Syllabus | Sample Exams | Paper Guidelines | Sample Papers| Current articles

NOTE: This essay provides some historical background. The other essays in this section go in to more detail on socialism and capitalism. -R.P.

Communism/Socialism vs Capitalism By Julien Newcombe

Introduction: Our lives form a small part of an extremely complex society. The evolution of human society has never been more rapid. We are able to send unmanned satellites past the reaches of our solar system, when it was only during our great-grandparent's lives that man first took to the skies. This evolution has engendered two opposite political, economic and social systems. On the "left" of politics are communism and socialism and on the "right" is capitalism.

Socialism: Socialists believe that the inequalities that exist in our society are unjust and that the minority of the population should not own the vast majority of the wealth. Socialists do, nevertheless, differ on ways by which this change should be achieved. Some believe that the change should be gradual, achieved through parliament, and others believe that the change should be rapid, brought about through revolution.

It is impossible to state "that at such and such a time socialism began." However, it is apparent that socialist ideas have been developing for hundreds of years. Modern socialism emerged as the world went through the process of industrialization. From the 18th century the industrial revolution transformed Western Europe and North America from agricultural, trading nations to industrial nations. The metamorphosis of these country's economic structures led to great and complex changes in the lifestyle of their people. The average worker went form being a self-employed farmer to being an employee at a large factory. The working class was formed!

People began to move away from the country and the population became centralized. Cities grew rapidly and overcrowding became an enormous problem. This new industrial workforce, the proletariat, worked and lived in appalling conditions. Poverty was rampant. The cities were havens for crime and disease. The tumultuous transformation affected not only the lives of the workers (factory fodder) but also craftsmen, such as handloom weavers, who were being forced out of business by factories which could produce the same product at a lower price. Much of the working class was confounded by the radical changes that were going on.

Without anyone planning it, capitalism had emerged and began to flourish as there was no opposition to it. The factory owners became richer and low-skilled workers and the unemployed became poorer. Workers whose trades were less secure decided to form trade societies (the forerunners of trade unions). This allowed the proletariat who had nothing to trade but their labor, to sell their labor for the best possible price. By uniting, workers could achieve results that could not be achieved individually.

Life wasn't easy for the trade unions in the early 19th century. In Britain, for example, many employers banded together to fight trade unions. There was also an increasing representation of employers' interests in the house of commons.

By 1814 industrialization had occurred in the majority of Europe, hence capitalism had sowed its seeds deep in society. It was in France (one of the first countries to industrialize) that opposition to capital and to the ruling class first developed. The saint-Simonians were among the most important opposition groups to capitalism at the time. They argued for the abolition of hereditary wealth and for the pooling of all land, machinery and capital in a social fund to be controlled by the state.

For the next hundred years capitalism thrived. In opposition to this, trade unions grew in magnitude also. But it must be remembered that trade unions are not always socialist instruments. In an economic boom trade union's demands are usually met, which leads to trade unions allying themselves with the capitalists instead of opposing them. Shortly before the First World War British trade unions called many large strikes which resulted in the loss of millions of working days. When the war started, trade unions suspended any industrial action to allow the economy to work at maximum efficiency. During this period most private companies and factories fell into public control as part of the war-time effort. The success of the economy under state control during these "experimental times" demonstrated to some the inadequacy of capitalism. After the war public companies reverted to private ownership.

In 1926 Britain came close to an anti-capitalist revolution. The TUC (Trade Union Congress) called a National Strike in response to wage cuts in the mining sector, but failed to anticipate the magnitude of the strike. Almost all industry in the entire country came to a halt. Clearly, the TUC had forged a revolutionary weapon without having any revolutionary intentions. In actual fact, the TUC were as afraid of a revolution as the Government. The TUC capitulated after nine days without winning any compensation. Nowadays almost all western countries have Labor (or gradualist, socialist) parties who believe in achieving either total or partial socialism gradually. These parties go in and out of government just like the Liberal (or conservative) parties.

