The Pre-emptive Destructiveness of Marxism-Communism.

[No Bull Savage]

When surveying the history of communism, we focus on what communists
did to pre-existing capitalists–the businessmen, entrepreneurs,
bankers, landowners, and other members of the propertied class. Some
intellectuals will, even today, find justifications for what
communists did, but few still believe that communism is a viable
economic system. Therefore, majority of thinkers, even on the left,
agree that communists did much harm by destroying the capitalist class
and the institution of private property. But, this criticism of
communism doesn’t go far nor deep enough. Communism didn’t merely rob
the then-existing capitalists but pre-emptively prevented the
development of future capitalists who could have done so much for the
economy. When Stalin and his henchmen wiped out the ‘kulaks’, they not
only killed off the hard working farmers but destroyed the long term
future of Soviet agriculture. (This is why ‘progressives’ still wax
romantic about Cuban communism. They compare Cuba in the 1970s/80s
with Cuba in the 1940s and 1050s, and shout ‘look at the progress!’
They never compare communist Cuba in the 1970s/80s with what Cuba
would have been in the 1970s/80s had it remained free.) Unless we
recognize this, we cannot fully understand why formerly communist
nations haven’t done well following the fall of communism. In the
Soviet Union, for example, communism had lasted for over 70 yrs.
Communist destruction of capitalists wasn’t just a one-time thing–in
order to establish a new regime–but a concerted effort to root them
out entirely generation after generation. (As an analogy, consider
having to destroy entire towns to win a war. It’s terrible but
necessary for victory. Once your side wins, you allow the defeated
side to rebuild their cities. Now, imagine another scenario where your
side not only destroys towns to win the war but believes that
destruction of towns in and of itself is good. So, even after winning
the war, you destroy more towns and don’t allow them to be rebuilt.
That was the communist approach to capitalism. Of course, it wasn’t as
if communists wanted to destroy the economy itself, and indeed they
had an alternative or counter-theory of economics which was supposed
to work better than capitalism. But, as things played out, only
capitalism could build and maintain a modern economy that liberated
than enslaved man.) Several generations in the Soviet Union grew up
knowing nothing of freedom or capitalism. They understood neither big
business nor small business.
The only socio-economic model they understood was top-down statist
totalitarianism. Despite the inefficiency and wastefulness of the
Soviet economy, it was extensive, powerful, and penetrated into the
life of every person. This fact needs to understood and reiterated
over and over if we are to understand why ‘capitalism’ has been a
catastrophic failure in Russia after the fall of communism.
Imagine if all capitalists in America had their property taken away by
the totalitarian state. Though robbed of their wealth, they would
still be capitalists. They would still know how capitalism works and
go into business again–if given the chance. They would be closet-
capitalists living in a non-capitalist nation. If the totalitarian
system were to fall, they would go right back to the business of
creating wealth, and the nation would economically revive again.
(Indeed, consider Japanese-Americans who’d been robbed of everything
during WWII. Though materially reduced to little or nothing, they
still had the value and knowledge that would help them rise in the
post-war order. Or, consider the West Germans after WWII. Though their
nation was a heap of ruins and most Germans had lost all their
possessions, they still knew how capitalism worked and had solid
business sense. It’s no wonder that West Germany revived so fast. But,
when East Germany was liberated from communism, it was sluggish and
slow to catch up to the West because 50 yrs of communism had sapped
the work ethic of East Germans and robbed them of their business
sense. We can see such on display in the movie “Goodbye Lenin”.) But,
suppose a totalitarian system takes over in America and not only takes
away the wealth of capitalists but kills the capitalists. Suppose this
regime remains in power for 50 to 100 yrs and tries to root out all
capitalist instincts in the hearts of citizens from cradle to grave.
Such system would could be near-fatal for any civilization. Imagine a
system that forbids books but allows the literate to remain literate.
If the system were to fall, the literate could go back to bringing
back book culture. But, suppose a system bans not only books but roots
out literacy itself. It would not only be a war on books but a pre-
emptive war on future literacy itself. Suppose no one understands the
art of reading for 50 or 100 yrs. Even if the system eventually falls
and books are allowed again, there would be no book culture and no
literacy since no one understands or appreciates the importance or
advantage of reading.
So, the failure of capitalism in post-communist Russia was less the
fault of capitalism than of what had become of Russian consciousness
under 70 yrs of communism. It was as though books were allowed again,
but there was no one who could read. Money was allowed once again in
Russia, but no one know how to invest, build, and trade. Therefore,
what developed from this crisis was not true capitalism but Soviet
capitalism or Sovietalism. Again, there was rule by an oligarchy,
concentration of power in the hands of a few, majority of people
looking to the government for solutions and answers than dealing with
problems themselves. Freedom may be an opportunity to a Western or
Asian capitalist, but it was a dangerous drug, obstacle or mystery to
those brought up with communist mentality. Worse, many Russians came
to understand the West through TV imagery. There was this false idea
that the West was rich and powerful because young people listened to
rock music, had long hair, and acted trashy. It was as if Russia would
grow into a rich nation IF Russians imitated the superficial
manifestations of Western(especially American) culture. But, in fact,
no economy could be founded upon poor Russians imitating heavy metal
rock bands, getting tattoos, snorting coke, or acting juvenile. Yes,
the West have long enjoyed hedonistic fun, but that was the gravy than
the real meat of capitalism. Real capitalism means determination, hard
work, commitment, discipline, and lots and lots of energy. The
American Dream was built on American Reality. There was no free lunch
nor short cut. (Sadly, this is a truth forgotten by many Americans in
the post-work-ethic era, one where entitlementality is affecting ever
greater numbers of people, especially as they’ve been taught by
‘progressives’ that (1) they must take care of others (2) government
must take care of them. Also, the mindless hedonistic consumer culture
since the 60s has directed generations of kids toward whatever offers
immediate gratification.)
Capitalism is like a car. You have to be willing to learn how to
drive, have respect for the law, stay sober while driving, and pay
attention to other drivers/road signs/traffic signals, and be equipped
with good maps. Giving a car to a lazy, drunken, irresponsible,
clueless, and reckless buffoon can end up doing more harm than good.
In a way, Boris Yeltsin was a drunken fool who didn’t know how to
drive the newly capitalist Russian economy of the 90s. He drove it
into the ditch. Putin is like a sober son who has observed what his
father had done, and so, he’s been careful to curtail the freedom of
who gets to drive and how and why. But, Putin hasn’t solved the main
problem of Russian character which is a crazy mix of boorishness and
grey authoritarianism. Russians can be very wild or very tyrannical/
submissive. They haven’t figured out the balance between order and
chaos that is so crucial to democracy and capitalism. Russia doesn’t
have ‘creative destruction’ but constrictive destruction.


