Criticism of communism: Difference between revisions

Browse history interactively ← Previous edit Next edit →Content deleted Content addedVisual WikitextInline

Revision as of 18:45, 6 October 2005 editUltramarine (talk \| contribs)33,507 edits Restored correct referenced version, many new references and other improvements← Previous edit		Revision as of 19:02, 6 October 2005 edit undoPmanderson (talk \| contribs)Autopatrolled, Extended confirmed users, Pending changes reviewers62,752 edits consensus: the last edit summary exaggerates the half-dozen footnotesNext edit →
Line 1:		Line 1:
	{{npov}}		{{npov}}
			{{communism}}
	{{twoversions\|24884935}}
	:''Note that communism is a branch of ]. This article only discusses criticisms that are specific to communism and not other forms of socialism. See ] for a discussion of objections to socialism in general. ~~Note also that communism and related words are written with the ] "C" when they refer to a political party of that name, a member of that party, or a government led by such a party.''~~		:''Note that communism is a branch of ]. This article only discusses criticisms that are specific to communism and not other forms of socialism. See ] for a discussion of objections to socialism in general.
	Criticisms of ] can be divided in two broad categories: One is those concerning themselves with the real-world results of the 20th century ]s. Such critics include both pro and anti communists. Another is those concerning themselves with ], the claimed ] of the Communist states. A central question is the implications of the real-world results of the Communist states for Marxist theory.
	{{Template:Communism}}
	== Criticisms of 20th century Communist states ==
	===Human rights violations===
	Extensive historical research, especially after the fall of Communism opened the archives of many of the former Communist states, has documented the large scale human rights violations that occurred in these states. Several of the most prominent researchers are former communists who become disillusioned with the Communist system they had powerful positions in, like ] and ], or after they started their research, like several of the authors of '']''. ], another former communist, was one of the first to document the ] in his book '']'' and was vehemently criticized for this by many Western intellectuals. He was vindicated when the achieves were opened. ], one of the authors of '']'', was a ] in her youth. See the end of the article for an extensive reference list.

			'''Criticisms of ]''' can be divided in two broad categories: Those concerning themselves with the practical aspects of 20th century ]s, and those concerning themselves with communist principles and theory. The two categories are logically distinct: One may agree with communist principles but disagree with many policies adopted by Communist states (and this is quite common among communists, particularly in the case of ]), or, more rarely, one may agree with policies adopted by Communist states but disagree with communist principles.
	{\| {{prettytable}} ALIGN="left"
	\|+ '''Numbers killed by Communist states{{ref\|Courtois-intro}}'''
	\|-
	\| ] \|\| 20 million
	\|-
	\| ] \|\| 65 million
	\|-
	\| ] \|\| 1 million
	\|-
	\| ] \|\| 2 million
	\|-
	\| ] \|\| 2 million
	\|-
	\| ] \|\| 1 million
	\|-
	\| ] \|\| 150,000
	\|-
	\| ] \|\| 1.7 million
	\|-
	\| ] \|\| 1.5 million
	\|-
	\| colspan="100" \|
	\|}

			In the ], the word ''communism'' and related terms are written with the ] "C" when they refer to a political party of that name, a member of that party, or a government led by such a party. When written as a common noun, with a lowercase "c", they refer to a future condition of ], classless and stateless community, or to the idea that such a condition is desirable and achievable. Thus, one may be a communist (an advocate of communism) without being a Communist (a member of a Communist Party or another similar organization). This distinction between ''communism'' (lowercase "c") and ''Communism'' (uppercase "C") is used throughout the present article.
	The human rights violations were particularly intensive during the regimes of ] and ], but started immediately after the ] during the regime of ]. Most prominent are deaths due to executions, forced labor camps, ]s of certain ethnic minorities, and mass starvations caused by either government mismanagement or deliberately. The exact number of deaths caused by these regimes is somewhat disputed, but the historical research shows at least tens of millions and several overviews give a number close to one hundred million deaths.{{ref\|Totals}} Yakovlev, the researcher with the best access to the Soviet achieves, have recently stated that in the the Soviet Union alone 20-25 millions were killed for political motives or in prisons and camps. More than 10.5 million died from famine.{{ref\|Yakovlev-deaths}} Some particularly brutal episodes were the ], the ], the ], and ].

			== 20th century Communist states ==
	Yakovlev is especially critical of the treatment of millions of children of claimed political opponents. Children of former Imperial officers and peasants were held as hostages and sometimes shot during the ]. The children of soldiers who surrendered during WWII could be punished. Some children followed their parents to the ]s, where their mortality rate was especially high. In ] there were 884,057 "specially resettled" children under the age of sixteen. Others were placed in special orphanages run by the secret police in order to be reeducated, often losing even their names, and were considered socially dangerous also as adults.{{ref\|Yakovlev-children}}
			Communism is a social system that abolishes ], ]es, and the ] itself. As such, a "communist state" would be a ]. No country or government ever called itself a "Communist state"; however, various states gave the ] a special status in their constitution and laws , while claiming to be heading in the direction of communism. The term "Communist state" has been coined and used in ] to refer to such countries. It is these "Communist states" (]s where the ruling party officially proclaimed its adherence to ]) that are the targets of criticism presented below.

			''For related information, see the discussion regarding the ].''
	Other criticisms concern lack of ]{{ref\|FreeSpeech}} and religious and ethnic ]s.{{ref\|FreeRelNat}} The use of an extensive network of civilian ], sometimes including family members, created a society where no one could trust other citizens.{{ref\|Informants}} In some Communist states it was common practice to classify internal critics of the system as having a mental disease, like ] - which was only recognized in Communist states - and incarcerate them in ].{{ref\|Psyche}} Workers were not allowed to join free ]s.{{ref\|Unions}}

			No Communist state claimed to have ''attained'' communism, the social system, but all of them planned to do so in the not unreasonably distant future; ], for example, forecast that communism would be reached in the ] by 1980, some quarter century later. The states which no longer exist never did reach communism, and none of the remaining ones seem likely to do so soon.
	Several internal uprisings were suppressed by military force, like the ] and the ]. The ], the ], and the ] can be seen as ] wars where military force crushed popular uprisings against the Communist system. Some Communist states directly supported claimed ]s. Examples include the ], the ], and the ].{{ref\|Courtois-terrorism}}

			=== Anti-communist critique of Communist states ===
	The leaders of the Communist states themselves frequently announced their support for democracy, held regular elections and sometimes even gave their countries names such as the "]" or the "]". Some supporters of the Communist states have argued that those states were democratic. However, critics point out that, in practice, one political party held an absolute monopoly on power, dissent was banned, and the elections usually featured a single candidate and were ripe with fraud (often producing implausible results of 99% in favor of the candidate). Many of the leaders of Communist states cultivated an extensive ]. In some cases the leadership of the state became inherited.
			====Censorship, personality cults, and foreign policy====
			The Communist states often practice ]. The level of censorship varies widely between different states and historical periods, but it nearly always exists to a greater or lesser extent. The most rigid censorship has been practiced by hardline ] and ] regimes, such as the ] under ] (1927–53), ] during the ] (1966–76), and ] during its entire existence (1948–present). This censorship takes various forms:

			*Censorship of the ], for example by allowing only ]. Some Communist states have also been involved in the destruction of cultural heritage: ] (planned destruction of historical centres of most towns—partially achieved in Bucharest), ] (repression of ]an culture, destruction of cultural artifacts during the ]) and the Soviet Union (destruction, abandonment or reconversion of religious buildings) are the most cited examples.
	The escape valve of last resort from repressive regimes is emigration, but the communist states were notorious for violently preventing and severely punishing attempts to escape. The anti-democratic nature of these regimes is perhaps best revealed by this prevention of even allowing citizens to "vote with their feet". The most famous example is the ].
			*Censorship of ]. One example is censorship and ] of history. In the Soviet Union, between the late 1920s and early 1960s, research was suppressed in ] and ] (]), ] (]), ], ] and ], and even ]. In some Communist states it was common practice to classify internal critics of the system as having a mental disease, like ]—which was a disease only recognized in Communist states—and incarcerating them in ]. See also ].
			*Censorship of ]. Many Communist states use an extensive network of civilian ] to spy on their peers. This creates a society where no one would dare criticize the government in public (and, in extreme cases, not even in private), for fear that they might be reported to the ].

			Both anti-Communists and Communists have criticized the ]s of many leaders of Communist states, and the hereditary leadership of ]. ] and others have also argued that a powerful ] of party bureaucrats emerged under Communist Party rule, and exploited the rest of the population. A Czech proverb observed, "Under capitalism, man exploits man; under Communism, it's the other way around." (see also ])
	=== Comparison with human rights violations in other political systems ===

			The Communist states also typically suppress mass dissent. Internal uprisings were forcibly suppressed in the ] and the ]. The Soviet Union intervened three times in neighboring countries to defeat popular uprisings against a Communist state: the ], the ] and the ]. These invasions have also been criticized as naked ].
	Some supporters of communism find this approach simplistic, noting that humans rights violations such as executions, forced labor camps, the repression of ethnic minorities, and mass starvation were patterns in both non-democratic Russian and Chinese history before their respective Communist takeovers, and that later the opposing capitalist states also committed some human rights violations, like ]. However, evils in other regimes can hardly be used to justify new ones. Advocates reply that they only seek to put the events into perspective, not justify them. Also this defense can be criticized. Any attempt similarly to similarly relativise Nazi and fascist crimes would be widely seen as obnoxious. Moreover, ] argues in his book '']'' that the living conditions and death rates of the inmates in the Soviet era ] were much worse than those of the Czarist era ]s. The worst crop failure of late Czarist Russia, in 1892, caused 375,000 to 400,000 deaths, while famines under both Lenin and Stalin caused many millions of deaths.{{ref\|Pipes-famine}}{{ref\|Conquest-famine}} The Czarist regime executed 3,932 persons for political crimes between ] and ]. 681,692 persons were executed between ] and ] during the Great Purge.{{ref\|Pipes-executions}}

			Restrictions on ] are widely seen as a mechanism for suppressing dissent. The ] was one of the most famous examples of this, but North Korea still imposes a total ban on emigration (reported on PBS's program ]) and Cuba's restrictions are routinely criticized by the ] community.
	Another comparison may be to the deaths caused by capitalism during several centuries, a number claimed by some (for example, the French book ''Le Livre Noir du capitalisme'' - "The Black Book of capitalism") to be far greater. However, this was achieved by counting the crimes of colonialism or imperialism, where defenders of capitalism would argue that the deaths were caused by anti-capitalism, i.e., by reducing the ] of people. But this defense of capitalism may be similar to the defense of communism that the Communist states were not "real" communist societies. A better comparison may be to ]. According to the research supporting the ], they have very low levels of systematic violence.

