Communism and the Long View of History

Many people have become discouraged with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the revisionism found in existing Asian communist countries, and the lack of a clear, unified revolutionary movement. Certainly the communist movement has faced setbacks. However, the situation radically changes when one takes a long view of history.

One should expect to see elements of the previous society within the transition. Feudalism arose from the destruction of the Roman Empire. The Germanic tribes needed to reorganize themselves from simple war bands into integrated hierarchical armies based on plunder and spoils to overcome the Roman legions. The very method used to destroy the ancient society became the foundation for the new society. Yet, even so the old society persisted more or less strongly either through social customs and practices or even with the continued existence of the Byzantine Empire as the slowly fading vestige of Rome which persisted until the middle of the fifteenth century. Feudalism lasted for more than a thousand years. Capitalism on the other hand is only around three hundred years old, but the cracks have already begun to show.
One should remember the history of struggles which have brought us to this point. Many characterize the American and French revolutions as the heralds of a new era. They certainly played a large role in ultimately bringing feudalism and monarchy to a close, but that hides the long history of failed struggles that set the ground for this. One should remember that Italy birthed numerous failed republics. The anti-feudal struggle of the peasants war ended in bloody defeat.

Capitalism itself has existed for only about three hundred years and therefore, the struggles against capitalism have existed for even less amounts of time. We should expect socialism as the struggle against capitalism to still contain the deep contradictions of capitalism within them. Nevertheless, the socialist camp liberated over a third of the world before capitalism and imperialist forces checked its growth. Socialist revolution has been wildly more successful than the capitalist and anti-monarchist struggles.

One must soberly examine the play of forces in the world. One can look at the world and simply see the struggling socialist movements threatened in Venezuela, Nepal, and India. Additionally, one can see the United States devastating Iraq, Afghanistan, and supporting corrupt regimes around the world. One can easily grow discouraged. However, one should simply look at the situation a century ago. Instead of one imperialist power, numerous imperialist power carved up the world. The devastation and revolutions of the twentieth century helped destroy the power of these capitalist imperialists. The Soviet Union had to fight of no less than nine imperialist powers attempting to destroy the socialist revolution. We primarily only have to fight one. This provides a huge advantage to the advancing socialist movement and we should never forget it.

Finally, we must remember and uphold our socialist heritage against attacks and distortions. Marx and Engels never led a revolution and the situation forced them to become the primary commentators and theoreticians of the emerging socialist movement. In 1916, Lenin found himself isolated in Switzerland writing against the powerful social democratic movement which had torn apart the workers movements through its support of imperialism in World War I. In 1936, the reactionary Nationalists had forced Mao and the Chinese communists to retreat from everything they had built and struggled to create for the sake of survival for the movement. They refused to give up. They refused to be beaten. They lead revolution. We as the inheritors of this proud tradition must do no less.