The Death of Communism

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The Death of Communism

The United States longest and bloodiest war was the Vietnam War, which was fought from 1959 until 1975.(Communist Manifesto 1) In this war 57,685 Americans were killed, and their were over 2 million Vietnamese deaths.(Communist Manifesto 3) One of the main causes of the war was a commonly held American belief called the Domino Theory. This theory stated that if the U.S. allowed one country to fall to communism, those around it would fall, and then those around it, eventually taking over the whole world. However, the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 allows to approach communism in a new light.

The Communist Manifesto has three sections. The first is an outline of the history of the bourgeois and the proletariat, and a explanation on how the bourgeoisí will bring about their defeat. The second section shows the framework of the communist goals, and their long range plan to abolish private property. The last section criticizes other socialist attempts at the time, calling all workers to unite under communism.

The bourgeois Marx speaks of in the manifesto is simply the capitalist of the time. The proletariat are the workers of the world, people who, according to Marx, have "[become] an appendage of the machine."(Marx 3) Marx speaks of their horrible fate saying "they are daily and hourly enslaved by the machine, by the overlooker, and, above all, by the individual bourgeois manufacturer himself."(Marx 3) Marx documents the stages of the proletariatís struggle with the bourgeois: "at first the contest is carried on by individual laborers, then by the workpeople of a factory, then the operatives of one trade, in one locality, against the bourgeois that directly exploits them."(Marx 4) Marx tells ho...

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...e Vietnam war rages on. Bloodshed and military advances ground to a halt decades ago, but the real battle lies in creating a Vietnam that can lift itself out of poverty. The war succeeded more in pushing the country deeper into communism than pulling it out. But the outcome is a forgone conclusion: an ideology that no longer fits with the times will not stand. Ask Mother Russia.

Works Cited

"Communist Manifesto," MicrosoftÆ EncartaÆ 96 Encyclopedia. (c) 1993-1995 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. (c) Funk & Wagnalls Corporation. All rights reserved.

Karl Marx and Frederick Engels. "The Communist Manifesto." http: //leftside.uwc.ac.za/Archives/1848-CM/cm.html (25 June 1997).

"Vietnam War," MicrosoftÆ EncartaÆ 96 Encyclopedia. (c) 1993-1995 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. (c) Funk & Wagnalls Corporation. All rights reserved.

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