The Soviet Union was a communist state before it fell apart in the early 1990’s. Communist political economy shaped the direction of the nation’s industrial development. Industrialization contributed to increases in Soviet wealth, but only for those favored by the communist regime. Working Soviets were left poor. This form of communism came to be because of the Russian Revolution and was based on the idea that all people are equal. While being a great idea in theory, it did not work out in the real world. Soviet-style industrialization was about earning money quickly and in an efficient manner, the officials implemented the idea that “everyone should be the master in his own house”, and they achieved great power and money.
The ideal of communism is that everyone is equal. While this would seem good in theory, people get different salaries based on their occupation. The Soviet Government did recognize pay based on the person's job, thus breaking the meaning of everyone being equal. The leaders also wanted to have more money and power than the laboring class. Industrialization is a way for the government to earn more money faster and cheaper. This means that the government would be wealthier than the people who are doing the
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Since “all men are equal”, each man would always be head and hold ownership of his and only his property, but all people should have the same amount of property. This idea was one of the new morals and was brought upon by the industrialization of the Soviet Union, as Strayer observed. This was kind of the way that the USSR became more different than the other countries. Other new ideas put in place were that communism was better than any other system and that being communist was the best way to have control over the population, happiness of the population, and the ideas of another
While it is great that citizens live under similar economic terms and are assured of the same paycheck every week, communism is not an environment that will allow businesses or people to flourish. On the opposite side of a Capitalist society, where businesses are able to skyrocket earnings, a Communist society affects businesses ability to grow. If each worker is given the same amount of money, this can affect their motivation to do things and go above and beyond. Everyone who earns the same amount of money for the same amount of work seems like a peaceful agreement and a proletariat paradise, but it does not always turn out that way. Unfortunately, communism can often lead to widespread corruption and sometimes encourages greed.
A Comparison of Communism versus Capitalism Communism versus Capitalism is a debate that has raged on for over two centuries. Whether to allow everyone equal opportunities and to do with those opportunities as they please or to mandate class equality in order to keep peace has in itself been the cause of war. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels saw the working class of the world—the proletariat—being squashed by the greedy business owners—the bourgeoisie. In their view, the bourgeoisie owned too much and the proletariat had no chance to make their own fortunes. In Marx and Engels Communist Manifesto, they propose doing away with private property, nationality, and even countries in order to take power away from the bourgeoisie.
The right for an individual to exercise his or her own economic rights was created, allowing anyone to handle their own economic issues. You are allowed to earn as much money as possible from your products. The Bourgeoisie owned the factories and earned all of the money from the products that the workers made. Communism is the study of how everyone is at peace and works together. There is no need for competition or armies because no wars are going on.
Communism was the ideology followed by the Soviet Union. Originally founded by Karl Marx, it said that everything should be owned by the government and then divided up equally among the people who would then all work for it. For the communist party in Russia, their political system was always in danger. From the start of the Russian Revolution there have been dangers to communism. Before World War II most of the western nations ignored Russia simply because it was a communist state and the western nations actually supported Hitler because they believed that Germany would provided a buffer against Communism. The permanent threat against Russia gave the incentive to expand and spread communist influence as much as possible to keep their way of life intact, it was very much Russia against the world. However not only was the Soviet Union communist, they were totalitarian, meaning all the power was with the rulers. While this was effective for keeping the standard average of living the same for everyone and preventing poverty, it also led to a poor work ethic among the working population...