			The escape valve of last resort from repressive regimes is emigration, but the communist states were notorious for violently preventing and severely punishing attempts to escape. The anti-democratic nature of these regimes is perhaps best revealed by this prevention of even allowing citizens to "vote with their feet".
	According to ], the Communist states share some responsibility for ]. Both ] and ] used the Soviet Union as a model for their own ] states and Hitler privately expressed that Stalin was a "genius". In turn, Stalin expressed desire for another great war that would leave his enemies weakened. He allowed the testing and production of German weapons that were forbidden by the ] to occur on Soviet territory. During the critical ] German elections, he forbid the German Communists from collaborating with the Social Democrats. These parties together gained more votes than Hitler and could have prevented him from becoming Chancellor.{{ref\|Pipes-wwii}}

			====Human rights violations====
	===Economic and social development===
			Large scale human rights violations occurred in Communist states. The most common of these were restrictions on ] (in the form of censorship, discussed above). Such restrictions existed, to a greater or lesser degree, in nearly all Communist states during most of their existence. Usually, newly established Communist states maintained or tightened the level of censorship that was present in those countries before the Communists came to power; indeed, the Communists themselves had most often been the targets of this previous censorship. As a result, after coming to power, they argued that they wanted to fight the former ruling class using its own weapons, either as a form of vengeance or to prevent it from staging a counter-revolution.
	Advocates of central economic planning claim that it has in certain instances produced dramatic advances, including rapid industrialization of the Soviet Union, especially during the 1930s. Another example is the development of the pharmaceutical industry in ]. New research show that the Soviet figures were largely fabricated, especially those from the Stalin era. Growth was more impressive in 1950s and 1960s but later declined and according to some estimates become negative in the late eighties.{{ref\|SovGDP1}}{{ref\|SovGDP2}} Before ], Russia had been the "breadbasket of Europe," supplying 40% of the world’s wheat exports in the bumper years ] and ]. The Soviet Union became a net importer of grain, unable to produce enough food to feed its own population.{{ref\|Bumper}}

	China and Vietnam achieved much higher rates of growth after introducing capitalist economic reforms and the higher growth rates was accompanied by declining poverty.{{ref\|ChinaCap}}{{ref\|VietnamCap}} The Communist states do not compare favorable when looking at divided nations with similar culture before the Communist takeovers: ] vs. ]; ] vs. ] and ]; and ] vs. ]. East vs. West German ] was around 90% in 1936{{ref\|1936}} and around 60-65% in 1954.{{ref\|1954}} When compared to the EU, the East German productivity declined from 67% in 1950 to 50% before the unification in 1989. All the Eastern European nations had productivity far below the EU average.{{ref\|1989}}
	]

			However, some Communist states - particularly the regimes of ] and ] - engaged in far more severe human rights violations. Most prominent were deaths due to executions, forced labor camps, genocides of certain ethnic minorities, and mass starvations caused by either government mismanagement or deliberately. The exact number of deaths caused by these regimes is somewhat disputed, but extensive historical research shows at least tens of millions (see, e.g., the estimates reached in '']'' and the references below). A feature of controversial significance of these estimates is that they far exceed the number of deaths under ] regimes during the twentieth century (including ]). Some anti-communists have used this to argue that Communist states were worse than fascist ones; others point out that Communist states were greater in number, lasted longer and ruled over a much larger population than fascist states.
	Supporters of the Communist states note the social and cultural programs, sometimes administered by labor organizations. They included in theory guaranteed ], subsidized food and clothing, free ], free ], and free ]. Early advances in the status of women were also notable, especially in ] areas of the Soviet Union.{{ref\|MoslemWomen}} They point out to the high levels of literacy enjoyed by Eastern Europeans (in comparison, for instance, with Southern Europe), Cubans or Chinese.

			Lesser violations include religious and ethnic ]s, systematic use of ] as part of police procedure, lack of ], and the fact that workers were not allowed to join free ]s.
	However, again the Communist parts of the divided nations do not compare favorably. Millions died in famines in Communist China and North Korea.{{ref\|FamChina}}{{ref\|FamNorthKor}} East Germans were shorter than West Germans and this difference increased with time, probably due to differences in factors such as nutrition and medical services.{{ref\|Height}} Life satisfaction increased in East Germany after the reunification.{{ref\|Happiness}} The Soviet education system was full of ] and of low quality. The Soviet Union spent far less on health care than the Western nations and in the 1970s and 1980s the quality was deteriorating. The pension and welfare programs failed to provide adequate protection.{{ref\|EduHealth}}

			Some advocates of Communist states find this approach simplistic, noting that executions, forced labor camps, the repression of ethnic minorities, and mass starvation were patterns in both Russian and Chinese history before their respective Communist revolutions. Critics argue that past evils in an old regime cannot be used to justify new ones, while advocates reply that they only seek to put the events into perspective, not justify them.
	In the Soviet Union in 1989 there was rationing of meat and sugar. The average intake of ] for a Soviet citizen was half of what it had been for a subject of the Czar in ]. Blacks in ] ] owned more cars per capita. The only area of consumption in which the Soviets excelled was the ingestion of ]. Two-thirds of the households had no hot water, and a third had no running water at all. According to the government paper, ], a typical working class family of four was forced to live for 8 years in a single 8x8 foot room, before marginally better accommodation became available. The housing shortage was so acute that at all times 17% of Soviet families had to be physically separated for want of adequate space. A third of the hospitals had no running water and the bribery of doctors and nurses to get decent medical attention and even amenities like blankets in Soviet hospitals was not only common, but routine. Only 15 percent of Soviet youth were able to attend institutions of higher learning compared to 34 percent in the U.S. The average welfare mother in the United States received more income in a month, than the average Soviet worker could earn in a year.{{ref\|LivingStand}}

			====Economic and social development====
	After 1965, ] began to plateau or even decreased, especially for males, in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe while it continued to increase in Western Europe. This divergence between two parts of Europe went on during three decades leading to a profound gap in the mid 90s. The life expectancy sharply declined after the change to market economy in several of the states of the former Soviet Union but may now have started to increase in the ]. In several Eastern European nations life expectancy started to increase immediately after the fall of Communism. The previous decline for males continued for a time in some, like ], before starting to increase.{{ref\|LifeExp}}
			], the Communist states maintained a much higher level of ] than either the Western nations or the Third World, at least after 1970. Energy-intensive development may have been reasonable. The Soviet Union was an exporter of ]; China has vast supplies of ].]]
			Advocates of Communist states often praise them for having leapt ahead of contemporary capitalist countries in certain areas, for example by offering guaranteed employment, health care and housing to their citizens. Critics typically condemn Communist states by the same criteria, claiming that all lag far behind the industrialized West in terms of economic development and living standards.

			Central economic planning has in certain instances produced dramatic advances, including rapid development of heavy industry during the 1930s in the Soviet Union and later in their ]. Another example is the development of the pharmaceutical industry in Cuba. Early advances in the status of women were also notable, especially in Islamic areas of the Soviet Union. See Gregory J. Massell, ''The Surrogate Proletariat: Moslem Women and Revolutionary Strategies in Soviet Central Asia: 1919–1929'', Princeton University Press, 1974, hardcover, 451 pages, ISBN 069107562X. However, the Soviet Union did not achieve the same kind of development in agriculture (forcing the Soviet Union to become a net importer of cereals after the Second World War). Other Communist states, such as Laos, Vietnam or Maoist China, continued in poverty; China has only achieved high rates of growth after introducing free market economic reforms — a sign, claim the critics, of the superiority of capitalism. Another example is ], which was among world's most developed industrial countries prior to ], but fell behind the West in the post-war era.
	], once one of the most powerful leaders in Communist ], in his book '']'' argued that a new powerful class of party bureaucrats emerged which exploited the rest of the population. In the Soviet Union this group was known as the ].

			Both critics and supporters also make comparisons between particular Communist and capitalist countries: Critics prefer to compare ] and ]; supporters prefer to compare ] to ] or Central America. All such comparisons are open to challenge, both on the comparability of the states involved and the statistic being used for comparison. No two countries are identical; the western parts of Germany were more developed and industrialized than the eastern parts long before the Cold War and the creation of two separate German states, and Cuba was likewise more developed than many of its Central American neighbors before the Cuban revolution. Comparison of Cuba to the rest of the Caribbean or Latin America has a special problem: Cuba is the only Latin American country to have been Communist for forty years; it is also the only Latin American country to have been for forty years under embargo by its largest neighbor and geographically natural trading partner. Deconfounding those two uniquenesses is beyond the reach of ''honest'' statistics.
	Cuba is often cited as a successful example by communists. However, Cuba was one of most developed nations in ] before Castro. Other Latin American nations have seen greater increases in literacy than Cuba. Calories per person have declined in Cuba while it has increased in most other Latin American nations. Cubans eat less cereals and meat than before Castro.{{ref\|Cuba}} On the other hand, there is a ].

			Communist states often engaged in rapid ], and in some cases this has lead to environmental disasters. The most cited example is the disappearance of the ] in today's ] and ], which is believed to have been caused by the diversion of the waters of its two affluent rivers for cotton production. The ] has also been diminishing; in addition, there was significant pollution of the ], the ], and the unique freshwater environment of ]. In 1988 only 20% of the ] in the Soviet Union was treated properly. Established health standards for ] were exceeded by ten times or more in 103 cities in 1988. In Eastern Europe, air pollution is cited as the cause of forest die-back, damage to buildings and cultural heritages, and a rise in the occurrence of ]. According to official sources, 58 percent of the total agricultural land of the former Soviet Union was affected by ], ], ], or ]. Nuclear waste was dumped in the ], the ], and in locations in the Far East. It was revealed in 1992 that in the city of ] there were 636 radioactive toxic waste sites and 1,500 in ]. The Vistula was poisoned with mining spoil, agricultural runoff, and sewage; its fish were inedible, its waters green with algae; much of its water was unsafe to drink.
	=== Arts, science, technology, and environment ===

			However, many of these ecological problems continued unabated after the fall of the Soviet Union and are still major issues today - which has prompted many supporters of Communist states to accuse their opponents of holding a ].
	The Communist states censored the ], usually only allowing ]. Some Communist states have been involved in the destruction of cultural heritage: the historical center of ], hundreds of churches in the Soviet Union, and the ] are some examples.{{ref\|Courtois-intro2}}

			Technological progress in the Communist states was sometimes highly uneven, in the sense that some sectors surged ahead while others lagged behind. As noted above, the Soviet space program saw remarkable progress; so did pure science (in fields not blighted by ideological pressure), mathematics, and military technology. Consumer products, on the other hand, were typically several years behind their Western counterparts. According to the ] , a number of Soviet products were in fact using Western technology, which had been either legally purchased or obtained through espionage. This situation has been largely attributed to the fact that economic planners in the Soviet Union and elsewhere were accountable to the government, but, in the absence of democracy, they were not accountable to the people. Thus, their plans tended to focus on long-term goals and scientific and military development, rather than the immediate needs of the population.
	Certain sciences were suppressed. One example is ] and ] of ]. Research was suppressed in ] and ] (see ]), ] (see ]), ], ] and ], and even ].(See ]) The emphasis on the "]" produced mixed results.{{ref\|Science}} There were very few ] winners from Communist states.{{ref\|Nobel}}

			] has increased in fits and starts in the West. The latest of these began about 1970, and largely consists of improvements in ] ]. Demographic studies (including ) have concluded that the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe did not partake of this increase, as they had in the earlier ones; male life expectancies even decreased by a year - leading to a large gap between East and West by 1990. Since a market economy was introduced, a sharp decline in life expectancy was noted in the countries of the former Soviet Union. This decline has accelerated in ] and ]; in the ] life expectancy may have started to increase. In Eastern Europe, after 1990, the decline continued most notably in ], but life expectancy eventually began to increase in many of the other countries in the region. All these developments give information on post-Soviet capitalism, especially the ], as well as on the policies of the Communist states.
	Soviet technology in many sectors lagged Western technology. Exceptions include areas like the ] and military technology where occasionally the Communist technology was more advanced due to a massive concentration of research resources. According to the ], much of the technology in the Communist states consisted simply of copies of Western products that had been legally purchased or gained through a massive espionage program. Stricter Western control of the export of technology through ] and providing defective technology to Communist agents after the discovery of the ] contributed to the fall of Communism.{{ref\|Tech}}{{ref\|Tech2}}{{ref\|Cocom}}

