Hey guys, this post is my simplified take to a system that is anything but simple. (Check out my Nazism simplified post as well if you haven’t already.)
Today is February 1st and in Bulgaria is commemorated as the “Remembrance of the Victims of the Communist Regime”. This date marks the 1945 execution of some great people—including ministers, politicians, and intellectuals—by the “People’s Court”. The so-called “people’s tribunals” handed down more than 10,000 verdicts and of those condemned, 2,600 were sentenced to death, while over 200 others were executed before any formal trial could take place. Thousands more were killed without charges or judgments and buried in unmarked graves, their deaths never officially recorded. This is the trip down memory lane for today. Now let’s talk communism.
Communism is the only political ideology that can make an entire room nod thoughtfully while secretly thinking, “Yes, but who’s doing the dishes?” I will tell you – nobody ever wants to do the dishes. I know I don’t want to. Do you? Because if everyone gets paid the same, I might suddenly discover a deep spiritual calling to not work very hard. Or maybe not do them dishes, anyway. Maybe we can just leave them.
On paper, communism has always been elegant. Beautiful even. Dreamy. Lovely. Idealistic. I can keep going with the adjectives. Everyone owns everything, work is shared, needs are met, and society is like one big family. But you know how it is …. there is always this one relative that you don’t want to sit next to on Christmas. Or, for example, your sister is just mean, calls you names and “borrows” your clothes without asking. Families are sometimes like that and worse. But anyways such a great theory, right? To be one big family even with that one neighbor you absolutely detest. Also, no billionaires, no starving artists, no landlords explaining market demand while raising rent. But as it often happens in life, if something sounds too good to be true …. it probably isn’t.
Communism also assumes an impressive level of trust. History has shown us that trust is … optimistic. Trust that power will be used responsibly. Trust that the guy in charge won’t decide he needs to give his 5th cousin, uncle, or his whatever, a piece of that power because he can, or decide to unalive thousands (millions) because they are inconvenient or worse – they have suggested that this isn’t working. Well, this is unfortunate because the system has already decided that suggesting things is a form of betrayal.
There is this recurring hope – that people can be fair, generous, and cooperative at a massive scale. Problem is, they can’t often do it in a group of two, let alone in a group of … everyone. Can you read that sentence again, please. Communism relies heavily on the assumption that humans are great, free from greed and will joyfully do hard labour because it is nice. Wait, what? Excuse me?! Since when have the words “labor” and “great” were last used in the same sentence? Can’t recall. This is adorable though. Wishful thinking. Who wakes up, stretches, and says, “Ah yes, today I will mine coal for the vibes.” Honestly, talk to someone. Seek professional assistance. You might be out-of-your-mind or just down with fever. I mean, working is admirable, sure, and being lazy is a sin but please go find a hobby. Might even turn out to be better than coal mining.
At its core, communism says: no private property, no class divisions, and everyone works for the common good. It’s basically society saying, “What if we made the entire planet work on one big group project together?” In theory, people in that group project should be supportive and productive. In reality, someone is always yelling, someone is lurking without contributing, someone never replies, while another is the group favorite who does the work and of course, one person somehow becomes the project leader forever.
But I thought it was supposed to be a group project????????? Yeah, me too, buddy. Me too. Souds familiar, right? We have all met the chatty one, the ghost, the overachiever, and the accidental boss who just NEVER leaves. Yes, if the planet were one big group project, it would be a lesson in disappointment. Can’t we say the same about communism? I know I can say it about group projects with students.
Think about it. All production is centralized. This is efficient because instead of millions of people making small decisions, three guys in a room make one huge wrong decision together.
Communism also promises equality, which sounds great until you realize equality means everyone gets the same shoes—even if no one asked for size EU 38 plain black boots and the factory only makes size EU 38 plain black boots now. Want variety? Too bad. Variety is suspicious. Variety leads to jazz, and jazz leads to New Orleans. New Orleans leads us to America, America leads to freedom (my mind works in mysterious ways sometimes). Aaaaand freedom can make a mess out of certain regimes, so not advisable. Do not recommend. 1 star.
Also, private property is gone! Your house is our house. Your toothbrush is our toothbrush. Your emotional boundaries are bourgeois nonsense. Sharing is caring, and caring is mandatory. Am I making sense?
Still, communism has nice vibes. Just admit it already. There is no shame in that. No billionaires. No landlords. No one explaining crypto at a party. Just collective effort, shared rewards, and the eternal hope that this time nobody will try to hack the Wi-Fi password and declare themselves High Priest of Connectivity or seize the remote at a party and become Supreme Screen Coordinator. That would be me by the way …. sorry not sorry.
In the end, we might say that communism is less a political system and more a personality type: idealistic, earnest, slightly naïve, and forever convinced that next time, the group project will go differently. FYI, it does not. Read that again.
When humans finally become enlightened beings who share, are kind, nice, cooperate ……. we can maybe put the project to test again. Until that happens, just sit down, relax and be a NICE, DECENT human being. Thanks.
I said that
To sum it up, remember:
People are equal under communism. This means:
- Everyone gets the same salary
- Everyone gets the same furniture
- Everyone gets the same haircut
- Some people mysteriously get more power, but that’s just coincidence and also stop asking
When shortages occur (they will), the explanation is simple: external enemies, internal enemies, imaginary enemies, or you personally. Yeah, you.
Enrichment for my students
The word communism, coined in Paris in the 1840s, refers to three related but distinct phenomena: an ideal, a program, and a regime set up to realize the ideal. The ideal is one of full social equality (that in its most extreme form calls for the dissolution of the individual in the community.) The program dates back to middle of XIX century and it is mostly associated with the names of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. They wrote that “the theory of the Communists may be summed up in a single sentence: Abolition of private property.” The founder of the regime was Vladimir Lenin and implemented in Russia between 1917 and 1991.
If you really want to understand communism and read a good book at the same time – check out Richard Pipes (Professor at Harvard) and his “Communism: A History of the Inellectual and political movement”. It is ONLY 160 pages but these are (both subjectively and objectively) the greatest 160 pages on this topic.
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