It’s amusing to see leftists point to Russia in the 90s and blame its
failures on capitalism when the real culprit was 70 yrs of communism
which destroyed the entrepreneurial spirit in that country. Plants
grow on fertile soil, and fertile soil of capitalism is the
enterprising spirit of individualism. But, such consciousness never
developed in Russia as a result of 70 yrs of communism. The Russian
soul by the early 90s was arid and depleted of the qualities and
values that nourish the growth of capitalism. The capitalist seeds in
the Russian soil/soul couldn’t grow due the poor quality of the
latter. (The problem was not with the seeds). So, instead of
capitalist growth, we only saw ‘capitalist’ robbery. The so-called
oligarches–former communist bosses–used their connections and trickery
to appropriate the big national industries of the Soviet Union. There
was little else to grab since mid-sized and small businesses had
barely existed in the USSR. The big guys grabbed the big state
industries. That was the extent of Russian ‘capitalism’ in the 90s. It
was more like piracy or confiscation than investment and development.
Even so, individual Russians from all walks of life could have built
up small businesses and then expanded them up into mid-sized businesses
(which then could be made even bigger) IF they had an entrepreneurial
consciousness. But, few Russians possessed that kind of business
spirit. Also, Russian banks were corrupt and useless. There was little
law and order to protect businesses from hoodlums and gangsters.


