Failure of Communism in Russia Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Failure of Communism in Russia - Essay Example The Russian radicals, the Bolsheviks led by Lenin, shoved out the moderate Mensheviks and imposed a totalitarian, socialist political ideology that completely obliterated capitalism and tsarist authoritarianism (Cohen,1980,p.42). Lenin, with Leon Trotsky as his main Communism engineer, adopted and modified the Communism concepts of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels as contained in The Communist Manifesto. In 1918, the Communist Party of Russia was formalized and in 1919, the Comintern or the Communist International was established to export the Communist ideology throughout the whole world (Wang,1998,p.71). Afterwards, private ownership was abolished and all private properties and industries came under the control of the state. Collectivisation of agriculture, prohibition of opposition and all basic freedoms including freedom of the press and religion and propaganda were the order of the Bolshevik rule and all facets of life whether political, social, economic or cultural were under tight Communism grip. The Stalin Era worsened the people's conditions as the Great Purge was set into motion immolating millions of Russians who threatened in any way Stalin's power and domination (Daniels,1985,p.173). The Russian economy failed to soar and instead plummeted during Khruschev, Brezhnev and Andropov's totalitarian rules. Gorbachev tried to revive an ailing communist government in Russia with his perestroika or rebuilding or reconstruction and glasnost or "being open to the public" but to no avail. The Russian satellites one by one declared their independence and the Iron Curtain was completely rent. Yeltsin was left with no recourse but declare the demise of the Communist Party and the termination of the USSR on December 8, 1991 (Leonard,2006,p.702). Causes of the Failure of Communism In Russia Communism in Russia was doomed right from the start. It cannot claim any legitimacy and any illegitimate government flirts with being eradicated at the most opportune time. The Bolshevik government can never claim to be legitimate right from the outset because it wrested power from the provisional government set up by the Russian Duma by illegitimate means. The Bolsheviks were just "a small, united band of revolutionary fanatics brilliantly led by Lenin" (Rabinowitch,2007,p.ix) who subverted the will of the majority by illegally imposing their own will by "undemocratic methods .i.e. rigged elections, terror, totalitarian state, harassment and threats" (Kehoe, 1988,pp. 25,32). The peasantry, which comprised 80% of the Russian population at that time were neither communists, socialists or of any political color but were