Chapter 94 Chapter 16 The Fall of Socialism 6

6 We may conclude this chapter with two observations.First, since the century when Islam was founded, communism is certainly the only belief that can quickly establish a vast territory in a short period of time, but its actual dominance is so superficial.Although from the Elbe River in the west to the China Sea in the east, Marxism-Leninism once became the orthodox dogma of the people on this land in a simplistic appearance.But once the regime that promotes this belief does not exist, it will disappear overnight.Such an astonishing historical phenomenon may perhaps be explained by two reasons.Communism is not a religion based on the beliefs of the majority, but a belief of "basic cadres", or to borrow Lenin's words, it relies on "vanguards" to kill the enemy.Moreover, even Mao Zedong's famous metaphor that the successful activities of guerrillas among the peasant masses is called "like fish in water", this also alludes to two different elements: one is the active "fish" and the other is the passive "water" .Unofficial trade unions and socialist movements (including some large communist factions) may co-exist with their communities or constituencies, as in the case of coal mining towns.But on the other hand, the management of the Communist Party is all—selected and limited—a small elite. Whether the "mass" agrees with communism does not depend on their own beliefs, but on their evaluation of the Communist Party—what kind of life the Communist regime can bring them, and how their lives compare with others.Once the CCP can no longer cover up the facts and isolate the people from the outside world, then there is no need for direct contact, just hearing a little bit of outside information is enough to shake the people's previous evaluation of the CCP.Furthermore, communism is also an instrumental belief: the "present" is valuable only because it is a means to an as yet unclear "future".Except for very few cases—such as fighting for patriotism, where immediate sacrifices can be exchanged for future victories—this kind of idealistic belief that focuses on the future is more suitable for minority sects or elite groups, but it is not suitable for the general public. The principle of the congregation.For the sphere of operation of the latter—however great its ultimate hope—falls and must fall within the sphere of the everyday life of the common man.Even for the cadres of the Communist Party, once the goal of their dedication, the thousand-year-old kingdom of universal salvation, becomes an unattainable and unattainable future, they have to focus on the ordinary satisfaction of secular life.But once that shift happened—a fairly common occurrence—the party no longer gave them any guidance on exactly what to do.To put it simply, according to the ideology of communism itself, the criterion it requires is the immediate immediate success; for failure, it will try its best to oppose it.

But why did communism fail?Paradoxically, the collapse of the Soviet Union provided one of the most powerful arguments for Marx's own critique.Marx wrote in 1859: In order to survive, human beings enter into an absolutely necessary relationship independent of their will in the means of their social production, that is, a production relationship that is closely related to a specific stage of development of their material productive forces...but at a certain stage of development, However, the material productive forces in the society began to conflict with the existing production relations, or to put it in a legal point of view, that is, with the previously operating property relations.Therefore, these relationships, which were originally a form of development of productive forces, are now handcuffs and shackles.We have thus entered a period of revolution.

Marx described that under the superstructure of society, system, and ideology, a backward agricultural society was transformed into an advanced industrial society, but at this time it was in conflict with the old productive forces.What was supposed to be a productive force has turned into a productive fetter—nowhere is this more clearly exemplified than in the socialist revolution.Therefore, the "period of social revolution" launched according to this theory, its first outcome is the disintegration of the old system. But the old one is broken, what new one can replace it?Here we cannot be as optimistic as Marx was in the 19th century.He believes that once the old system dies, a better new system will be introduced, because "human beings will only initiate problems that they are capable of solving."But the problems raised by "human beings," or the Bolsheviks, in 1917, were problems that could not be solved, at least not completely, in their time and space.Today, I am afraid that only very confident people dare to declare that in the foreseeable future, there will be obvious answers to solve the various problems that arose after the failure of Soviet communism.In the same way, who dares to boast that in the era of the next generation, inspiration will fall from the sky, so that the people of the former Soviet Union and the former communist regime in the Balkan Peninsula will suddenly find the answer to the problem?