			Supporters of the Communist states note their social and cultural programs, sometimes administered by labor organizations. Universal education programs have been a strong point, as has the generous provision of universal health care. They point out the high levels of literacy enjoyed by Eastern Europeans (in comparison, for instance, with Southern Europe), Cubans or Chinese. Western critics charge that Communist compulsory education was replete with pro-Communist propaganda and censored opposing views.
	Also pointed out is the environmental disasters. One is the gradual disappearance of the ] and a similar diminishing of the ] because of the diversion of the rivers that fed them. Another the pollution of the ], the ], and the unique freshwater environment of ]. Many of the rivers were polluted; several, like the ] and ] rivers in Poland, were virtually ecologically dead. In 1988 only 30% of the ] in the Soviet Union was treated properly. Established health standards for ] was exceeded by ten times or more in 103 cities in the Soviet Union in 1988. The air pollution problem was even more severe in Eastern Europe. It caused ], forest die-back, and damage to buildings and cultural heritages. According to official sources, 58 percent of total agricultural land of the former Soviet Union was affected by ], ], ], or ]. Nuclear waste was dumped in the ], the ], and in locations in the Far East. It was revealed in 1992 that in the city of ] there were 636 radioactive toxic waste sites and 1,500 in ].{{ref\|Environment}} The environmental situation has improved in every studied former Communist state.{{ref\|Unece}}{{ref\|Unep}}{{ref\|Oecd}}{{ref\|Air}}

			===Debunking===
	===Socialist criticisms of the Communist states===
			Despite the problems above, there has been a considerable ] literature porclaiming the communist states behave dramatically better than other states; that the Soviet Union did not behave like other Great Powers; and, in extreme cases, that some Communist state (usually the Soviet Union, but often Maoist China or Cuba) was what ] referred to as the "Infant ] among the nations": innocent, holy, and much put-upon.
	There were early Marxist critics of the first Communist states, like ] and ]. The ] Marxists, such as ] and ] denied the necessity of a revolution. However, most foreign communists and Communist parties at first supported the Communist states and accepted the leadership of the Soviet Union (see ]). Criticisms gradually increased, especially after Stalin was denounced in the 1956 speech ], after the ], and after the fall of Communism in 1989-91.

			Much criticism of Communism has been devoted to refuting such claims; most notably, perhaps, ]'s '']'', which ends by displaying the Soviet leadership as indistinguishable from the British ruling class; at about the same time, Orwell described the Commmunist apologetics above mentioned as instances of "transferred ]" and held they had the disagreeable qualities of direct nationalism, often with the even greater rosiness of view possible to someone writing at a distance from a system he's never actually experienced.
	There were also early criticisms from non-Marxist socialists, like ] and ]. Some, like ], were initially supportive but gradually became more disillusioned as more details were revealed. Members of the ] and the fraction the ] sometimes fought the ] before and in the ]. ] tried to assassinate Lenin. The ] have differed from Marx since ].

			=== Communist and Left critique of Communist states ===
	== Criticisms of Marxist theory ==
			Communist states are nominally based on ], which is only one form of ], which is in turn only one school of the ]. Many communists themselves disagree with some or most of the actions undertaken by Communist states during the 20th century. Many of the anti-communist criticisms presented in the above section (for example, criticisms of violations of human rights) are shared by the communist critics.
	See ] for a discussion of objections to socialism in general. There are also some specific criticisms of Marxist theory.

			Other varieties of the Left opposed Bolshevik plans before they was put into practice: The ] Marxists, such as ] and ] denied the necessity of a revolution; the ] had differed from Marx since ], and the anarchist ] under ] were at war with Lenin, forming another of the many sides of the ].
	===Relevance of the Communist states for Marxist theory===
	Marxist critics of the Communist states argue that the problems in the Communist states cannot be used to criticize Marxist theory and the communist society. One argument is that a "Communist state" is an impossibility according to Marxist theory. The communist society itself is stateless in theory and thus cannot be 20th century states. However, Marx and Engel's theory includes a transitory state phase known as the ].{{ref\|DictatorProl}} Later, the state will "whither away" and the dictatorship of the proletariat will be replaced by the communist society. The Communist states claimed to be this dictatorship of the proletariat. If they did follow Marxist theory, then the theory failed to work in the real world.

			Marx and Engels (like ]) did not believe that true ] was a ''possible'' form of government, since all states inherently give unlimited power to the ]. After the revolution, when all production was securely controlled by the proletariat, the state would eventually "wither away", since it would have no function.
	], the ].]]

			Criticisms of Communist states from the ] began very soon after the creation of the first such state. ] visited Russia in 1920, and regarded the ] as intelligent, but clueless and planless. ] condemned the suppression of the ] as a 'massacre'.
	Trotskyites and other ]s explain this by arguing that all Communist states after Lenin's death did not actually adhere to Marxism but rather were perversions heavily influenced by ].{{ref\|Trotsky}} However, it has been argued that it was Lenin who created the repressive institutions that Stalin later used. Lenin had analyzed the ] and had concluded that it failed due to "excessive generosity-it should have exterminated its enemies".{{ref\|Pipes-exterminated}} His regime summary executed hundreds of thousands of "class enemies", created the ], created the system that later become the ], and was responsible for a policy of food requisitioning during the ] that was partially responsible for a famine causing 3-10 million deaths.{{ref\|Pipes-lenin}}{{ref\|CivilWar}}{{ref\|Famine}}{{ref\|Museum}}

			One specifically communist critique, however, is the allegation that the "Communist states" of the 20th century grossly violated communist principles, and were therefore only partially communist at best or completely un-communist at worst.
	Some Marxist supporters instead argue that no Communist state was Marxist since no Communist state was democratic. However, Marx and Engels gave few hints regarding how the dictatorship of the proletariat or the later communist society should be implemented. They rejected the concept of ], arguing that it could not represent the interest of the proletariat. It is often argued that Marx and Engels supported the claimed ] of the ] as a model.{{ref\|MarxDemo}} However, this is disputed{{ref\|Commune}} and there were human rights violations even during the few months the Commune existed.{{ref\|Catholic}}

			Firstly, all communists agree that democracy (the rule of the people) is a key element of both socialism and communism - though they may disagree on the particular form that this democracy should take. The leaders of the Communist states themselves frequently announced their support for democracy, held regular elections and sometimes even gave their countries names such as the "]" or the "]". Supporters of Communist states have always argued that those states were democratic. However, critics point out that, in practice, one political party held an absolute monopoly on power, dissent was banned, and the elections usually featured a single candidate and were ripe with fraud (often producing implausible results of 99% in favor of the candidate). Thus, communist critics of Communist states argue that, in practice, these states were not democratic and therefore not communist or socialist.
	:''Marx:'' ...When the workers replace the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie by their revolutionary dictatorship ... to break down the resistance of the bourgeoisie ... the workers invest the state with a revolutionary and transitional form ...
	:''Engels:'' ...And the victorious party” (in a revolution) “must maintain its rule by means of the terror which its arms inspire in the reactionaries. Would the Paris Commune have lasted more than a day if it had not used the authority of the armed people against the bourgeoisie? Cannot we, on the contrary, blame it for having made too little use of that authority?...
	:''Engels:'' As, therefore, the state is only a transitional institution which is used in the struggle, in the revolution, to hold down one’s adversaries by force, it is sheer nonsense to talk of a ‘free people’s state’; so long as the proletariat still needs the state, it does not need it in the interests of freedom but in order to hold down its adversaries, and as soon as it becomes possible to speak of freedom the state as such ceases to exist ....

			A lack of democracy implies a lack of a mandate from the people; as such, communist critics argue that the leadership of Communist states did not represent the interests of the ], and it should therefore be no wonder that this leadership took actions that directly harmed the workers (for example Mao's ]). In particular, Communist states banned independent ]s, an act seen by many communists (and most others on the ]) as an open betrayal of the working class.
	Lenin quoted these{{ref\|Terror}} and other{{ref\|StateRev}} statements by Marx and Engels as support for using the authoritarian principles of ] and ] during the dictatorship of the proletariat in Communist states. This excluded democracy even in theory outside the ruling Communist party. When the Marxists only gained a minority vote in the democratic ], Lenin dissolved the Constituent Assembly after its first session and overturned the election.{{ref\|Pipes-demo}} All the later Communist states became and remained totalitarian as long as the Communists remained in power, justifying this by referring to Lenin's interpretation of Marxism, ].{{ref\|Courtois-MarxLenin}}

			], in particular, have argued that ] transformed the Soviet Union into a bureaucratic and repressive state, and that all subsequent Communist states ultimately turned out similar because they copied his example (]). There are various terms used by Trotskyists to define such states; see ], ] and ].
	On the other hand, some democratic states have been ruled by parties calling themselves Communist without becoming totalitarian. One example is ]. Whether these parties and similar parties without power are Marxist is disputed, because, while they aim for a socialist society, they reject Marxist cornerstones like a ] and at least for now accept a market economy (see also ] and ]).

			While Trotskyists are ], there are other communists who embrace classical ] and reject Leninism entirely, arguing, for example, that the Leninist principle of ] was the source of the Soviet Union's slide away from communism.
	Another argument is that true communism can only develop as a response to the contradictions of bourgeois capitalism; therefore, the failure of those experiments in communism to date can be attributed to the fact they did not emerge in this manner. The Soviet Union is a case in point - Tsarist Russia was quasi-feudal, not capitalist. So it is argued by that the failure of Soviet socialism to sustain itself is actually an affirmation of Marxist theory. ] has criticized this by pointing out that many different forms of Marxism have been tried in many different societies with varying degree of development.{{ref\|Figes-ManyTries}} Examples include Lenin's ] and ], ] and post-Stalinism in the industrialized Central Eastern European nations and the Soviet Union, profit-sharing and decentralized workers' councils under ], extreme self-reliance under ], and reforms under ] and ]. ] is a broad concept that includes episodes such as self-sufficient ] during the ], anti-intellectualism during the ], and the almost ] ]s.

			Finally, it should be noted that many of these communist criticisms draw counter-criticisms from anti-communists, many of whom have attempted to establish a direct link between communist principles and the actions of Communist states. Ultimately, this comes down to a fundamental disagreement between communists and anti-communists as to what those 'communist principles' actually ''are''. A glaring example is the issue of democracy: Communists claim that democracy is an essential part of their principles, while anti-communists claim that it is not.
	===General criticisms===
	] has communism as one of the chief examples of the mass movement which offers ] a glorious, if imaginary, future to compensate for the frustrations of his present. Such movements need people to be willing to sacrifice all for that future, including themselves and others. To do that, they need to devalue the past and present. This is not a criticism of Communist tenets specifically; Hoffer's other chief examples are ], ], and the founding stages of religions.

			In addition to Communism, the names of several other ideologies and political systems have been used by governments or political parties whose policies are widely regarded as being contrary to the basic principles of those ideologies or systems. The ] or the ] (North Korea), for example, are universally regarded as highly undemocratic. Likewise, the ] shares virtually nothing with the ideology of ].
	] describes Marxism as a closed system, like ] or orthodox ]. This has three peculiarities: It claims to represent a universal truth, which explains everything, and can cure every ill. It can automatically process and reinterpret all potentially damaging data by methods of ], emotionally appealling and beyond common logic. It invalidates criticism by deducing what the subjective motivation of the critic must be, and by arguing about that.

			== Marxist theory ==
	Marxists respond to such allegations by arguing that they are ] (deliberate misrepresentations of Marxist theory) or ] attacks. For example, they may hold that Marxism does ''not'', in fact, claim to "explain everything and cure every ill"; that it merely recommends certain political and social policies, just as all other ideologies do. On the issue of the True Believer, Marxists may concede the point that ''some'' "True Believers" exist in their midst, but argue that not ''all'' of them are "True Believers", and that, in any case, the behaviour of individual Marxists says nothing about the validity of Marxism itself.
			See ] for a general critique of socialism, including the arguments that the condition of communism is an impractical arrangement, contrary to human nature. The following sections of this article deal with criticisms that are specifically raised against Marxist theory.

