Why did communism fail?
435403
The fundamental error of communism was that it failed to recognise exactly what the human person is; any reorganisation of human society is bound to fail if there are errors in its most basic premise. Communist philosophy does not see the individual as an end in himself but merely as a component of something greater. Progress, or the raising of human happiness, cannot be attempted at the unwilling expense of the life or liberty of the individual.  Capitalism will ultimately fail for the the same reason. It will be sustained longer because it usually goes hand in hand with some kind of respect for the freedom of the human person.\n\nFinally, both are materialisms and entirely neglect the spiritual aspect of human beings. A political philosophy not grounded in a holistic anthropology is doomed from day one. Please, don't take this as a plug for any religion, but simply as something I perceive and which time alone will cofirm or negate.
684933
Communism is the ideal government but it will never work because we do not live in a perfect world. The sad fact is that people have an evil or sinful nature. The government will also be corrupt, because power is hard to control.  Socialism is maybe a better option.
986508
Hi. Great question. Consider communism in two ways: in theory and in practice. As a theory, a philosophy, communism was the vision of an ideal state where all people would share equally, there would be no poverty or exploitation, no war or classicism. It was almost a religious ideal for many people. The philosopher who shaped that vision the most into a practice was Karl Marx. At the turn of the century, his attack on capitalism set in motion as political force that challenged the political status quo. It frightened the rich and powerful with the image of working people rising up to take over the government for themselves. In practice, Marxism has been tried to various degrees in different countries. In Russia and China, for example, it was the state system, but in truth, this kind of Marxism had little to do with the original image of communism for a free society. Both the Soviet Union and China were dictatorships. In Vietnam and Cuba, communism has been much more successful, although they were severely stunted by the economic pressure put on them by the United States through boycotts to starve them out. In the end, classic communism has yet to be tried. There are many communist parties still around, but there is no clear vision for this philosophy and the memory of the old Soviet regime still haunts the reputation of the communist hope. Study Antonio Gramsci of Italy (1920's-1930's). This is a good communist thinker,
384768
Many scholars believe that the nuclear build up bankrupted Russia.  Russia needed to make sure that it had as many weapons as the U.S. however, nuclear bombs are expensive.  Especially for a Communist country.  I can't think of one communist country who has a better economy than the USA.
1017835
The idea of communism itself is not bad. It fundamentally seeks to create equality for everyone. Were true communism implemented for anything else besides humans, it would work quite well. It is the human nature of greed that destroys all communistic ideologies.\n\nThe communists countries that exist today (as well as in the past) don't stand a chance because it is essentially impossible for everyone to be equal. Inequalities exist as a rule in human hierarchy.\n\nThe hate (I'd rather refer to it as fear) that Americans have for communism stems from the things we've witnessed communism can do. Russia, China, Vietnam, Cuba, and the list goes on.\n\nA democratic nation would therefore be more desireable than a communistic one, since it acknowledges this hierarchy but also allows room for change. Another good point about it is that a capitalist economy can be supported, which is definitely good for the consumer since companies have to provide quality to survive in such a market. \n\nA true democracy would be like utopia, too, just like communism. But the U.S. also does not have a true democracy. If we did, the electoral college wouldn't exist.
220119
yes.\n\n  All of history is full of bad examples of communism that were misrepresented totalitarianism in disguise. But pure unpolitisized communism is a quest for a utopic society where no one person is any better than the next, and everyone shares the wealth of the community as well as their fair share of the work that supports it. That is the true reason for The west's aversion to the idea of socialism and communism. We here are a pyramid society that takes from the bottom to support the top 10% of the population's interests and agendas. AAnd more times than not those agendas are to keep the pyramid stacked in their favor at the expence of the bottom 90% of the population. That is what is at the heart of modern capitalism. Before capitalism there were other ways to rule over the masses, such as slavery, indentured servitude, religious superstision....but the basic pyramid was the same and has been passed down to modern times because 90% of the people are asleep at the wheel for their entire lives.
992888
Not quite.  Communism doesn't work because people like to get the fruits of their own labor.  If I work very hard at what I do, and do it very well, and my neighbor is mediocre and doesn't work hard at all, why should I not be rewarded more than he is?\n\nCommunism rewards the slipshod, stupid, and lazy, while the bright, disciplined and dedicated are punished.  When the bright, disciplined and dedicated get fed up and say forget it, the whole system falls apart.
499958
I would argue that it wasn't.  But it certainly was more theoretical.  Marx version never had to be tested in the trenches of reality.  Whenever communism has been lived out (Leninism, Maoism, etc), it has always led to disaster: either mass poverty or mass violence, or a combination of both.  Marx' approach has never had to be tested, since one can always claim that it was the fault of lenin or Stalin or Mao or whoever that it didn't work.  The reality is that it never really works.
