Marxists argue that religion promises us happiness, but this is an illusion hiding the truth; true happiness can only be found in a revolution. Finally, early capitalists used religion as a means of keeping their workers sober and willing to work. However, Marxism can be criticised as religion is no longer used to justify the status of powerful leaders, for example PMs and Monarchs. Also, Marxism ignores secularisation and it can be argued that religion is not a conservative force as it can cause social change. A
One of the ways how Stalin defeated the left side of the party was to make an alliance with Bukharin. This ended with Trotsky, Zinoviev and Kamenev losing their power bases. This gave Stalin a lot more power and meant there was no real threat left. I know from my own knowledge that Trotsky formed the alliance with Zinoviev and Kamenev because Stalin was a big threat. Stalin was more popular because of Trotsky’s “political paralysis” he couldn’t be a good public speaker.
In 1917, Russia became a communist country with an agenda of converting the world to communism. The United States, however, was a capitalist country, and was against turning communist, and the two superpowers have had a shaky stalemate ever since. Even with the development of nuclear weapons, they have both known that if either of them were to fire them, the other would have to retaliate, resulting in catastrophic destruction on a continental, if not global scale. Communism is basically the belief that the government should be in control of everything, and Capitalism is the complete opposite, with the belief that the country’s trade and industry should be controlled by their own respective owners for private profit. 3.
There would be a much greater chance of success for communism, if the location/environment was smaller and consisted solely of those in complete non-forceful compliance. The novel "The Hunger Games", by Suzanne Collins shows the negative effects of a society's attempt at Marxism through the downfall from human nature, corruption of the government, and the incapability to control a large nation. On paper, Marxism seems as if it is a full proof plan; if that is so, then why hasn't the world come to embrace Karl Marx's theory? Human Nature is the answer. Studies have proven that it is one's human nature to think, be, and act selfishly - always putting oneself before others.
The workers of the world had to be “liberated” from bourgeois exploitation. As the principle communist nation of the world, Russia had a duty to spread the revolution begun in 1919 to the rest of Europe. The view of many Marxist scholars was that the proletariat had been brainwashed by the rich, and thus were not capable of instigating a workers’ revolution themselves – therefore Communism had to be introduced by force. Stalin realised that the Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe was a rare opportunity for Russia to act as this vanguard. Perhaps less importantly, though still a significant point in the domination of Eastern Europe, was the desire of Stalin to
The Red Scare was a period in which many Americans feared that communism would thrive, and the capitalist system in the United States would be threatened. (1947-1957) 2. This was a fragile time for Americans, having just ended one war, and then thrusting into a new one. The fear of Communism has always somewhat paralyzed Americans, except this second Red Scare was particularly fueled by Senator Joseph McCarthy. B. McCarthy’s reasons for his accusations were that he had proof that citizens of the U.S. were in fact members of the Communist party.
The Soviet Union was structured to the tastes of the leader at the helm, and so served his interests. The policies in place served not to improve the economic, social or economic fortunes of the entire nation but to concur with the ideological leanings of the leader in office. So was the case with communism. Despite this production model failing utterly to satisfy the basic demands of the ordinary Soviet citizen, it remained in place. They thought a departure from this model would signify a Soviet surrender to the Capitalist West in the ideological war.
Their basic altitudes towards the democracy and nonviolence conflict with each other. King’s own account of his philosophy of nonviolence indicated the extent to which he was influenced by Thoreau’s theoretical framework for thinking about civil disobedience and political obligation. Thoreau has confidence in democracy and the belief of unifying individuals of the society to realize it. However, Nietzsche overtly objected to democratic politics, with thinking that love, freedom and democracy are all the results of recognizing the right. Although democratic practices were on the way in the capitalist countries, he asserted that democratic politics possessed no advancement.
The reason why socialism, in fact, didn’t work was because it disregards encouragement. People tend to act with encouragement, whether in a positive or negative way. The ending effects leading to the downfall of socialism made the citizens poor. Though there was some individual freedom, the government still controlled everything. The government also took over the press and the media with its heavily influenced use of propaganda.
Until that point, he had been a Menshevik, and although both parties were socialist, they differed largely in their views of how power should be achieved. This divide of ideology was not aided by Lenin’s opinion (as claimed in source 48), that Lenin “regards only himself as a socialist”, and that “whoever opposes him is condemned by him”. This would clearly have a large impact on the view of other members, due to Lenin supposedly writing and enforcing many of the doctrines of the party. However, the validity of the source may be doubted, due to its author bearing a personal grudge against Lenin, claiming his methods were “surgical”, instead of socialist. The source was also written several years prior to Trotsky’s joining, so viewpoints may have altered during that period of time.