Communism

by Alfred G. Meyer

Concise primer on communism discusses its origins in Marxism and Leninism and examines such recent developments as the Sino-Soviet split

Genres: History, Nonfiction

195 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1960

Reviews

[Jamie Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

I borrowed this book from the Open Library (https://openlibrary.org/) because it was first published in 1960 and I thought it might be interesting to read the fevered arguments of that Red-baiting era. I was surprised to find that Alfred Meyer had written a scrupulously fair and thoughtful examination of Marxism-Leninism in theory and practice.

The first two chapters are particularly good. Chapter One covers Marxist thought from 1848-1914 as it was developed by and then evolved far away from Marx (toward the end of his life he said that he no longer considered himself a Marxist at all). The second chapter examines how Lenin adapted Marx in the years leading up to 1917. In an excellent summary of Bolshevism, it explains how the party saw itself; how it was structured; how it intended to mobilize the proletariat; its acceptance of violence and terror as necessary tools; and its short, intermediate, and long term goals. This understanding is particularly useful because it provides a baseline with which to contrast communism’s theoretical approach to revolution and government against how events actually unfolded in the chaos of civil war and the subsequent brutal consolidation of power.

Meyer makes an interesting analogy of communism to religion, and specifically puritanism.

In both puritanism and communism we have, I think, cases of liberational movements gone sour and pessimistic, movements that therefore are marked by strange ambivalences in judgment and contradictions in both goals and methods. For both, an intellectual point of departure is the belief in the sovereignty of the autonomous human personality; in one case it is the individual in his direct relationship to God, in the other case it is the proletariat in its crucial role in history. But in both cases serious doubt has arisen. For the puritans, this implied a renewed emphasis on original sin; for the communists beginning with Lenin, the belief that the working class by itself could never attain consciousness. (p. 7)

The vision of the Communist party was one of true believers spreading their system, first by force supported by terror, and finally, after many years, active or passive acceptance by a population that did not know or remember any other type of government. The Communists were astute enough to realize that most people could never be argued into accepting communism, of giving up all that they owned and all their freedoms in exchange for some ill-defined far off possible better future. If they could not be led they must be driven to Communism, and the party was to be the vanguard of change.

The composite picture of the Leninist or communist, as Lenin himself visualized him, is that of a radical, revolutionary Marxist imbued with loathing for capitalism and yearning for socialism, and in a hurry to attain his goal; ruthless in his methods and opportunistic (Lenin would have said flexible) in his strategies; absolutely loyal to his party and its leaders, and filled with holy intolerance of any ideas or even facts that might shake his loyalty; intolerant also of any political leader, especially one calling himself a socialist, or communist, not in total agreement with the party; and ever eager to deepen his own consciousness, yet disciplined and obedient as a party servant. (p. 51)

There is an interesting discussion of Russia as the seedbed of worldwide communism. Marx and Engels believed the revolution would and must start in the industrialized societies where the proletariat could rise up and take control of the means of production. Russia was a poor agricultural society of mostly peasants, hardly a good starting point for a wholesale change to the world order. Lenin’s strategy for imposing Communism on such a society was viewed with alarm and suspicion by revolutionaries in the West. “Many of the daring schemes constituting the Russian communist program were so bold a departure from the original Marxist scheme that many other Marxist theoreticians looked upon Lenin’s party as a group of unprincipled adventurers lusting for power regardless of the consequences.” (p. 37)

Similarly, Stalin’s reinterpretation of Maxist-Leninist theory shocked traditionalist communists. The purges in the 1930s were not just a means for him to consolidate power and eliminate rivals, while casting blame for his own bad decisions onto “saboteurs” and “wreckers.” He also used them to eliminate anyone who had different views of how communism should be implemented.

Most historians, finally, would point out that the cultural counter-revolution, the thorough bureaucratization of Russia, the decided turn away from revolutionary endeavors, and the entire trend of development in Soviet politics under Stalin’s rule could not have been carried out successfully as long as the old bolsheviks were still alive who had helped make the revolution, who had been raised in a spirit of utopian radicalism and Marxist critique, and who would not have found it possible to adjust to Stalinist society without continually rebelling against it. The revolutionary generation, perhaps, was unfit for life in the society which the revolution had created. (p. 83)

Communist theory was henceforth to be accepted as unquestioned dogma, a situation complicated by the fact that it changed regularly. Reading about it reminded me of the Papal Bull of Nicholas III in 1280, quoted in Will Durant’s Age of Faith, “We prohibit all laymen to discuss matters of the Catholic faith; if anyone does so he shall be excommunicated.” Being a communist was dangerous in communist Russia unless you were a Stalinist Communist, and the absurdities of Orwell’s Animal Farm were not far off the mark.