It would be nice if Putin and Medvedev could reverse the current
economic reality in Russia, but that would require fundamentally
changing the way most Russians think about society, work, and
entrepreneurship. The problem is that it’s much harder to teach people
to be free than to teach them to follow orders. Indeed, we are seeing
the same problem in America. Why do majority of Americans prefer Obama
over Ron Paul. Obama says ‘I’ll take care of you’ whereas Paul says,
‘I want you to take care of yourself’. Being free in a constructive
way is different than merely being free. In raising their kids,
parents are preparing their kids to be free and independent. But,
freedom and independence are NOT built on freedom and independence.
They must be rooted and founded upon a solid bedrock of values,
respect for laws, sense of priorities, sense of obligations, and
morality. A child who’s given full freedom at the age of 10 will
surely make a mess of things. Good parents incrementally allow more
freedom in proportion to the increase in knowledge and responsibility
among the kids. This is why libertarianism is lacking for it ONLY
emphasizes individual liberty and freedom while saying little or
nothing about values. This is why conservatism must be the foundation
of ALL ideologies. This is also why all ideologies, no matter how
radical, become conservative once they gain power. People must be
governed by shared laws and morals for there to be any social order.
For any social order to exist, most of its values must either be
conservative or conservatized–made to function as the new
‘nationalism’ or new set of shared moral values by all.


It’s easy for a government to establish authoritarianism or allow
freedom. What is difficult is developing social and moral character in
people that will thrive in a free society. Freedom is only as good as
the character of the people who have it–which is why freedom for
Germans and freedom for Jamaicans produce very different results. The
values, morals, habits, characters, and priorities of those peoples
are shockingly different. Libertarianism has worked more or less in a
nation like Holland because the Dutch are a Germanic people with a
long history of discipline, sobriety, and respect for order. Would
Dutch style libertarianism produce Dutch-like results in South Africa
or Zimbabwe? Of course not.
So, what can Russia do to build the kind of character among its people
that can lead to a true economic growth and democratic development?
Russians must look to something other than the cult of freedom, cult
of capital, or cult of the state. It’s really a matter of shaping the
hearts and minds of the people.(The Russian Orthodox Church, though
important as cultural and historical heritage, can’t provide the
answer in the modern era for it has emphasized little other than
slavish devotion to the Official Government–before, during, and after
communism. Also, the Orthodox Church emphasizes the spiritual and
timeless whereas Russians need moral values closely associated with
worldly matters. Protestantism has had an economic advantage over
other sects by emphasizing individual conscience, hard work in This
World, and thrift and long-term investment than ostentatious spending
for the vanity of man or glory of God. Of course, vanity of man and
glory of God often went hand in hand in both the Catholic and Orthodox
world, with rich people erecting beautiful cathedrals reserved for
themselves or wearing expensive jewelry of gold and gemstones in the
shape of crucifixes. We can still see the pattern today, with rich
people supporting Obama and Obama promoting himself through a perverse
combination of socialism and elitism.) How can the Russian
government play a role in creating the kind of people’s consciousness
and heart that uses freedom in a sensible and constructive way?
This is difficult because it’s almost always in the interest of the
state to keep the people as dependent and obedient as possible. Why
would any state want the people to be free on their own, develop their
own economic power base, and even challenge the state? Also, isn’t it
a contradiction to expect the state to exert its power to teach
people to gain more power for themselves?
But, such contradictions are sometimes necessary and inevitable. For
instance, any state that desires lasting peace needs a strong military
to win wars and keep enemies at bay(though the politicians and people
must always be careful not to fall victim to the very thing they’ve
created to serve as their protector.) Paradoxically enough, in a
nation like Russia where most people look to government, only the
government may have the power to set the people free–or shape them to
be free. Indeed, we mustn’t think that setting something free will
inevitably lead to its happiness or welfare. An animal that’s been
caged all its life cannot survive if set free into the wilderness. It
wouldn’t know how to hunt, how to forage for food, how to survive. It
may feel a momentary thrill, but it will soon have to get down to the
business of finding food and shelter and spotting, fending off, or
running from enemies. The story of “Born Free” is heart-wrenching
because Elsa had grown up depending on humans. She was happy but not
free. The owner decided to set her free than send her to a zoo, but
Elsa didn’t know how to be free in the wild. She had to be prepared
and trained to be free. She learn to be free, but even so, died at the
age of 6. Again, freedom isn’t born of freedom but from preparation
and training. Independence grows out of dependence. Masters start out
as students.
Russians were set free into a new free order in the 90s, but none of
them had been prepared for freedom. Worse, during 70 yrs of communism,
most Russians had come to rely on nothing but the state. Prior to
communism, many Russians had connections and links outside the state–
family, tradition, community, church, etc. During communism, the
state was the church, ideology, family, schools, and etc. Russians
were all like caged animals in a zoo or prison. It was a harsh and
repressive system, but it gave you a sense of place and took care of
you if you accepted it as god. You didn’t have much, but you had basic
necessities and a spiritual-ideological pride that you were living in
a ‘workers’paradise’.