721779
Personally I think it was destined to fail to begin with. Look at the methods of control that were used and the rampant corruption within the government. It’s a wonder it managed to stay afloat as long as it did. Reganomics really didn’t have as much to do with the USSR’s collapse as much as the slow attrition of the US economy and the world governments against a rapidly eroding communist regime that was finally becoming aware that their empires threshold of domination was long gone. In short, Reganomics was just the last straw that toppled the ‘evil empire.’ I think the true turning point in the sway of power within the USSR was the nuclear accident at Chernobyl. This upset the greater population to such a degree that the government would never again manage to maintain its sway of power to the effect it once had. The world view of the their government had a major impact and further exposed not only to the world the level of corruption the Russian government had, but also caused the Russian people to become more acutely aware of what the greater overview the world had of their government, and as such for once the Russian people agreed with them wholeheartedly. \n\nAgain in short, Reganomics was just the last straw.
456298
Because our government failed you.
907222
That's a very ideal argument.  Communism is responsible for many human rights violations.  I have a friend from Russia who tells me about the atrocities against people of her ancestry, mainly Ukrainians and Gypsies.  She is a descendant of the warrior class and her family lost all their wealth, land and titles.  They had no religious freedom.  Gypsies lost their traditions and couldn't move around and were forced to assimilate into a society created out of fascism and colonialism.\n\nIf you missed a day of work, you went to a concentration camp.  They killed off the aristocracy and enslaved farmers and the middle class. Artists, the homeless and the mentally ill were rounded up and institutionalized.  Take Kruschev, the supposed liberal, tolerant one.  He sent away artists who went against state-enforced policies of socialist realism in art.  You could not leave the country and come back freely, you had to defect if you were an athlete or in the ballet, Mikhail Baryshnikov, for example.\n\nThere is no capitalism.  Now there is too much poverty in the West but that is because of our own doing and policies.  It can be eliminated.  You cannot produce growth and profit for reinvestment in a communist economy, which is a false economy and not a natural one.  The 'invisible hand' that aids the middle class doesn't exist.  There is no motivation for ambition and success.  Freedom is complicated, sophisticated and demanding.  I like an intellectual challenge.  Culture and intellectual discourse, along with religious freedom and freedom of speech, disappeared in Russia.\n\nThere are still some remnants of the old system.  You can be placed in prison or a work camp for being on the streets and suffering from the disease of alcoholism.  They still want to preserve their aging nuclear arsenal and cannot afford to purchase uranium for nuclear reactors.  They want to keep fighting against the Chechnyans in their civil war.
827172
Communism has committed suicide, it is a dead horse.
92449
A key problem for the Soviets had been the fact that large numbers of people were leaving East Berlin and migrating to the West. This posed a fundamental challenge to Soviet claims that the communist system was superior to the Western capitalist model, particularly given the stark difference between the eastern and western sectors of Berlin. The creation of the Berlin wall put an emphatic stop to the movement of people between East and West Berlin, helping to stabilize a dangerous flashpoint between the USA and the USSR in the process.
516005
most people in the US really didn't want another war, especially after having gone through the first world war. there were a series of protests and demonstrations. nevertheless, most political people wanted to stop communism from taking over and deemed it a necessary step. the eastern allies didn't have much of a choice and had to support it, since it was so near their ground O.o
1066462
I think the ideals behind Communism were well-intentioned, but it just doesn't work. You can't force people to be equal. It's just never gonna happen. Nature is created in such a way that there is a natural heirarchy/order to things. Someone is always going to end up on top and someone is always going to end up at the bottom.
760703
Communism had no middle class and capitalists because all are treated equal.  Only the leaders are enjoying and most of the people are simply workers and laborers receiving only basic items for a living.
62177
I lived in Moscow in 1992 for five months... one of the vestiges of the communist system was the local food-staple (milk, sugar, eggs and four) market.  Part of the system was to create jobs for all-\n\nTo buy anything from this market you had to stand in an hour-long line to get a ticket that represented an item like a bag of flour, then you had to stand in an hour-long line to pay for what the tickets represented, then you had to go into another hour-long line to pick up the items you paid for, and finally you had to wait in an hour-long line for them to check your purchases against the reciepts and tickets.  Four hours to buy milk and eggs- assuming you know exactly what you want.\n\nIn a word, the economy was suffering from gross "inefficiency" that made profitability impossible.  The inefficiencies came from govt. corruption and the notion that everyone should have a job (even if the work is meaningless like it was in the market).  Because it almost always cost more to produce than the benefit of production, the govt. borrowed heavily to support it's programs (which included almost all business because the govt. "nationalized" meaning they owned almost all of them) leading to massive inflation and the eventual implosion of its economy.