With the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the experiment of "socialism in reality" came to an end.Because even in places where communism survived or even succeeded, such as China, it has abandoned the original ideal and no longer engages in complete collectivization-or collective ownership without market mechanisms-by a single central government. Planned economic society. Will "socialism in reality" be revived again?The answer is that it will definitely not be resurrected according to the Soviet development model, and I am afraid it will not be resurrected in any form.The only exception is a full-blown "war economy", or other similar emergencies.

Because the Soviet Union’s experiment was not based on the scale of replacing global capitalism, but a set of specific responses produced in a specific historical situation in a specific time and space to solve the special situation of a vast, but surprisingly backward country.This historical time and space cannot reappear again.The failure of the revolution elsewhere forced the Soviet Union to develop socialism on its own.However, the Soviet Union, according to the unanimous view of Marxists in 1917 (including the Marxist faction in Russia), did not have the conditions to establish socialism at all.As a result, after trying forcibly, although it has achieved quite a remarkable achievement-it is no small feat to defeat Germany in World War II-but it has paid a high price: the unforgivable and tragic sacrifice of human life, and finally the paralysis of a dead end The economy, and a political system that leaves people wondering what to say. (Didn't George Plekhanov, the "father of Russian Marxism," predict that no matter how great the achievements of the October Revolution were, it would at best create a red "Chinese-style empire"? ] As for the other "actually socialist" countries that arose under the Soviet wing, they faced the same disadvantages, perhaps to a lesser extent and at a far less severe cost to the people.So not only does this type of socialism have little chance of being revived or revitalized, but no one wants it, nor is it necessary—not even when favorable conditions exist.

How did the failure of the Soviet experiment affect the grand scheme of traditional socialism?How much doubt does the world have about it?That's a whole other big question.The so-called traditional socialism is basically based on a system in which society has sovereignty over the means of production, distribution and exchange and engages in a planned economy.This kind of economic ideal has its own rationality in theory, and it has been accepted by economists long before the First World War. It is strange that the founder of this theory is not a socialist. But non-socialist pure economists.However, in practice, it is inevitable that there will be practical and obvious defects-at least, bureaucratization is one.Moreover, if socialism intends to take into account the preferences of consumers themselves, rather than just telling them what is good for them, it must start with "prices" - at least in part - by combining market prices with "accounting prices" (accounting prices). Prices) go hand in hand.This topic was naturally very popular in the 1930s. In fact, at that time, socialist economists in the West also assumed that "planning" (preferably a non-centralized plan) must be adopted in conjunction with "prices".But to prove that such a socialist economy could actually work is not, of course, to prove that it is necessarily superior to, say, some fairer economic system in the golden age of mixed economics.And even if it is feasible, the world may not be willing to adopt it.Here, the purpose of raising this question is mainly to distinguish the problem of overall socialism from the specific experience of "socialism in reality".The failure of Soviet socialism does not mean that other forms of socialism are unfeasible.The fact that the dead-end economy of Soviet-style centrally directed planning does not work to transform itself into "market socialism" proves that there is a huge difference between the two.

The tragedy of the October Revolution was that it could only produce its own kind of dominant socialism.I remember Oskar Lange, one of the most mature and wise socialist economists in the 1930s, left the United States and returned to his motherland, Poland, devoted himself to the establishment of socialism, and finally entered a London hospital and died on his bed.Before he died, he had said some words to his friends and admirers who came to visit him, and the author was among them.From what I can remember, here are his thoughts: If I had been in Russia in the 1920s, I would have been a Bukharinist gradualist.Given the opportunity to speak for the industrialization of the Soviet Union, I would suggest a more flexible set of specific goals, as those able Russian planners did.But looking back now, I have to ask myself, repeatedly asking: Is it possible, there will be another way, which can replace the indiscriminate, indiscriminate, inhumane, in fact, no plan, and random sprinting The first "five-year plan"?I wish I could answer: "Yes".But I can't.I can't find any answers.