The Emergence of Capitalist Economy In Russia

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The Emergence of Capitalist Economy In Russia

I. Introduction: A Newfound Freedom

Imagine you are a high school student just about to graduate. You are about to leave your parents, who have directed your actions for your entire life. However, you have never had to make your own decisions, and are having trouble handling your new situation.

Now imagine that on a larger scale. An entire nation released from the control of its "parents" with no idea how to use its newfound freedom. The Russian Federation is only a shell of its former glory as the U.S.S.R. because it had to withstand just such a change. The "high school student", a socialist market in which the government makes all the rules, recently was overhauled. The new economic condition in Russia is a free market. However, the people had no experience in handling the independence that they acquired as the capitalist market was established. It had been a long hard journey to get where they were, and now a longer, harder journey is beginning - the journey into capitalism.

II. The Beginnings of Socialism

Russia did not exist as a nation just seven years ago. It was formed from the ruins of a greater nation. Russia's current troubles are based on problems it found, or created, during the years it operated under socialism. This theory, which proposes equality and the means of achieving it, has been scorned by the Western world. One must wonder why such a grand conception has failed.

A. Karl Marx and the Communist Manifesto

By far, the most important document in the development of socialism was The Communist

Manifesto, written by Karl Marx and Frederik Engels in 1848. (Berki) This document was

published as a reply to politicians who would accuse their opponents of being Communist for the sake of scaring the public. (Marx)

Marx's Manifesto was the driving force behind socialism and Communism in Russia. In it, he described the fall of capitalism at the hands of the working classes. (Berki) The following paragraphs are excerpts from that work.

"The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles. Freeman and slave, patrician and

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