	=== Historical materialism ===		=== Historical materialism ===
	] is normally considered the intellectual ~~basis~~ of Marxism. It looks for the causes of developments and changes in human history in economic, technological, and more broadly, material factors, as well as the clashes of material interests among tribes, social classes and nations~~. However, it ignores other causes of historical and social change, like biology, genetics, philosophy, art, religion, or other causes that are not "materialist" according to Marxists~~.		] is normally considered one of the intellectual foundations of Marxism. It looks for the causes of developments and changes in human history in economic, technological, and more broadly, material factors, as well as the clashes of material interests among tribes, social classes and nations.

			Critics argue that it ignores other causes of historical and social change, like biology, genetics, philosophy, art, religion, or other causes that are not "materialist" according to Marxists. Some, such as ] and others, have also argued that Historical materialism is a ] because it is not ]. Marxists respond that ]s in general are largely not falsifiable, since it is often difficult or outright impossible to test them via ]s (in the way ] can be tested).
	In turn, the philosophy of ] can be considered the basis of Historical materialism. ] has argued that this philosophy leads to ] and not to historical materialism.

			Based on historical materialism, Marx made numerous predictions. For example, he argued that the workers would become poorer and poorer as the capitalists exploited them more and more; that differences between the members within each class would become smaller and smaller and the classes would thus become more homogeneous; that the skilled workers would be replaced by unskilled workers doing assembly line work; that relations between the working class and the capitalists would get worse and worse; and that the capitalists would become fewer and fewer due to an increasing number of monopolies. (The capitalist economists of his time, such as ] and ], would have agreed with most of these predictions, at least as the most likely forecast of events; although they deduced the ] from ]'s forecast of population increasing to the point of subsistence, rather than the ] of the ].)
	=== Labor theory of value ===

			Some of these are debatable, while others have been clearly proven wrong. This is often cited by critics as evidence that historical materialism is a flawed theory. Communists reply with two arguments: The first is that there were a number of major events and trends over the past century and a half which Marx could not have predicted: ], ], the rise of ] and ] in the West (that introduced the concept of ], thereby narrowing the gap between rich and poor), ] and finally the ]. In response, critics maintain that if so many unpredictable events have happened in the past, then an equal number could happen in the future, and therefore historical materialism is not a reliable method of making predictions.
	Fundamental to Marxist theory is the ]. It claims that the value (or, to be more exact, ]) of an item is determined by the ] required to produce it. In other words, the greater the amount of work necessary to produce an object, the greater the value of that object. This implies that value is ], and that it may not be reflected by the ] of the object in question (since price is determined by ], and is not linked to the amount of necessary work that must be expended to produce the object). The labor theory of value was first fully stated by ], from suggestions by ], and later adopted by ].

			The second communist argument is a specifically ] one. Lenin, in his book '''', argued that capitalism must be viewed as a global phenomenon, and different capitalist countries must not be treated as if they are fully independent entities. Instead, one must look at capitalism worldwide. From this point of view, Lenin goes on to argue that rich, developed capitalist countries "export" their poverty to poorer countries, by turning those countries into colonies (hence 'imperialism') and exploiting them as sources of cheap unskilled labor and resources. Part of the spoils from this exploitation are then shared with the workers from the developed countries, in order to keep their standard of living high and thus avoid revolution at home.
	By contrast, most capitalist economists now use the ], which implies that the only value of an object on which different observers can agree is its price on the market (which is based on the subjective utilities of the participants). Critics of communism hold that the qualifier "socially necessary" in the labor theory of value is not well-defined, and conceals a subjective judgment of necessity. Marxists have replied to these criticisms by refining the theory in various ways.

			The European colonial empires of Lenin's time all dissolved between ] and ] in the ] of the world. Communists maintain that economic exploitation of poor countries continues even in the absence of direct political control (see ] and ]).
	===Tabula Rasa===
	] border guard ] leaps into ]. 35 million people fled from the Communist states.{{ref\|Refugees}}]]
	Marxism views human nature as completely determined by the environment, a ]. ] describes how this led to a belief in a coming new man without vices, in essence a new superior species (although one caused by the environment, not genetics). Trotsky thought that this new man would be able to control all unconscious processes, including those controlling bodily functions like ], and have the intellect of ]. In order to reach this stage it was necessary and right to completely destroy the existing institutions that had formed the current wretched humans. This will make it possible to dispense with the state. This also explains the little value the Communists placed on the lives and rights of the current humans.{{ref\|Pipes-nature}} In reality ] could not be destroyed and the new ruling class, the nomenklatura, quickly replaced the old aristocracy. Periodic attempts to destroy it, such as the ] during Mao's regime, failed.{{ref\|Pipes-nomenklatura}}

	===~~Historical~~ ~~analysis~~ ===		=== Labor theory of value ===
			Fundamental to Marxist theory is the ]. It claims that the value (or, to be more exact, ]) of an item is determined by the ] required to produce it. In other words, the greater the amount of work necessary to produce an object, the greater the value of that object. This implies that value is ], and that it may not be reflected by the ] of the object in question (since price is determined by ], and is not linked to the amount of necessary work that must be expended to produce the object). The labor theory of value was fully stated by ], from suggestions by ], and later adopted by ]. ] derives it, through ], from the ] ''justum pretium''.
	The Marxist stages of history and the Marxist class analysis have been criticized. Robert Conquest argues that detailed analyses of many historical periods fails to find support for these theories. Marx himself admitted that his theory could not explain the internal development of the "Asiatic" social system, where most of the world's population lived for thousands of years.{{ref\|Conquest-analysis}}

			] and the classical capitalist economists later abandoned the labor theory for the ], which implies that the only value of an object on which different observers can agree is its price on the market (which is based on the subjective utilities of the participants).
	===Marx's predictions===
	Marx made numerous predictions. He thought that the workers would become poorer and poorer as the capitalists exploited them more and more; that differences between the members within each class would become smaller and smaller and the classes would thus become more homogeneous; that the skilled workers would be replaced by unskilled workers doing assembly line work; that relations between the working class and the capitalists would get worse and worse; that the capitalists would become fewer and fewer due to an increasing number of ]; that the capitalist states would become increasingly ]; and that the proletarian revolution would occur first in the most industrialized nations.

			Critics of communism hold that the qualifier "socially necessary" in the labor theory of value is not well-defined, and conceals a subjective judgment of necessity. ] claims that the unit of the labor theory is itself ill-defined; that the problem of measuring the increased return of the skilled laborer (or of the laborer with advanced equipment) in manual man-hours was never solved.
	Some of these are debatable, while others have been clearly proven wrong. This is often cited by critics as evidence that historical materialism is a flawed theory. Communists reply with two arguments: The first is that there were a number of major events and trends over the past century and a half which Marx could not have predicted: ], ], the rise of ] and ] in the West (that introduced the concept of ], thereby narrowing the gap between rich and poor), ] and finally the ]. In response, critics maintain that if so many unpredictable events have happened in the past, then an equal number could happen in the future, and therefore Marxist theory is not a reliable method of making predictions.

			] holds that the labor theory, while a reasonable approximation to an ] society, is neither accurate nor normative for an advanced industrialism, whatever its economic arrangements. According to Russell, the labor theory provides a useful ] as an ] against a "predatory" group, like moneylenders or capitalists; but it does not indicate any fair proportion between the earnings of two workers at different stands on the same assembly line.

			Marxists have replied to these criticisms by refining the labor theory of value in various ways, for example by measuring the increased return of the skilled laborer according to the amount of labor that was necessary to teach that laborer his new skills. The qualifier "socially necessary" usually refers to the ''minimum'' amount of labor necessary to produce a given result; thus, if labor is wasted (the production process utilizes more labor than necessary), the end product does not gain any additional value.
	Lenin noted that the predicted increasing class polarization and communist revolution had failed to occur in the developed world. He then attempted to explain this by stating that ] is the highest stage of capitalism, and that developed countries had created a ] content with capitalism by exploiting the developing world.

			===The behaviour of Marxists===
	After the Western nations voluntarily gave up their colonies, supporters of communism have attempted to explain this with still another stage, sometimes called ], arguing that the ] is exploited also without formal empires.{{ref\|Neocolonialism}} For criticism of this, see ].
			A number of criticisms of Marxism are based on the perceived behaviour of its adherents. ] describes Marxism as a 'closed system', comparing it to the ] or orthodox ]. In his view, such a 'closed system' has three peculiarities:
			*It claims to represent a universal truth, which explains everything, and can cure every ill.
			*It can automatically process and reinterpret all potentially damaging data by methods of ], emotionally appealling and beyond common logic: "a kind of ] croquet, played with mobile hoops."
			*It invalidates criticism by deducing what the subjective motivation of the critic must be, and arguing about that.

			] uses Communism as one of the chief examples of the ] which offers ] (a technical, and pejorative term) a glorious, if imaginary, future to compensate for the frustrations of his present. (This is not a criticism of Communist tenets specifically; Hoffer's other chief examples are ], ], and the first members of ]s, such as the early ]). He further holds that one of the characteristics of the True Believer is his ability to switch from one True Belief to another.) ]'s account of the young Communists of ] in 1948 tells of a similar Dionysiac enthusiasm.
	=== Pseudoscience ===

	Marxism does not claim be to a ]. However, historical materialism does. ] and others have argued that historical materialism is a ] because it is not ]. Marxists respond that some ]s are not falsifiable, since it is often difficult or outright impossible to test them via ]s (in the way ] can be tested). This is especially true when many people and a long time is involved. Popper agreed on this, but instead used it as an argument against central ] and all ideologies that claim to know the future.
			Marxists respond to such allegations by arguing that they are ] (deliberate misrepresentations of Marxist theory) or ] attacks. For example, they may hold that Marxism does ''not'', in fact, claim to "explain everything and cure every ill"; that it merely recommends certain political and social policies, just as all other ideologies do. On the issue of the True Believer, Marxists may concede the point that ''some'' "True Believers" exist in their midst, but argue that not ''all'' of them are "True Believers", and that, in any case, the behaviour of individual Marxists says nothing about the validity of Marxism itself.