Karl Marx and Marxism:
Karl Marx became the prophet and teacher of socialism whose writings transformed socialist thinking all over the world. Marx was a philosopher and an idealist who studied history and was greatly influenced by the writings of Georg Hegel, the famous German philosopher. In 1848 Karl Marx published, with the help of his long-time friend and collaborator Friedrich Engels, "Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei," more commonly known as "The Communist Manifesto". The Communist Manifesto was a summary of his entire social and political philosophy. The publication of this book occurred at a most propitious time. The book appeared on the eve of the 1848 revolution in France and less than one year before an attempted revolution in Germany. After the failure of the 1848 revolution in Germany he was expelled from his country of origin and moved to London. He later published "das Kapital" or Capital, an analysis of the economics of capitalism. Marxism, a doctrine developed by Marx and to a lesser extent by Engels, consists fundamentally of two interrelated ideas: a philosophical view of man and a theory of history.

Marx believed that man should labor not only for himself as an individual but for society as well. Implied in Marxist philosophy is the notion that man, being a social animal, has his destiny indeed his reality inextricably linked with his society. Hegel's idea of human history evolving in a dialectical process of thesis, antithesis leading to synthesis was taken up by Marx and applied to social and economic policy. In a capitalist society the proletariat invests its labor so that the bourgeoisie (or upper-class) can make all the profits without investing any labor themselves. The disconnection of a worker from the end product of his labor leads Marx to his theory of alienation. Workers are alienated from the product they manufacture, having no control over what becomes of it. Finally workers are alienated from other human beings, with competition replacing co-operation. Marx's theory of history is an account of the different stages of government through history. His analysis describes capitalism as the first stage followed by socialism and finally communism. Marx believed that socialism is an unrealized potential in capitalism and once most workers recognized their interests and became "class conscious," the overthrow of capitalism would proceed as quickly as capitalist opposition allowed. The socialist society that would emerge out of the revolution would have all the productive potential of capitalism. People would be aided on the basis of social needs. The final goal, communism, toward which socialist society would constantly strive, is the abolition of alienation. A class-less society would be advantageous for the vast majority of the population.

As the complexity of the social structure increases, more and more revisions were made to Marx's original doctrine.

Communism:
Communism, a form of government, inspires some people with the zeal of a religion. Communism in theory stands for total public ownership and rejects private property and personal profit. In practice, however, the state determines how strictly the doctrine is applied in any particular country.

Communism in Russia:
The huge losses (both human and material) in the First World War intensified the revolutionary spirit in Russia. In 1917 Lenin led a small party of professional revolutionaries, the Bolsheviks, to power after the Tsar was overthrown. To achieve the transition from capitalism to socialism and finally communism, Lenin used Marx's theory of "Dictatorship of the Proletariat." The most politically advanced section of the proletariat would form the communist party and lead the rest of the country forward. Since the Bolsheviks totally represented the people, all other political parties were abolished. The party tolerated no opposition, owned all industry and property, had a powerful secret police, kept strict control over all levels of education, and disallowed all liberal literature and art from entering Russia; all this was not unlike the regime that the Tsars ruled by. What became apparent after a few years was that power stemmed from the top, just like under the Tsars. For the average Russian the repression continued!

After Lenin's death in the late 1920's, Josef Stalin took control of Russia. It was under Stalin's command that the terrible political purges in the 1930's took place. Until his death in 1953, this dictator showed what Marxism-Leninism could mean in practice, which is vastly different than in theory.

For about 15 years after the revolution farmers continued to own their own farms, islands of private ownership in a sea of state owned property. Stalin, after a long and bloody battle with farmers, put into practice the collectivization of agriculture. This meant that farmers would go and work on huge state owned farms to earn a wage. Theoretically these large farms would make better use of land and machinery, but in practice these farms were inefficient and unproductive.

The Bolshevik government actively discouraged all religious practice, handing out pamphlets and closing down churches. Schools were totally under the control of the communist party. Marxism was taught in schools like religion. There were programs such as the "young pioneers" for children under 14 and the "communist youth league," or Komsomol, for teenagers and young adults which were set up to promote the involvement of young people with the communist party.

