I recently read The Rise and Fall of Communism by Archie Brown. This is a general survey which runs roughly from the late 19th century down to the present day. Though there was a focus on the Soviet Union (for obvious reasons), Brown sheds light on the rise and fall of Communist movements the world over. He has a great deal of first hand knowledge as a visiting scholar in the Eastern Bloc during the Cold War, so there was an aspect of first-person reportage strewn across the narrative which made this a more lively read than a typical work of political scholarship. Much recommended. Three points which I thought were interesting:
1) Stalin was explicitly self-conscious about the fact that he was fostering a quasi-religious cult based around his own personality as a messianic and god-like figure. His perspective on the history of the Russian Empire was that only with this sort of mystical charisma could the Soviet system persist. To some extent the wind-down and decline of the Soviet system in the more oligarchic and colorless post-Stalin era seem to support his contention. The Communist states with cults of personality have persisted in more unreconstructed fashion than those without, North Korea and to a lesser extent Cuba. In contrast, Communist states predicated on party control and a more oligarchic power structure, such as China, Vietnam and Laos, are Communist in name only (as opposed to being more generally authoritarian).
2) The peculiarities of Mikhail Gorbachev’s personality seem to be one of those contingencies which changed the arc of events, at least for a time. In all probability the Soviet system would have had to evolve into something different due to economic forces, but Gorbachev’s influence likely hastened the shift by preventing the party from serving as a check on reform in the late 1980s. Additionally, his rejection of the use of force in Eastern Europe during the late 1980s was decisive in the relatively peaceful and seamless transition which occurred (there is scholarship which argues that in fact Soviet operatives aided and precipitated the Velvet Revolution in the Czech Republic). I recall as a child in the 1980s being perplexed by this figure who was the leader of the enemy of the West, as were my teachers (let’s just say Gorbachev really ruined many lesson plan templates). We were conditioned to be wary of the intentions, motives and means of any Soviet head of state. A friend recently suggested that Gorbachev’s ascendancy to the position of Secretary General of the Communist party was analogous to a closet atheist becoming the Pope. The reality is that after all these years the deeper roots of Gorbachev’s behavior and actions remain a cipher for many, as evidenced by persistent rumors that he is a believing Christian. He denies this and avows his atheism, which I think we should accept as likely a true reflection of his beliefs seeing as how most post-Soviet political figures have converted to Russian Orthodoxy (both Boris Yeltsin and Vladimir Putin converted after the fall of Communism, as have many other prominent figures such as the mayor of Moscow, Yury Luzhkov).
3) Nice to be reminded in concrete terms how important price signals are.
Razib, are you sure that Boris Yeltsin converted to Christianity? He may well have had a belief in Russian Orthodoxy as a state church and force for social cohesion, but as to the theology behind it, I’m not so sure. I do (vaguely) remember one story that may be on the point. Asked by one interviewer what he (Yeltsin), a former communist, was doing in a cathedral, Yeltsin laughed and replied that he continued to be an atheist but that he was, however, very superstitious….
andrew, yeah, i recall stuff about his reentry to the church in the latter half of the 1990s (he was an avowed non-believer in the early half of the 1990s). *this may only have been nominal* as you say, my point was that gorbachev disavows even nominal affiliation or theism, which should make those arguing that he is a crypto-christian more cautious about rejecting his own professions. having a hard time digging references to yeltsin’s conversion, but he had a church burial, and there are plenty of references of him attending church ceremonies by the late 1990s.
Perhaps Yeltsin had the same relationship to the Russian Orthodox church that the Mafia has to the Roman Catholic church: some kind of tribal or ethnic bond.
“I recall as a child in the 1980s being perplexed by this figure who was the leader of the enemy of the West, as were my teachers (let’s just say Gorbachev really ruined many lesson plan templates). We were conditioned to be wary of the intentions, motives and means of any Soviet head of state.”
I can’t relate to this. Maybe we were educated in different areas. I was educated in a suburb of Boston. The sense from the teachers was that Gorbachev was a good guy and Reagan was a warmonger.
I was in high school in the Pacific Northwest in the mid-1980’s, and Gorby was viewed as the great statesman and Reagan as a dullard. At least that was what the teachers were pushing. Most of my friends were more into “Top Gun” and “Red Dawn,” so they weren’t buying it.
Nice review. I have put it in my shopping cart.
It seems to cover communism “to the end” (but the corps is still moving). I have read “The passing of an illusion” by Francois Furet which is probably one of the top 10 books I’ve ever read. Anyone who knows how the two compare? Furet’s book only very briefly treats the time after communism’s first death (Hungary 1956), it’s death as an idea. But the corps continued moving…
Furet’s book also seems relevant to Liberal Fascism, that is also in my cart. So much to read, so little time.
The received wisdom at all Cambridge/Boston dinner parties was certainly that Gorbachev was the hero and Reagan the deranged imbecile whom Gorbachev restrained from blowing up the world.
I don’t think communism is dead at all, I view the end of the Soviet Bloc more as an end of one era of Russian history and the end of post-WW2 arrangements designed to divide up Europe between the victorious powers.
In fact I think communism will find the going much easier with the monkey of Soviet tyranny and failed governance off their backs and slowly fading into a memory softened by nostalgia and obscured by the work of “redeemers” keen to whitewash the communist regimes in their countries.
People like Gorbachev are interesting characters in that regard because they presented an image very differently from that of the octogenarian hardliners that were the public face of Soviet-style communism for so long. Regardless of his personal views, the presence of “socialism with a human face” as the leaders of the Prague Spring dubbed it is also one of the main things advocates of giving communism another shot will point to as evidence that tyranny and injustice aren’t natural consequences of that political ideology.
My personal issue with reformers in the Eastern Bloc has always been that an overwhelming proportion of them at the time and to this day never embraced the market economy but instead saw their work as “perfecting” socialism rather than defeating it. Let’s not forget that the policies many of them favored were well to the Left of what the most leftist Democratic congressman would propose in America today. Leftist commentators admire that whereas I think it’s like a child building a house of cards once, seeing it collapse and then going straight back to building another one just this time with another deck of cards.
One of the main arguments brought forward by defenders of the Soviet Bloc were the positive rights enjoyed by citizens in such countries, sure, they might not have a pluralistic party system or freedom of expression but at least they can count on generous social benefits. Of course, the reality of poverty in much of the Soviet Bloc made that argument a mockery in itself at the time but the idea behind it is alive and well today, not just in the ex-communist states where people discover capitalism isn’t all sunny days but also in Western Europe and of course amongst those who elected President Obama in America as well.
Without tanks and bread lines presenting the obvious example of where socialism leads it’s much easier for ideologues and demagogues to hammer capitalist reality whilst promising pies in the sky. It’s the “call me anything but please not communist” communism with a flower and smile but the end result would be the same as it has been everywhere it’s been tried so far. Conservatives need to be vigilant and not allow these people to frame the agenda in which communism was Soviet nasties whereas everyone proposing policies today based on very similar principles is just a progressive who wants to create a better world.
Yes, indeed (Hat Tip TGGP).