	== See also ==		== See also ==
	*]		*]
			*]
	*]
	*]
	*]

	== References and further reading ==		== References and further reading ==
	===~~References~~===		===Anti-communist books===
			*Anne Applebaum, <cite>Gulag: A History</cite>, Broadway Books, 2003, hardcover, 720 pages, ISBN 0767900561
	#{{note\|Refugees}} {{Web reference_author \| Author=Rummel, R.J \| Title=How many did the Communist regimes murder? \| Work=Freedom, Democracy, Peace; Power, Democide, and War \| URL=http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/COM.ART.HTM \| Date=October 2 \| Year=2005}}
			*Becker, Jasper (1998) ''Hungry Ghosts : Mao's Secret Famine''. Owl Books. ISBN 0805056688.
	#{{note\|Courtois-intro}} Bibliography: Courtois, 1999. Introduction
			*Conquest, Robert (1991) ''The Great Terror: A Reassessment''. Oxford University Press ISBN 0195071328.
	#{{note\|Totals}} {{Web reference \| title=Deaths by Mass Unpleasantness: Estimated Totals for the Entire 20th Century \| work=Historical Atlas of the 20th Century \| URL=http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat8.htm \| date=October 2 \| year=2005}}
			*Conquest, Robert (1987) ''The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivization and the Terror-Famine''. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195051807.
	#{{note\|Yakovlev-deaths}} Bibliography: Yakovlev, 2004. p. 234
			*Courtois,Stephane; Werth, Nicolas; Panne, Jean-Louis; Paczkowski, Andrzej; Bartosek, Karel; Margolin, Jean-Louis & Kramer, Mark (1999). ''The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression''. Harvard University Press. ISBN 0674076087.
	#{{note\|Yakovlev-children}} Bibliography: Yakovlev, 2004. p. 29-47
			*Hamilton-Merritt, Jane (1999) ''Tragic Mountains: The Hmong, the Americans, and the Secret Wars for Laos, 1942-1992'' Indiana University Press. ISBN 0253207568.
	#{{note\|FreeSpeech}} {{Web reference \| title= A Country Study: Soviet Union (Former). Chapter 9 - Mass Media and the Arts \| work=The Library of Congress. Country Studies \| URL=http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/cshome.html\| date=October 03 \| year=2005}}
	#{{note\|FreeRelNat}} Bibliography: Yakovlev, 2004. p. 153-169, 181-213.
	#{{note\|Informants}} {{Book reference \| Author=Koehler, John O. \| Title=Stasi: The Untold Story of the East German Secret Police\| Publisher=Westview Press\| Year=2000 \| ID=ISBN 0813337445}}
	#{{note\|Psyche}} {{Web reference \| title=The Soviet Case: Prelude to a Global Consensus on Psychiatry and Human Rights\| work=Human Rights Watch\| URL=http://hrw.org/reports/2002/china02/china0802-02.htm#P397_91143\| date=October 3 \| year=2005}}
	#{{note\|Unions}} {{Web reference \| title= A Country Study: Soviet Union (Former). Chapter 5. Trade Unions \| work=The Library of Congress. Country Studies \| URL=http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/cshome.html\| date=October 4 \| year=2005}}
	#{{note\|Courtois-terrorism}} Courtois, 1999. Chapter 18
	#{{note\|Pipes-famine}} Bibliography: Pipes, 1994. p. 412-413, 419
	#{{note\|Conquest-famine}} Bibliography: Conquest, 1986. p. 306
	#{{note\|Pipes-executions}} Bibliography: Pipes, 2001. p. 66-67
	#{{note\|Pipes-wwii}} Bibliography: Pipes, 2001. p. 74-76, 96, 103-109
	#{{note\|SovGDP1}}{{Citepaper_version \| Author= Steele, Charles N\| Title=The Soviet Experiment: Lessons for Development \| PublishYear=2002 \| Version= in Morris, J.(ed.), Sustainable Development. Promoting Progress or Perpetuating Poverty? (London, Profile Book\| URL=http://ipn.lexi.net/images/uploaded/12-402934626c558--charles_steele_chapter6.pdf}}
	#{{note\|SovGDP2}}{{Citepaper_version \| Author= Brainerd, Elizabeth\| Title= Reassessing The standard of living in the Soviet Union: an analysis using archival and anthropometric data\| PublishYear=2002 \| Version=Abram Bergson Memorial Conference, Harvard University, Davis Center, November 23–24\| URL=http://www.cepr.org/meets/wkcn/7/753/papers/brainerd.pdf}}
	#{{note\|Bumper}} {{Book reference url\| Author=Horowitz, David \| Title=The Politics of Bad Faith \| Publisher =Touchstone Books \| Year=2000 \| ID=ISBN 0684850230 \| URL=http://www.discoverthenetwork.org/Articles/The%20Road%20to%20Nowhere.htm }}
	#{{note\|ChinaCap}} {{Journal reference url \| Author=Wand, Xiaolu, and Lian Meng\| Title=A Reevaluation of China's Economic Growth\| Journal= China Economic Review\| Year=2001 \| Volume=12(4) \| Pages= 338–346 \| URL=http://apseg.anu.edu.au/staff/pub_highlights/XiaoluW_03.pdf}}
	#{{note\|VietnamCap}} {{Citepaper_publisher_version \| Author=Dollar, David\| Title=Reform, growth, and poverty in Vietnam, Volume 1\| Publisher=Development Research Group, World Bank
	\| PublishYear=2002 \| Version=: Policy, Research working paper series ; no. WPS 2837\| URL=http://econ.worldbank.org/external/default/main?pagePK=64165259&piPK=64165421&menuPK=64166093&theSitePK=469372&entityID=000094946_02051604452864}}
	#{{note\|1936}} {{Citepaper_publisher_version \| Author=Sleifer, Japp\| Title=Separated Unity: The East and West German Industrial Sector in 1936 \| Publisher=Groningen Growth and Development Centre\| PublishYear=1999 \| Version=Research Memorandum GD-46\| URL=http://www.ggdc.net/pub/gd46.pdf}}
	#{{note\|1954}} {{Citepaper_publisher_version \| Author=Sleifer, Japp\| Title=A Benchmark Comparison of East and West German Industrial Labour Productivity in 1954 \| Publisher=Groningen Growth and Development Centre\| PublishYear=2002 \| Version=Research Memorandum GD-57\| URL=http://www.eco.rug.nl/ggdc/pub/gd57.pdf}}
	#{{note\|1989}} {{Citepaper_publisher_version \| Author=Ark, Bart van\| Title=Economic Growth and Labour Productivity In Europe: Half a Century of East-West Comparisons \| Publisher=Groningen Growth and Development Centre\| PublishYear=1999 \| Version=Research Memorandum GD-41\| URL=http://www.ggdc.net/pub/gd41.pdf}}
	#{{note\|MoslemWomen}} {{Book reference \| Author=Massell, Gregory J. \| Title=The Surrogate Proletariat: Moslem Women and Revolutionary Strategies in Soviet Central Asia, 1919-1929 \| Publisher= Princeton University Press \| Year=1974 \| ID=ISBN 069107562X}}
	#{{note\|FamChina}} Bibliography: Chang, 2005
	#{{note\|FamNorthKor}} Bibliography: Natsios, 2002
	#{{note\|Height}} {{Citepaper_publisher_version \| Author=Komlos, John, and Peter Kriwy \| Title=The Biological Standard of Living in the Two Germanies \| Publisher=Center for Economic Studies and Ifo Institute for Economic Research \| PublishYear=2001 \| Version=Working Paper Series No. 560\| URL=http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=283736}}
	#{{note\|Happiness}} {{Journal reference url \| Author=Frijters, Paul, John P. Haisken-DeNew, and Michael A. Shields \| Title=Money Does Matter! Evidence from Increasing Real Income and Life Satisfaction in East Germany Following Reunification\| Journal= American Economic Review\| Year=2004 \| Volume=94 \| Pages= 730–740 \| URL=http://www.socialpolitik.de/tagungshps/2004/Papers/Haisken.pdf }}
	#{{note\|EduHealth}} {{Web reference \| title= A Country Study: Soviet Union (Former). Chapter 6 - Education, Health, and Welfare \| work=The Library of Congress. Country Studies \| URL=http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/cshome.html\| date=October 4 \| year=2005}}
	#{{note\|LivingStand}} Horowitz, 2000.
	#{{note\|LifeExp}} {{Citepaper_publisher_version \| Author=Meslé, France\| Title=Mortality in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union long-term trends and recent upturns \| Publisher=Institut national d’études démographiques, Paris \| PublishYear=2002 \| Version=Paper presented at IUSSP/MPIDR Workshop "Determinants of Diverging Trends in Mortality" Rostock, June 19-21 2002\| URL=http://www.demogr.mpg.de/Papers/workshops/020619_paper27.pdf}}
	#{{note\|Cuba}} {{Web reference \| title=Zenith and Eclipse: A Comparative Look at Socio-Economic Conditions in Pre-Castro and Present Day Cuba \| work=Released by the Bureau of Inter-American Affairs, February 9, 1998. Revised June 2002 \| URL=http://www.state.gov/p/wha/ci/14776.htm \| date=October 2 \| year=2005}}
	#{{note\|Courtois-intro2}} Bibliography: Courtois, 1999. Introduction
	#{{note\|Science}} {{Web reference \| title= A Country Study: Soviet Union (Former). Chapter 16. Science and Techology \| work=The Library of Congress. Country Studies \| URL=http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/cshome.html\| date=October 5 \| year=2005}}
	#{{note\|Nobel}} {{Citepaper_publisher \| Author=Jank, Wolfgand, Bruce L. Golden, Paul F. Zantek \| Title=Old World vs. New World: Evolution of Nobel Prize Shares \| Publisher=University of Maryland \| PublishYear=2004 \| URL=http://www.smith.umd.edu/faculty/wjank/NobelShares.pdf}}
	#{{note\|Tech}} {{Citepaper_publisher_version \| Author=Davis, Christopher \| Title=The Defence Sector in the Economy of a Declining Superpower: Soviet Union and Russia, 1965-2000 \| Publisher=University of Oxford \| PublishYear=2000 \| Version=Forthcoming Article in the Journal Defence and Peace Economics Draft (8/6/00)\| URL=http://www.econ.ox.ac.uk/Research/WP/PDF/paper008.pdf}}
	#{{note\|Tech2}} {{Web reference \| title= A Country Study: Soviet Union (Former). Chapter 16. Science and Techology \| work=The Library of Congress. Country Studies \| URL=http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/cshome.html\| date=October 4 \| year=2005}}
	#{{note\|Cocom}} {{Citepaper_publisher \| Author=Weiss, Gus W \| Title=The Farewell Dossier \| Publisher=CIA \| PublishYear=1996 \| URL=http://www.cia.gov/csi/studies/96unclass/farewell.htm}}
	#{{note\|Environment}} {{Journal reference url \| Author= Díaz-Briquets, Sergio, and Jorge Pérez-López\| Title=Socialism and Environmental Disruption: Implications for Cuba \| Journal=Proceedings of the Annual Meetings of the Association for the Study of the Cuban Economy \| Year=1998 \| Volume=8 \| Pages= 154–172 \| URL=http://lanic.utexas.edu/la/cb/cuba/asce/cuba8/22diaz.pdf }}
	#{{note\|Unece}} {{Web reference \| title=Environmental Performance Reviews Programme \| work=United Nations Economic Commission for Europe \| URL=http://www.unece.org/env/epr/countriesreviewed.htm \| date=October 2 \| year=2005}}
	#{{note\|Unep}} {{Web reference \| title=UNEP.Net Country Profiles \| work=United Nations Environment Network \| URL=http://www.unep.net/profile/index.cfm \| date=October 2 \| year=2005}}
	#{{note\|Oecd}} {{Web reference \| title=OECD Environmental Performance Reviews: Russia \| work=OECD\| URL=http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/7/50/2452793.pdf \| date=October 2 \| year=2005}}
	#{{note\|Air}} {{Citepaper_version \| Author=Kahn, Matthew E \| Title=Has Communism’s Collapse Greened Eastern Europe’s Polluted Cities?\| PublishYear=2002 \| Version=Paper written for the NBER Environmental Conference on Advances in Empirical Environmental Policy Research May 17th 2002\| URL=http://www.nber.org/~confer/2002/env02/kahn.pdf}}
	#{{note\|DictatorProl}} {{Web reference \| title=Dictatorship of the Proletariat \| work=The Encyclopedia of Marxism\| URL=http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/d/i.htm#dictatorship-proletariat\| date=October 3 \| year=2005}}
	#{{note\|Trotsky}} {{Web reference \| title=Trotskyism \| work=The Encyclopedia of Marxism\| URL=http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/t/r.htm#trotskyism\| date=October 6 \| year=2005}}
	#{{note\|Pipes-exterminated}} Bibliography: Pipes, 1990. p. 789-795.
	#{{note\|Pipes-lenin}} Bibliography: Pipes, 1990. Pipes, 1994. Courtois, 1999. Yakovlev, 2004.
	#{{note\|CivilWar}} {{Web reference \| title=Russian Civil War \| work=Historical Atlas of the 20th Century \| URL=http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat1.htm#Russian \| date=October 2 \| year=2005}}
	#{{note\|Famine}} {{Web reference_simple \| title=The Soviet Famines of 1921 and 1932-3 \| URL=http://www.overpopulation.com/faq/health/hunger/famine/soviet_famine.html \| date=October 02 \| year=2005}}
	#{{note\|Museum}} {{Web reference \| title=Lenin and the First Communist Revolutions, VII \| work=Museum of Communism\| URL=http://www.gmu.edu/departments/economics/bcaplan/museum/his1g.htm\| date=October 2 \| year=2005}}
	#{{note\|MarxDemo}} {{Web reference \| title=Democracy \| work=The Encyclopedia of Marxism\| URL=http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/d/e.htm#democracy\| date=October 2 \| year=2005}}
	#{{note\|Commune}} {{Web reference_simple \| title=Paris Commune: Myth vs. Reality \| URL=http://question-everything.mahost.org/History/ParisCommune.html \| date=October 1 \| year=2005 }}
	#{{note\|Catholic}} {{Web reference \| title=Martyrs of the Paris Commune \| work= The Catholic Encyclopedia \| URL=http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04168a.htm \| date=October 1 \| year=2005}}
	#{{note\|Terror}} {{Citepaper \| Author=Lenin, Vladimir \| Title=The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky \| PublishYear=1918\| URL=http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1918/prrk/equality.htm}}
	#{{note\|StateRev}} {{Citepaper \| Author=Lenin, Vladimir \| Title=The State and Revolution \| PublishYear=1918\| URL=http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/}}
	#{{note\|Pipes-demo}} Bibliography: Pipes, 1990. p. 550-555
	#{{note\|Courtois-MarxLenin}} Bibliography: Courtois, 1999. Conclusion
	#{{note\|Figes-ManyTries}} {{Book reference \| Author=Figes, Orlando \| Title=A People's Tragedy \| Publisher =Random House \| Year=1996 \| ID=ISBN 0224041622 }} p. 823
	#{{note\|Pipes-nature}} Bibliography: Pipes, 1990. p. 135-138
	#{{note\|Pipes-nomenklatura}} Bibliography: Pipes, 2001. p. 150-151
	#{{note\|Conquest-analysis}} Bibliography: Conquest, 2000. p. 47-51
	#{{note\|Neocolonialism}} {{Web reference \| title=Neocolonialism \| work=The Encyclopedia of Marxism\| URL=http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/n/e.htm#neocolonialism\| date=October 3 \| year=2005}}