Leftists always say that success is a matter of economic background.
In other words, some kids do better in school because their parents
are richer while some kids fail because they come from poor families.
But, if this is true, how does one explain the fact that millions of
Chinese, who’d lived in dirt poor poverty under Mao, became well-to-
do, prosperous, and even very rich after China adopted free market
reforms? How is it that Russian Jews who come to the US with little
wealth end up making more money than average Americans within several
years? If we follow the logic of the left, a nation that is poor
should always remain poor since most people are poor and poor people
are fated to remain poor. If one must have rich parents to succeed in
life, people with poor parents have no chance. But, we know this to be
untrue. So, the truly interesting comparison is between children of
poor parents who succeed and children of poor parents who fail.
Leftists would like to point out that some children of poor parents
succeeded thanks to government help, but, as important as public
education may be, the crucial factor turns out to be cultural values
in which the kids were raised. Almost all successful kids grew up with
respect for knowledge and authority. Kids don’t know anything, and
they need patience, diligence, and respect for authority to learn from
teachesr with knowledge and skill. Of course, only patience and
diligence won’t lead to originality and independence, the engines of
innovation and progress. The problem of Asia has been its lack in the
originality-and-individuality(independence) department though it’s
amply supplied with diligence, patience, and respect for authority.


Anyway, the only true way to assess the damage of communism requires
us to examine not only what communists did to capitalists but how
communists pre-emptively rooted out and forbade the growth of the
entrepreneurial spirit. When one looks at China and Vietnam, one sees
examples of how formerly communist nations made a successful
transition to free market economy driven by work ethic and energy.
But, it must be remembered that China was under hardline communism for
only 30 yrs, and Vietnam(at least the more vibrant South Vietnam) for
only 17 years, before embarking on free market reforms. Russia was
under communist rule for over 70 years which means that, by the time
communism fell, there was barely anyone alive who remembered how
things were like without or operated outside communism. Communism was
the only thing that Russians knew. Russians in the 90s boldly swept
communism aside and embraced freedom but under the harsh and confused
conditions. Imagine a lifelong prisoner who finally smashes the walls
and stands free. He’s finally free, but he no longer has a roof over
his head nor any idea how to build a new shelter with his free hands.
China and Vietnam also were fortunate because several Asian countries
remained capitalist and demonstrated the superiority of the capitalist
economic system. Also, nations or city-states such as Taiwan,
Singapore, Hong Kong, South Korea, and Japan provided China and
Vietnam with a blueprint for economic growth and entering world
trading system. If all of Asia had fallen under communism and if Asian
communism had lasted 70 yrs, perhaps it might have damaged the
entrepreneurial spirit as much as it did in the USSR.