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Browse: Home / History and Politics

How did the communist USSR prevail for so long?

Question by : How did the Communist China and communist USSR prevail for so long?
Discuss the totalitarian nature of the communist governments in the USSR and China. In what ways did both governments guarantee that their power would remain unchallenged for much of the 1900s? By the 1980s both countries began to relax their control of the information available to the public. Why? How? How did the citizens of these countries react to the small degrees of freedom they had been given? How did Soviet citizens voice their concerns? Did it result in change? Why or why not? How did Chinese citizens voice their concerns? Did it result in change? Why or why not?

Answers and Views:

Answer by Mr. Smartypants
Communism is not intrinsically evil. It could work, just as capitalism could work. It all depends on the people running the system–their goals, their ethics, etc.

The problem with Communism in the real world is that it’s never been tried in a country with a pre-existing tradition of democracy. Russia and China were both autocracies before their revolutions, basically totalitarian dictatorships. So in their revolutions, the citizens ended up just trading one set of despots for another. You don’t create democracy in a country by simply announcing “We are now a democratic country.” This didn’t work in Russia and China any better than it’s working in Afghanistan or Iraq.

One way for a small group of powerful to maintain their power is by making the country a one-party system. So you can have regular elections, but there’s only one candidate to vote for (or one major candidate). So the leaders of the country are chosen by a party committee, not by The People. (BTW, a two-party system is not all that much better, if you think about it.)

The free flow of information is seen by despots and dictators as a bad thing. The USSR and China (and Cuba, and Vietnam, etc.) all tried very hard to control the information people actually get. The unrest we’re seeing across the Muslim world today is because of more penetration by news services like Al Jazeera.

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