At the conclusion of the Second World War Russian Forces pursued the last of the German troops into Germany and on their way occupied most of Eastern Europe. In these countries Stalin imposed communist regimes. These nations became known as the satellites of the USSR. Over the next 25 years there were many attempted revolutions that were mercilessly crushed by the Soviet government. Gradually these countries became increasingly independent of the Soviet Union until its demise in 1991.

In January 1959 Fidel Castro became the head of a new revolutionary government in Cuba. Castro freed his country from excessive US influence. In retaliation the US imposed a trade embargo on Cuba. As a way of protecting Cuba, Castro allied himself with the other super power, the Soviet Union, and within 3 years Castro was proclaiming "I am a Marxist-Leninist".

The Cold War:
As the USSR set up left-wing governments in most of Eastern Europe much of Western Europe feared that the "Red Army" might venture further west. In an effort to prevent this threat NATO (the North Atlantic Treaty Organization) was set up. In that same year the communist countries signed the Warsaw Pact. During 1949 the Soviet Union exploded its first nuclear bomb and in 1950, along with China, it aided the North Korean invasion of South Korea. The US helped South Korea defend the communist invasion resulting in an indecisive three year war. After some relaxation of the tensions between the two super powers, the Cold War reached a climax in 1962 when the Soviet Union secretly installed nuclear missiles in Cuba, less than 200km off the coast of Florida. After discovering the missiles President Kennedy gave an ultimatum to the Soviets; remove the missiles or risk nuclear war. After a long and agonizing week Nikita Khrushchev backed down. The world escaped Armageddon.

Communism in China:
In 1949, after a fifteen year war, the communists seized power in China. Mao Tse-tung took control of China and removed Chiang Kai-shek (the nationalist general) and his army. Chiang Kai-shek took refuge in the Chinese island of Formosa (present day Taiwan), thus creating what the Chinese government consider today its biggest problem with the West, particularly with the US.

Mao's army consisted mainly of peasant farmers because the majority of China's people lived through agriculture. This came to be the fundamental difference between Russian and Chinese communism; Russia's form of communism was urban and factory-based while China's form of communism is rural and peasant-based.

As communism took hold all over China landlords were expropriated and the land was divided amongst the peasants to start small farms. But, farming would only achieve improved efficiency if agriculture was carried out on a larger scale. Instead of employing collective farming as Stalin had done in Russia, Mao solved the same problem with more success and less bloodshed. Over the next seven years farmers worked in co-operative groups that increased each year in size and productivity. By 1958 these groups started to form vast communes to which 550 million people are said to have belonged.

From 1966-69 the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in China took place. It involved mass rallies, widespread "re-education" programs and the sacking of many communist party officials who were said to be corrupt. Mao was prepared to turn the entire country upside down in order to achieve a nation where the proletariat took power for themselves. He was determined not to let the Chinese communist party turn into a rigid centralized bureaucracy as the Bolsheviks had done. It was also essential to eradicate the bourgeois ideas that had been rooted in Chinese culture for so long.

Capitalism:
Capitalism is a political system in which factories, companies, land, etc. are owned privately in order to create profit for the owners. Prices of goods and services fluctuate depending on the desire of the consumer and the availability of the goods (the law of supply and demand). In a capitalist society their will be significant differences in wealth and power between those who have capital (machines, factories, ships, land, etc.) and those who do not.

No one can say when capitalism first began. Clearly the development of capitalism was not revolutionary like that of communism. Instead it emerged gradually without anyone making a plan of what it should become. However, aspects of modern capitalism such as the stock exchange, banks and great disparity in wealth came about during the industrial revolution.

In 1776 Adam Smith, a Scottish university professor, produced a book which described the workings of a capitalist society. He believed that a country's wealth depends on all people pursuing their own interests. If a person promotes his own interest he or she is unintentionally promoting his country's interest. [The "invisible hand"–R.P.] Smith thought that governments should promote free trade and not interfere by protecting certain industries from competition. The only duty of governments, Smith wrote, was to provide services that couldn't be profitable like the building of roads, schools and churches. These pol

Syllabus | Sample Exams | Paper Guidelines | Sample Papers| Current articles