Russian Revolution in 1924.


Russia: Revolution in a single year:

After the events of WW1 there came immense pressure. This pressure of WW1 made the Russians looked really bad. Back in Russia many, many wives of Russian soldiers broke bread in St. Petersburg for demonstrating a way for peace. With this ongoing action for peace, many activities from various parties decided to take the opportunity upon themselves and participate in this peace gathering by publishing newspaper, recruiting members for their party and even plotted another revolution. This so called "propaganda," forced Tsar Nicholas II to be dethroned, because of the lost support he received. This historic event thus opened a door for social upheaval. Many soldiers were seeking an end to this war that caused Russia to be tarnished,which would take years for them to live up to anyone's standards. Through this bitter time also caused a tremendous upheaval towards the elite-class. This was the social revolution, and it quickly demonstrated the ill attempt of helping by the Provisional Government, which came to power after the tsar was de-throned.


Communist Feminism:

The most earliest and most revolutionary actions of the century and that was relatively new to the communist regimes were efforts of liberating and mobilizing women in the women force. In 1919, a special party organization emerged called Zhenotdel it formed to be a Women's Department, whose radical leaders, all women, pushed a feminist "agenda," during the 1920s. This particular group for women organized various conferences, trained women to run day-care centers and medical clinics, published newspapers and magazines aimed at a female audience. This organization also provided literacy and prenatal classes, and encouraged Muslim women to take off their veils. Still, during this time communist-style women's liberation had limits like everything else.
Living in fear of the "women question" some believed that it would distract them from the male emphasis on industrial production, Stalin declared it "solved" in 1930.


Socialism in the Courtyard:

In a HUGE effort to build socialism, both the Soviet Union and China first appropriated their landlords' estates and redistribute their land on a more adorable basis to the lower-class. These actions, that were actions of clear revolutionary basis, were not socialists, for peasants initially received their land as private property. In Russia, the peasants had redistributed their lands among each other, and the Bolsheviks ratified their actions. Meanwhile, in China after 1949, land reform was a more prolonged and tedious process. Trained teams were dispatched to the newly liberated areas, where they mobilized the poorer peasants in thousands of separate villages to confront and humiliate the landlords or the more wealthy peasants.