	===Bibliography: Communist human rights violations===
	*Applebaum, Anne (2003) ''Gulag: A History''. Broadway Books. ISBN 0767900561
	*Chang, Jung & Halliday, Jon (2005) '']''. Knopf. ISBN 0679422714
	*Conquest, Robert (1991) '']: A Reassessment''. Oxford University Press ISBN 0195071328.
	*Conquest, Robert (1986) ''The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivization and the Terror-Famine''. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195051807.
	*Conquest, Robert (2000) ''Reflections on a Ravaged Century''. W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 0393048187
	*Courtois, Stephane; Werth, Nicolas; Panne, Jean-Louis; Paczkowski, Andrzej; Bartosek, Karel; Margolin, Jean-Louis & Kramer, Mark (1999). '']: Crimes, Terror, Repression''. Harvard University Press. ISBN 0674076087.
	*Hamilton-Merritt, Jane (1999) ''Tragic Mountains: The Hmong, the Americans, and the Secret Wars for Laos, 1942-1992'' Indiana University Press. ISBN 0253207568.
	*Jackson, Karl D. (1992) ''Cambodia, 1975–1978'' Princeton University Press ISBN 069102541X.		*Jackson, Karl D. (1992) ''Cambodia, 1975–1978'' Princeton University Press ISBN 069102541X.
	*Kakar, M. Hassan (1997)'' Afghanistan: The Soviet Invasion and the Afghan Response, 1979-1982'' University of California Press. ISBN 0520208935.		*Kakar, M. Hassan (1997)''Afghanistan: The Soviet Invasion and the Afghan Response, 1979-1982'' University of California Press. ISBN 0520208935.
	*Khlevniuk, Oleg & Kozlov, Vladimir (2004) ''The History of the Gulag : From Collectivization to the Great Terror (Annals of Communism Series)'' Yale University Pres. ISBN 0300092849.		*Khlevniuk, Oleg & Kozlov, Vladimir (2004) ''The History of the Gulag : From Collectivization to the Great Terror (Annals of Communism Series)'' Yale University Pres. ISBN 0300092849.
	*Natsios, Andrew S. (2002) ''The Great North Korean Famine''. Institute of Peace Press. ISBN 1929223331.		*Natsios, Andrew S. (2002) ''The Great North Korean Famine''. Institute of Peace Press. ISBN 1929223331.
	*Nghia M. Vo (2004) ''The Bamboo Gulag: Political Imprisonment in Communist Vietnam'' McFarland & Company. ISBN 0786417145.		*Nghia M. Vo (2004) ''The Bamboo Gulag: Political Imprisonment in Communist Vietnam'' McFarland & Company ISBN 0786417145.
	*Pipes, Richard (~~2001~~) ''~~Communism''~~ ~~Weidenfled~~ ~~and~~ ~~Nicoloson~~. ISBN ~~0297646885~~		*Pipes, Richard (1995) ''Russia Under the Bolshevik Regime''. Vintage. ISBN 0679761845.
	*~~Pipes~~, ~~Richard~~ (~~1994~~) ''~~Russia~~ ~~Under~~ ~~the Bolshevik Regime~~''. ~~Vintage~~. ISBN ~~0679761845~~.		*Rummel, R.J. (1997). ''Death by Government.'' Transaction Publishers. ISBN 1560009276.
	*Pipes, Richard (1990) ''The Russian Revolution 1899-1919''. Collins Harvill. ISBN 0679400745.
	*Rummel, R.J. (1996). ''Lethal Politics: Soviet Genocide and Mass Murder Since 1917.'' Transaction Publishers ISBN 1560008873.		*Rummel, R.J. (1996). ''Lethal Politics: Soviet Genocide and Mass Murder Since 1917.'' Transaction Publishers ISBN 1560008873.
	*~~Todorov~~, ~~Tzvetan~~ & ~~Zaretsky~~, ~~Robert~~ (1999). ''~~Voices~~ ~~from~~ ~~the Gulag~~: ~~Life~~ and ~~Death~~ in ~~Communist~~ ~~Bulgaria~~''. ~~Pennsylvania State University Press.~~ ISBN ~~0271019611~~.		*Rummel, R.J. & Rummel, Rudolph J. (1999). ''Statistics of Democide: Genocide and Mass Murder Since 1900.'' Lit Verlag ISBN 3825840107.
			*Todorov, Tzvetan & Zaretsky, Robert (1999). ''Voices from the Gulag: Life and Death in Communist Bulgaria''. Pennsylvania State University Press. ISBN 0271019611
	*Van Canh, Nyuyen (1985) ''Vietnam Under Communism, 1975-1982.'' Hoover Institution Press. ISBN 0817978526.
	*Yakovlev, Alexander (2004). ''A Century of Violence in Soviet Russia.'' Yale University Press. ISBN 0300103220.		*Yakovlev, Alexander (2004). ''A Century of Violence in Soviet Russia.'' Yale University Press. ISBN 0300103220.

	== External links ==		== External links ==
			*Anti-communist links:
	=== Criticisms of the Communist states and Marxism ===
			** A Cato institute article, from a Capitalist point of view.
	====Directories====
			** Chinese and general communism analysis
	*
	*		**
			**
	*
			**
			**

			*Communists opposed to the 'communist states':
	====Articles====
			**
	*
			***
	*
	*		***
			*** An analysis of ], from a ] point of view.
			**

			*Support for the 'communist states':
	====Online estimates of Communist democide====
			**
	* Note that only some of numbers are totals for the Communist states.
			**

			*Neutral:
	**		**
	**		**
	*
	**
	**
	**
	**

	=== Support for Marxism ===
	====Support for the Communist states====
	*
	*

	====Marxists opposed to the Communist states====
	*
	**
	**
	** An analysis of ], from a ] point of view.
	** A critical analysis by ].
	*

	]		]

Revision as of 19:02, 6 October 2005

The neutrality of this article is disputed. Relevant discussion may be found on the talk page. Please do not remove this message until conditions to do so are met. (Learn how and when to remove this message)

v t e Communism
Concepts	Anti-capitalism Class conflict Class consciousness Classless society Collective leadership Communist party Communist revolution Communist state Commune Communist society Critique of political economy Free association "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" Market abolitionism Proletarian internationalism Labour movement Social revolution Stateless society Wage slavery Workers' self-management World communism World revolution Dictatorship of the proletariat
Economics	Planned economy Gift economy Common ownership Socialization (Marxism) Economic democracy Use value
Variants	Anarchist Marxism Leninist Libertarian Pre-Marxist Utopian Primitive Religious Christian
History	Communist League First International Second International Third International Fourth International
Organisations	Communist Parties WPC WFTU WFDY IUS WIDF WFSW IOR
People	Mazdak More Meslier Babeuf Marx Engels Morris Kropotkin Malatesta Pannekoek Du Bois Lenin Luxemburg Kollontai Stalin Trotsky Lukács Thälmann Makhno Bukharin Ho Gramsci Tito Togliatti Benjamin Khrushchev Mao Pot Zhou James Padmore Sartre Hoxha Beauvoir Nkrumah Kim Hobsbawm Althusser Freire Pasolini Mandel Aidit Raja Fanon Castro Berger Guevara Guattari Debord Amin Berlinguer Negri Guzmán Badiou Sison Newton Ali Davis Holloway Hampton Zizek Sankara Öcalan Gordillo Gilmore Marcos Hardt Dean Graeber Lordon Kelley Fisher Prashad Hatherley Moufawad-Paul Saito
By region	Britain Cambodia Colombia France India Kerala Korea Nepal Peru Philippines Poland Soviet Union Sumatra Vietnam
Symbols	Hammer and sickle Red flag (politics) Red star "The Internationale" "Workers of the world, unite!"
Criticism	Anti-communism Communist propaganda Criticism of communist party rule Criticism of Marxism
Related topics	21st-century communist theorists Anti anti-communism Anti-communist mass killings Anti-fascism Communitarianism Crimes against humanity Genocide Mass killings under communist regimes Internationalism Intentional community Left-wing politics Old Left New Left LGBTQ rights Marx's theory of alienation National communism Romania Red Scare Revolutionary socialism Socialist economics Socialist mode of production Trade union War communism Worker cooperative
Communism portal Socialism portal

Note that communism is a branch of socialism. This article only discusses criticisms that are specific to communism and not other forms of socialism. See criticisms of socialism for a discussion of objections to socialism in general.

Criticisms of communism can be divided in two broad categories: Those concerning themselves with the practical aspects of 20th century Communist states, and those concerning themselves with communist principles and theory. The two categories are logically distinct: One may agree with communist principles but disagree with many policies adopted by Communist states (and this is quite common among communists, particularly in the case of Trotskyists), or, more rarely, one may agree with policies adopted by Communist states but disagree with communist principles.

In the English language, the word communism and related terms are written with the uppercase "C" when they refer to a political party of that name, a member of that party, or a government led by such a party. When written as a common noun, with a lowercase "c", they refer to a future condition of egalitarian, classless and stateless community, or to the idea that such a condition is desirable and achievable. Thus, one may be a communist (an advocate of communism) without being a Communist (a member of a Communist Party or another similar organization). This distinction between communism (lowercase "c") and Communism (uppercase "C") is used throughout the present article.