During the 1980's and 1990-91, the Soviet Union faced the reconstruction of their economy because Mikhail Gorbachev observed he needed to form a plan to reform the economy. (7) These reforms replaced the more imperious aspects of the command economy with freedoms for the citizens. When control was taken away from the government, it was not a command economy anymore. It was a free enterprise economy. The command economy kept the Soviet Union together,
Fleming argues in his paper that the containment of the Soviet power by the US has actually helped Russia focus on their internal issues and simultaneously improve the production of their heavy industry and arms (Fleming 1959: 115). He suggests the US to replace their military aid with economic aid for underdeveloped countries and investments in education and infrastructure in their own nation (idem: 122-123). Kennan, on the contrary, analyses the Soviet ideology and turns it around. The Soviet Union, as he describes it, views capitalism as a power that will eventually destroy itself, because capital-owners are unable to adapt to economic growth, implying that the working class will eventually take power (Kennan 1947: 842). Kennan describes the economy of the Soviet Union as one that is destroying its political power by being a nation that wants to be industrially advanced but is doing a poor maintenance job (idem:
The Soviet Union, which was once a world superpower in the 19th century saw itself in chaos going into the 20th century. These chaoses were marked by the new ideas brought in by the new leaders who had emerged eventually into power. Almost every aspect of the Soviet Union was crumbling at this period both politically and socially, as well as the economy. There were underlying reasons for the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union and eventually Eastern Europe. The economy is the most significant aspect of every government. The soviet economy was highly centralized with a “command economy” (p.1. fsmitha.com), which had been broken down due to its complexity and centrally controlled with corruption involved in it. A strong government needs a strong economy to maintain its power and influence, but in this case the economic planning of the Soviet Union was just not working, which had an influence in other communist nations in Eastern Europe as they declined to collapse.
...in equality would be through socialist system. Abolishing private property that only adds to the bourgeoisie’s capital furthering their power. The working class is nothing more than human capital, “the means of production within a society both engenders and controls them, making them slaves to the production of goods”. He advocated that communism is the only alternative to escape this system. Thought is a product of matter and without; there would be no separate ideas. Equally comes from placing society” his or her according ability and to each according to their need”.
Marx, in his theory of historical materialism, advocates that political and historical events result from the conflict of social forces. His theory focuses on the class struggles and the human attempts to control and dominate the natural environment. Profits obtained by the capitalists are a result of the workers being exploited. This conflict will lead to a revolution in which the workers control the state. Thus, capitalism will be replaced by socialism. The result is freedom for all. In the Soviet Union, the lower class overthrew the ruling class and created a new mode of production. This new economic base then determined political, social and ideological changes in its society. The failure of the Soviet Union impacts the validity of Marxian historical materialism because it discredits materialistic
Since everyone gets equal opportunities, it reduces the unemployment rate. Lastly, there is no competition among corporations. They are regulated by the government so it is impossible for a certain business to monopolize the market. However, communism also has its faults.
The Soviet Command Economy started in 1924 under the rule of the Soviet Union leader, Joseph Stalin. It effected the social structure of the Soviet Union. The government took control of almost every aspect of a person’s life; therefore, the people of the Soviet Union were very poor and not taken care of. The Soviet Union accomplished growth from the 19502 to the 1970s, but economic growth slowed down after this period. Joseph Stalin created five-year plans, collectivized farmland, created labor camps to help industrialize the Soviet Union.
The democratic principles introduced through Gorbachev’s policy of Perestroika paved the way for a pro-capitalist party to gain control of Russia and replace the communist regime with a Western Capitalist model, thus eliminating the biggest ideological threat to the West. Glasnost introduced the liberal ideals of freedom of thought and individual expression to soviet society which placed critics of the communist regime in charge of much of the Soviet mass media. Economic reform began to create serious dislocations in 1988-89 and when leading soviet economists were asked to propose solutions they recommended capitalist solutions of rapid marketization and privatization of the economy (Kotz and Weir, 1997 p.131). A major part of the party-state elite of the soviet system itself began to abandon its allegiance to soviet socialism gravitating toward western style capitalism (Kotz and Weir 1997 p.131). Out of this process there emerged a movement the pro-capitalist coalition, drawing support from the intelligentsia, economists, private business owners and a growing section of the party state elite (Kotz and Weir, 1997 p.131).
The 'Secondary Davies, R.W.. Soviet Economic Development from Lenin to Khrushchev. Cambridge: Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge, 1998. Boettke,Peter J., et al. The political economy of Soviet socialism: the formative years, 1918-1928.
Communism is a command economy in which all economic and political power rests on the government. With this system there are numerous benefits, explained by Harry Schwartz as being free medical care, secured jobs, and social insurance for those in need. Centrally planned economies push for a common good by sharing everything. But,
Everything is run by the state and should be run by the government on behalf of the people. No private person is allowed to profit from the work of other citizens. Communism is a controlled economy. All profits don’t go into the pocket of one owner; the profits go to the state, which benefits everyone.... ...