Communism and postcommunism

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Communism and post-communism
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Post-communist states

• State Population GDP per capita
• Russia 142,893,540 12,100 (P.P.P.)
• Poland 38,536,869 14,100 (P.P.P.)

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Communist states under reform

• State Population GDP per capita
• P.R.C. 1,313,973,713 7,600 (P.P.P.)
• Vietnam 84,402,966 3,100 (P.P.P.)

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Communist states

• State Population GDP per capita
• Cuba 11,382,820 3,900 (P.P.P.)
• D.P.R.K. 23,113,019 1,800 (P.P.P.)

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Historical origins of the regimes

• October Revolution in Russia (1917)
• Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
• East Europe and North Korea after WWII
• Chinese revolution (1911-1949)
• Chinese Communist Party
• Vietnamese revolution (1945-1975)
• Cuban revolution (1959)

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Arc of Containment
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A Soviet camp?

• Warsaw Pact was established in 1955 in Eastern
  Europe to counter NATO
• divisions within world communist movement
• Albania and Yugoslavia broke free from Soviet
  control after the late 1940s
• USSR-PRC ideological and military conflicts after
  the late 1950s

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3 pillars of communist regime

• Marxist ideology
• Karl Marx (1818 - 1883)
• Communist Party
• Lenin (1870 - 1924)
• command economy
• Stalin (1879 - 1953)

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Leninist party

• Party monopoly
• of the correct ideology
• of political power
• Communist Party
• proletarian vanguard
• alone could comprehend and represent the
  objective long-term interests of the masses

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The Party State

• Communist Party held monopoly on real
  decision-making power
• government responsible for implementation
• Communist Party leaders
• cult of personality around Stalin
• de-Stalinization after 1956
• collective leadership

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Organization of Leninist party

• nomenklatura
• Party control of government
• appointment to key positions
• democratic centralism
• centralized decision-making
• internal discipline

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Organization of Leninist party

• hierarchy
• General Secretary
• Secretariat
• Politburo
• Central Committee
• Party Committees at local levels
• republics, provinces, counties, etc.
• Party Committees/Branches in firms etc.

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Command economy

• state ownership of property
• state management of firms
• central planning

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Command economy

• Early successes
• mobilization of resources
• heavy industry
• reduce poverty
• later problems
• consumer goods shortage
• technologically backward
• international competition

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Reforms

• Deng Xiaopings reform and opening up since
  late 1970s

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Gorbachevs Reforms (1985-91)

• glasnost
• openness in the political system
• perestroika
• economic restructuring
• foreign policy
• improved relationship with the West
• transformed relationship with East European states

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Collapse of communism (1989)

• Democratization in East Europe
• Poland, Hungary, East Germany, Czechoslovakia,
  Romania, etc.
• pro-democracy student movement in China
• Tiananmen Square
• breakup of the Soviet Union
• 1991

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