20th century Communist states

Communism is a social system that abolishes private property, social classes, and the state itself. As such, a "communist state" would be a paradox. No country or government ever called itself a "Communist state"; however, various states gave the Communist Party a special status in their constitution and laws , while claiming to be heading in the direction of communism. The term "Communist state" has been coined and used in the West to refer to such countries. It is these "Communist states" (single-party states where the ruling party officially proclaimed its adherence to Marxism-Leninism) that are the targets of criticism presented below.

For related information, see the discussion regarding the definition of a Communist state.

No Communist state claimed to have attained communism, the social system, but all of them planned to do so in the not unreasonably distant future; Khrushchev, for example, forecast that communism would be reached in the Soviet Union by 1980, some quarter century later. The states which no longer exist never did reach communism, and none of the remaining ones seem likely to do so soon.

Anti-communist critique of Communist states

Censorship, personality cults, and foreign policy

The Communist states often practice censorship. The level of censorship varies widely between different states and historical periods, but it nearly always exists to a greater or lesser extent. The most rigid censorship has been practiced by hardline Stalinist and Maoist regimes, such as the Soviet Union under Stalin (1927–53), China during the Cultural Revolution (1966–76), and North Korea during its entire existence (1948–present). This censorship takes various forms:

Censorship of the arts, for example by allowing only Socialist realism. Some Communist states have also been involved in the destruction of cultural heritage: Romania (planned destruction of historical centres of most towns—partially achieved in Bucharest), China (repression of Tibetan culture, destruction of cultural artifacts during the Cultural Revolution) and the Soviet Union (destruction, abandonment or reconversion of religious buildings) are the most cited examples.
Censorship of science. One example is censorship and revisionism of history. In the Soviet Union, between the late 1920s and early 1960s, research was suppressed in biology and genetics (Lysenkoism), linguistics (Japhetic theory), cybernetics, psychology and psychiatry, and even organic chemistry. In some Communist states it was common practice to classify internal critics of the system as having a mental disease, like sluggishly progressing schizophrenia—which was a disease only recognized in Communist states—and incarcerating them in mental hospitals. See also Suppressed research in the Soviet Union.
Censorship of dissent. Many Communist states use an extensive network of civilian informants to spy on their peers. This creates a society where no one would dare criticize the government in public (and, in extreme cases, not even in private), for fear that they might be reported to the secret police.

Both anti-Communists and Communists have criticized the personality cults of many leaders of Communist states, and the hereditary leadership of North Korea. Milovan Djilas and others have also argued that a powerful new class of party bureaucrats emerged under Communist Party rule, and exploited the rest of the population. A Czech proverb observed, "Under capitalism, man exploits man; under Communism, it's the other way around." (see also nomenklatura)

The Communist states also typically suppress mass dissent. Internal uprisings were forcibly suppressed in the Kronstadt rebellion and the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. The Soviet Union intervened three times in neighboring countries to defeat popular uprisings against a Communist state: the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the Prague spring and the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. These invasions have also been criticized as naked imperialism.

Restrictions on emigration are widely seen as a mechanism for suppressing dissent. The Berlin wall was one of the most famous examples of this, but North Korea still imposes a total ban on emigration (reported on PBS's program Frontline) and Cuba's restrictions are routinely criticized by the Cuban-American community.

The escape valve of last resort from repressive regimes is emigration, but the communist states were notorious for violently preventing and severely punishing attempts to escape. The anti-democratic nature of these regimes is perhaps best revealed by this prevention of even allowing citizens to "vote with their feet".

Human rights violations

Large scale human rights violations occurred in Communist states. The most common of these were restrictions on freedom of speech (in the form of censorship, discussed above). Such restrictions existed, to a greater or lesser degree, in nearly all Communist states during most of their existence. Usually, newly established Communist states maintained or tightened the level of censorship that was present in those countries before the Communists came to power; indeed, the Communists themselves had most often been the targets of this previous censorship. As a result, after coming to power, they argued that they wanted to fight the former ruling class using its own weapons, either as a form of vengeance or to prevent it from staging a counter-revolution.

However, some Communist states - particularly the regimes of Stalin and Mao - engaged in far more severe human rights violations. Most prominent were deaths due to executions, forced labor camps, genocides of certain ethnic minorities, and mass starvations caused by either government mismanagement or deliberately. The exact number of deaths caused by these regimes is somewhat disputed, but extensive historical research shows at least tens of millions (see, e.g., the estimates reached in The Black Book of Communism and the references below). A feature of controversial significance of these estimates is that they far exceed the number of deaths under fascist regimes during the twentieth century (including Nazi Germany). Some anti-communists have used this to argue that Communist states were worse than fascist ones; others point out that Communist states were greater in number, lasted longer and ruled over a much larger population than fascist states.

Lesser violations include religious and ethnic persecutions, systematic use of torture as part of police procedure, lack of democracy, and the fact that workers were not allowed to join free labor unions.

Some advocates of Communist states find this approach simplistic, noting that executions, forced labor camps, the repression of ethnic minorities, and mass starvation were patterns in both Russian and Chinese history before their respective Communist revolutions. Critics argue that past evils in an old regime cannot be used to justify new ones, while advocates reply that they only seek to put the events into perspective, not justify them.

Economic and social development

Advocates of Communist states often praise them for having leapt ahead of contemporary capitalist countries in certain areas, for example by offering guaranteed employment, health care and housing to their citizens. Critics typically condemn Communist states by the same criteria, claiming that all lag far behind the industrialized West in terms of economic development and living standards.

Central economic planning has in certain instances produced dramatic advances, including rapid development of heavy industry during the 1930s in the Soviet Union and later in their space program. Another example is the development of the pharmaceutical industry in Cuba. Early advances in the status of women were also notable, especially in Islamic areas of the Soviet Union. See Gregory J. Massell, The Surrogate Proletariat: Moslem Women and Revolutionary Strategies in Soviet Central Asia: 1919–1929, Princeton University Press, 1974, hardcover, 451 pages, ISBN 069107562X. However, the Soviet Union did not achieve the same kind of development in agriculture (forcing the Soviet Union to become a net importer of cereals after the Second World War). Other Communist states, such as Laos, Vietnam or Maoist China, continued in poverty; China has only achieved high rates of growth after introducing free market economic reforms — a sign, claim the critics, of the superiority of capitalism. Another example is Czechoslovakia, which was among world's most developed industrial countries prior to World War II, but fell behind the West in the post-war era.

Both critics and supporters also make comparisons between particular Communist and capitalist countries: Critics prefer to compare East and West Germany; supporters prefer to compare Cuba to Jamaica or Central America. All such comparisons are open to challenge, both on the comparability of the states involved and the statistic being used for comparison. No two countries are identical; the western parts of Germany were more developed and industrialized than the eastern parts long before the Cold War and the creation of two separate German states, and Cuba was likewise more developed than many of its Central American neighbors before the Cuban revolution. Comparison of Cuba to the rest of the Caribbean or Latin America has a special problem: Cuba is the only Latin American country to have been Communist for forty years; it is also the only Latin American country to have been for forty years under embargo by its largest neighbor and geographically natural trading partner. Deconfounding those two uniquenesses is beyond the reach of honest statistics.

Communist states often engaged in rapid industrialization, and in some cases this has lead to environmental disasters. The most cited example is the disappearance of the Aral Sea in today's Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, which is believed to have been caused by the diversion of the waters of its two affluent rivers for cotton production. The Caspian Sea has also been diminishing; in addition, there was significant pollution of the Black Sea, the Baltic Sea, and the unique freshwater environment of Lake Baikal. In 1988 only 20% of the sewage in the Soviet Union was treated properly. Established health standards for air pollution were exceeded by ten times or more in 103 cities in 1988. In Eastern Europe, air pollution is cited as the cause of forest die-back, damage to buildings and cultural heritages, and a rise in the occurrence of lung cancer. According to official sources, 58 percent of the total agricultural land of the former Soviet Union was affected by salinization, erosion, acidity, or waterlogging. Nuclear waste was dumped in the Sea of Japan, the Arctic Ocean, and in locations in the Far East. It was revealed in 1992 that in the city of Moscow there were 636 radioactive toxic waste sites and 1,500 in St. Petersburg. The Vistula was poisoned with mining spoil, agricultural runoff, and sewage; its fish were inedible, its waters green with algae; much of its water was unsafe to drink.

However, many of these ecological problems continued unabated after the fall of the Soviet Union and are still major issues today - which has prompted many supporters of Communist states to accuse their opponents of holding a double standard.

Technological progress in the Communist states was sometimes highly uneven, in the sense that some sectors surged ahead while others lagged behind. As noted above, the Soviet space program saw remarkable progress; so did pure science (in fields not blighted by ideological pressure), mathematics, and military technology. Consumer products, on the other hand, were typically several years behind their Western counterparts. According to the CIA , a number of Soviet products were in fact using Western technology, which had been either legally purchased or obtained through espionage. This situation has been largely attributed to the fact that economic planners in the Soviet Union and elsewhere were accountable to the government, but, in the absence of democracy, they were not accountable to the people. Thus, their plans tended to focus on long-term goals and scientific and military development, rather than the immediate needs of the population.

Life expectancy has increased in fits and starts in the West. The latest of these began about 1970, and largely consists of improvements in cardiovascular medicine. Demographic studies (including this one) have concluded that the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe did not partake of this increase, as they had in the earlier ones; male life expectancies even decreased by a year - leading to a large gap between East and West by 1990. Since a market economy was introduced, a sharp decline in life expectancy was noted in the countries of the former Soviet Union. This decline has accelerated in Russia and Ukraine; in the Baltic republics life expectancy may have started to increase. In Eastern Europe, after 1990, the decline continued most notably in Romania, but life expectancy eventually began to increase in many of the other countries in the region. All these developments give information on post-Soviet capitalism, especially the economy of Russia, as well as on the policies of the Communist states.

Supporters of the Communist states note their social and cultural programs, sometimes administered by labor organizations. Universal education programs have been a strong point, as has the generous provision of universal health care. They point out the high levels of literacy enjoyed by Eastern Europeans (in comparison, for instance, with Southern Europe), Cubans or Chinese. Western critics charge that Communist compulsory education was replete with pro-Communist propaganda and censored opposing views.

Debunking

Despite the problems above, there has been a considerable apologetic literature porclaiming the communist states behave dramatically better than other states; that the Soviet Union did not behave like other Great Powers; and, in extreme cases, that some Communist state (usually the Soviet Union, but often Maoist China or Cuba) was what Rebecca West referred to as the "Infant Samuel among the nations": innocent, holy, and much put-upon.

Much criticism of Communism has been devoted to refuting such claims; most notably, perhaps, George Orwell's Animal Farm, which ends by displaying the Soviet leadership as indistinguishable from the British ruling class; at about the same time, Orwell described the Commmunist apologetics above mentioned as instances of "transferred nationalism" and held they had the disagreeable qualities of direct nationalism, often with the even greater rosiness of view possible to someone writing at a distance from a system he's never actually experienced.

Communist and Left critique of Communist states

Communist states are nominally based on Marxism-Leninism, which is only one form of Marxism, which is in turn only one school of the Left. Many communists themselves disagree with some or most of the actions undertaken by Communist states during the 20th century. Many of the anti-communist criticisms presented in the above section (for example, criticisms of violations of human rights) are shared by the communist critics.

Other varieties of the Left opposed Bolshevik plans before they was put into practice: The revisionist Marxists, such as Eduard Bernstein and Karl Kautsky denied the necessity of a revolution; the anarchists had differed from Marx since Bakunin, and the anarchist Left Socialist-Revolutionaries under Nestor Makhno were at war with Lenin, forming another of the many sides of the Russian Civil War.

Marx and Engels (like Alexander Hamilton) did not believe that true liberal democracy was a possible form of government, since all states inherently give unlimited power to the ruling class. After the revolution, when all production was securely controlled by the proletariat, the state would eventually "wither away", since it would have no function.

Criticisms of Communist states from the Left began very soon after the creation of the first such state. Bertrand Russell visited Russia in 1920, and regarded the Bolsheviks as intelligent, but clueless and planless. Emma Goldman condemned the suppression of the Kronstadt rebellion as a 'massacre'.

One specifically communist critique, however, is the allegation that the "Communist states" of the 20th century grossly violated communist principles, and were therefore only partially communist at best or completely un-communist at worst.

Firstly, all communists agree that democracy (the rule of the people) is a key element of both socialism and communism - though they may disagree on the particular form that this democracy should take. The leaders of the Communist states themselves frequently announced their support for democracy, held regular elections and sometimes even gave their countries names such as the "German Democratic Republic" or the "Democratic People's Republic of Korea". Supporters of Communist states have always argued that those states were democratic. However, critics point out that, in practice, one political party held an absolute monopoly on power, dissent was banned, and the elections usually featured a single candidate and were ripe with fraud (often producing implausible results of 99% in favor of the candidate). Thus, communist critics of Communist states argue that, in practice, these states were not democratic and therefore not communist or socialist.

A lack of democracy implies a lack of a mandate from the people; as such, communist critics argue that the leadership of Communist states did not represent the interests of the working class, and it should therefore be no wonder that this leadership took actions that directly harmed the workers (for example Mao's Great Leap Forward). In particular, Communist states banned independent labor unions, an act seen by many communists (and most others on the political left) as an open betrayal of the working class.

Trotskyists, in particular, have argued that Stalin transformed the Soviet Union into a bureaucratic and repressive state, and that all subsequent Communist states ultimately turned out similar because they copied his example (Stalinism). There are various terms used by Trotskyists to define such states; see state capitalism, degenerated workers' state and deformed workers' state.

While Trotskyists are Leninists, there are other communists who embrace classical Marxism and reject Leninism entirely, arguing, for example, that the Leninist principle of democratic centralism was the source of the Soviet Union's slide away from communism.

Finally, it should be noted that many of these communist criticisms draw counter-criticisms from anti-communists, many of whom have attempted to establish a direct link between communist principles and the actions of Communist states. Ultimately, this comes down to a fundamental disagreement between communists and anti-communists as to what those 'communist principles' actually are. A glaring example is the issue of democracy: Communists claim that democracy is an essential part of their principles, while anti-communists claim that it is not.

In addition to Communism, the names of several other ideologies and political systems have been used by governments or political parties whose policies are widely regarded as being contrary to the basic principles of those ideologies or systems. The Democratic Republic of the Congo or the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea), for example, are universally regarded as highly undemocratic. Likewise, the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia shares virtually nothing with the ideology of liberalism.

Marxist theory

See Criticisms of socialism for a general critique of socialism, including the arguments that the condition of communism is an impractical arrangement, contrary to human nature. The following sections of this article deal with criticisms that are specifically raised against Marxist theory.

Historical materialism

Historical materialism is normally considered one of the intellectual foundations of Marxism. It looks for the causes of developments and changes in human history in economic, technological, and more broadly, material factors, as well as the clashes of material interests among tribes, social classes and nations.

Critics argue that it ignores other causes of historical and social change, like biology, genetics, philosophy, art, religion, or other causes that are not "materialist" according to Marxists. Some, such as Karl Popper and others, have also argued that Historical materialism is a pseudoscience because it is not falsifiable. Marxists respond that social sciences in general are largely not falsifiable, since it is often difficult or outright impossible to test them via experiments (in the way hard science can be tested).

Based on historical materialism, Marx made numerous predictions. For example, he argued that the workers would become poorer and poorer as the capitalists exploited them more and more; that differences between the members within each class would become smaller and smaller and the classes would thus become more homogeneous; that the skilled workers would be replaced by unskilled workers doing assembly line work; that relations between the working class and the capitalists would get worse and worse; and that the capitalists would become fewer and fewer due to an increasing number of monopolies. (The capitalist economists of his time, such as David Ricardo and John Stuart Mill, would have agreed with most of these predictions, at least as the most likely forecast of events; although they deduced the iron law of wages from Malthus's forecast of population increasing to the point of subsistence, rather than the exploitation of the capitalist system.)

Some of these are debatable, while others have been clearly proven wrong. This is often cited by critics as evidence that historical materialism is a flawed theory. Communists reply with two arguments: The first is that there were a number of major events and trends over the past century and a half which Marx could not have predicted: imperialism, World War I, the rise of social democracy and Keynesian economics in the West (that introduced the concept of redistribution of wealth, thereby narrowing the gap between rich and poor), World War II and finally the Cold War. In response, critics maintain that if so many unpredictable events have happened in the past, then an equal number could happen in the future, and therefore historical materialism is not a reliable method of making predictions.

The second communist argument is a specifically Leninist one. Lenin, in his book Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, argued that capitalism must be viewed as a global phenomenon, and different capitalist countries must not be treated as if they are fully independent entities. Instead, one must look at capitalism worldwide. From this point of view, Lenin goes on to argue that rich, developed capitalist countries "export" their poverty to poorer countries, by turning those countries into colonies (hence 'imperialism') and exploiting them as sources of cheap unskilled labor and resources. Part of the spoils from this exploitation are then shared with the workers from the developed countries, in order to keep their standard of living high and thus avoid revolution at home.

The European colonial empires of Lenin's time all dissolved between 1947 and 1998 in the decolonization of the world. Communists maintain that economic exploitation of poor countries continues even in the absence of direct political control (see globalization and anti-globalization).

Labor theory of value

Fundamental to Marxist theory is the labor theory of value. It claims that the value (or, to be more exact, use-value) of an item is determined by the socially necessary labour time required to produce it. In other words, the greater the amount of work necessary to produce an object, the greater the value of that object. This implies that value is objective, and that it may not be reflected by the price of the object in question (since price is determined by supply and demand, and is not linked to the amount of necessary work that must be expended to produce the object). The labor theory of value was fully stated by David Ricardo, from suggestions by Adam Smith, and later adopted by Karl Marx. R. H. Tawney derives it, through John Locke, from the scholastic justum pretium.

Jevons and the classical capitalist economists later abandoned the labor theory for the utility theory of value, which implies that the only value of an object on which different observers can agree is its price on the market (which is based on the subjective utilities of the participants).

Critics of communism hold that the qualifier "socially necessary" in the labor theory of value is not well-defined, and conceals a subjective judgment of necessity. Jacques Barsun claims that the unit of the labor theory is itself ill-defined; that the problem of measuring the increased return of the skilled laborer (or of the laborer with advanced equipment) in manual man-hours was never solved.

Bertrand Russell holds that the labor theory, while a reasonable approximation to an agrarian society, is neither accurate nor normative for an advanced industrialism, whatever its economic arrangements. According to Russell, the labor theory provides a useful polemic as an ethic against a "predatory" group, like moneylenders or capitalists; but it does not indicate any fair proportion between the earnings of two workers at different stands on the same assembly line.

Marxists have replied to these criticisms by refining the labor theory of value in various ways, for example by measuring the increased return of the skilled laborer according to the amount of labor that was necessary to teach that laborer his new skills. The qualifier "socially necessary" usually refers to the minimum amount of labor necessary to produce a given result; thus, if labor is wasted (the production process utilizes more labor than necessary), the end product does not gain any additional value.

The behaviour of Marxists

A number of criticisms of Marxism are based on the perceived behaviour of its adherents. Arthur Koestler describes Marxism as a 'closed system', comparing it to the Roman Catholic Church or orthodox Freudianism. In his view, such a 'closed system' has three peculiarities:

It claims to represent a universal truth, which explains everything, and can cure every ill.
It can automatically process and reinterpret all potentially damaging data by methods of casuistry, emotionally appealling and beyond common logic: "a kind of Alice in Wonderland croquet, played with mobile hoops."
It invalidates criticism by deducing what the subjective motivation of the critic must be, and arguing about that.

Eric Hoffer uses Communism as one of the chief examples of the mass movement which offers the True Believer (a technical, and pejorative term) a glorious, if imaginary, future to compensate for the frustrations of his present. (This is not a criticism of Communist tenets specifically; Hoffer's other chief examples are Fascists, Nationalists, and the first members of religions, such as the early Christians). He further holds that one of the characteristics of the True Believer is his ability to switch from one True Belief to another.) Milan Kundera's account of the young Communists of Czechoslovakia in 1948 tells of a similar Dionysiac enthusiasm.

Marxists respond to such allegations by arguing that they are straw men (deliberate misrepresentations of Marxist theory) or ad hominem attacks. For example, they may hold that Marxism does not, in fact, claim to "explain everything and cure every ill"; that it merely recommends certain political and social policies, just as all other ideologies do. On the issue of the True Believer, Marxists may concede the point that some "True Believers" exist in their midst, but argue that not all of them are "True Believers", and that, in any case, the behaviour of individual Marxists says nothing about the validity of Marxism itself.

References and further reading

Anti-communist books

Anne Applebaum, Gulag: A History, Broadway Books, 2003, hardcover, 720 pages, ISBN 0767900561
Becker, Jasper (1998) Hungry Ghosts : Mao's Secret Famine. Owl Books. ISBN 0805056688.
Conquest, Robert (1991) The Great Terror: A Reassessment. Oxford University Press ISBN 0195071328.
Conquest, Robert (1987) The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivization and the Terror-Famine. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195051807.
Courtois,Stephane; Werth, Nicolas; Panne, Jean-Louis; Paczkowski, Andrzej; Bartosek, Karel; Margolin, Jean-Louis & Kramer, Mark (1999). The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression. Harvard University Press. ISBN 0674076087.
Hamilton-Merritt, Jane (1999) Tragic Mountains: The Hmong, the Americans, and the Secret Wars for Laos, 1942-1992 Indiana University Press. ISBN 0253207568.
Jackson, Karl D. (1992) Cambodia, 1975–1978 Princeton University Press ISBN 069102541X.
Kakar, M. Hassan (1997)Afghanistan: The Soviet Invasion and the Afghan Response, 1979-1982 University of California Press. ISBN 0520208935.
Khlevniuk, Oleg & Kozlov, Vladimir (2004) The History of the Gulag : From Collectivization to the Great Terror (Annals of Communism Series) Yale University Pres. ISBN 0300092849.
Natsios, Andrew S. (2002) The Great North Korean Famine. Institute of Peace Press. ISBN 1929223331.
Nghia M. Vo (2004) The Bamboo Gulag: Political Imprisonment in Communist Vietnam McFarland & Company ISBN 0786417145.
Pipes, Richard (1995) Russia Under the Bolshevik Regime. Vintage. ISBN 0679761845.
Rummel, R.J. (1997). Death by Government. Transaction Publishers. ISBN 1560009276.
Rummel, R.J. (1996). Lethal Politics: Soviet Genocide and Mass Murder Since 1917. Transaction Publishers ISBN 1560008873.
Rummel, R.J. & Rummel, Rudolph J. (1999). Statistics of Democide: Genocide and Mass Murder Since 1900. Lit Verlag ISBN 3825840107.
Todorov, Tzvetan & Zaretsky, Robert (1999). Voices from the Gulag: Life and Death in Communist Bulgaria. Pennsylvania State University Press. ISBN 0271019611
Yakovlev, Alexander (2004). A Century of Violence in Soviet Russia. Yale University Press. ISBN 0300103220.