The regime that emerged in the mid-1930’s seems to have come to the conclusion that the yearning for such a society, for the institution and processes depicted in Lenin’s The State and Revolution, would never, or not for a very long time, be satisfied, and that the yearning itself, therefore, was disturbing and disruptive. So it became subversive to talk about or ask for the withering away of the state, the disappearance of oppressive institutions and social or economic inequality. At the same time, Marxist doctrines or words were twisted in such a fashion as to create the impression that a major portion of the dreams of Marx and Engels had indeed come true. Socialism had been achieved. The class struggle had been abolished. The Soviet people were a happy people. (p. 85)

Citizens were encouraged to read communist theory, but were allowed to do so only in expurgated and sometimes altered versions, which supported the current party line and eliminated any embarrassing facts. “Revisionism, so-called, is dangerous to the party because any reinterpretation of Soviet dogmas might cause any number of Soviet intellectuals to pay renewed attention to certain elements of original Marxism which the party regards as inconvenient [such as] Marxism as a liberational system of ideas. Again and again Marx stressed his absolute opposition to all social systems in which man is abused, dominated, exploited, or humiliated by his fellow men.” (p. 130)

Stalin’s changes would form the structure for communism until its end. “Communist societies can be defined as modern bureaucracies writ large – ie., societies in which the managerial forms and pattern characterizing business corporations, public institutions, army posts and battle ships, large governmental agencies, and the like are extended to the management of the entire society.” (p. 120) Terry Gilliam’s 1985 movie Brazil was a brilliant dark comedic take on soul crushing bureaucratization in the communist style

By the time this book was published the Soviet Union had, nevertheless, made great strides militarily, industrially, and scientifically, having recovered from the devastation of the Second World War and able to challenge the West in many areas. The author was sympathetic to its successes and reminded readers that “Soviet Russia has attempted to do in one generation what America has been doing for the last 150 years, and because the cultural level from which most of Russia started was even more remote from the way of life on the atomic age than was the society of Jefferson or Jackson. Lenin, for one, was aware of the magnitude and rapidity of the transformation he wished to bring about and fittingly called it a cultural revolution.” (p. 109)

Meyer also saw communism as a permanent fixture, one which the rest of the world would need to accommodate itself to. He could not imagine that communism would one day collapse or morph, as in China, into totalitarianism capitalism, although very few people of his day thought so either. He ends by arguing that the West needed to stop seeing communism as the great bogeyman of civilization, and start learning to deal with it. The alternative would be an annihilating nuclear war. “Some people tended to make monolithic communism responsible for everything we had not planned, had not foreseen, and did not like.” (p. 169)

Meyer examined and dismissed the Domino Theory, and the West would have been better off if its leaders had listened to experts like him instead of the shrill war mongers whose voices carried the day. “Against the domino theory one might argue that in fact North America and Europe contain immensely wealthy and stable communities which will be little affected by the nature of governments in other continents, even if Western actions could always determine the nature of these governments.” (p. 203)

The book ends with a final observation:

to respond to the challenge may require changes in the policy orientation and management of the Western world which the nations of the West are not prepared to undertake. This leaves two alternatives: a conservative resolve to hold the line wherever it can be held, or a militant determination to stamp out all challenges by force. In a revolutionary world, the former is self-defeating, and in the age of fusion devices the latter may be suicidal. Both, moreover, are likely to help destroy constitutional democracy in the West.”(p. 206)

That last sentence hangs heavy with implications for society today.

This is a short book, at only about 220 pages. The Open Library edition is a scan of a printed copy, complete with yellowing pages, but the scan was well executed and presents no problems for the reader. As a good brief introduction to communist thought, my favorite work is still Bertrand Russell’s The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism, but Alfred Meyer’s Communism is an excellent choice written by an expert on the subject, and highly recommended.

[عماد العتيلي · Rating 4 out of 5]

‏

هذا هو الكتاب المتخصص الأول الذي أقرؤه عن الشيوعية.
الجميل فيه أنه محايد (ربما!!) إلى حد بعيد. وهذا ما جعلني أكمله حتى النهاية.

يُعطي الكاتب فيه فكرة وافية جداً عن بداية نشوء الفكرة الإشتراكية ثم الشيوعية. ويُعطي أيضاً مختصراً جيّداً عن أهم أعلام الحركة الشيوعية. إبتداءً من ماركس-أنجلز .. وانتهاءً بِماو تسي تونغ حتى نهاية الخمسينات.
وهذه إحدى الأشياء المؤسفة في الكتاب، أنه تم تأليفه عام ١٩٦٠. لذلك فهو لم يغطي تطورات الحركة الشيوعية بعد ستينيات القرن المنصرم.

‏

المهم في الأمر أنني لم أستطع أثناء قراءتي لهذا الكتاب الهامّ، أن أتوقف عن التفكير بالسلطة الدينية وكمية التداخلات والنقاط المشتركة ما بين الحركة الشيوعية والحركة الدينية! فعلى الرغم من التضادّ الواضح والصارخ بينهماً، إلا أن القارىء المتمهل يقع في كثير من الأوقات على تشابهات تاريخية كبيرة بينهما.
ربما أكبر تشابه وقعت عليه بين الحركة الشوعية (على المستوى السياسي - التطبيقي) والحركة الدينية السياسية، هو تبنيهما للمبدأ الميكافيللي "الغاية تبرر الوسيلة" ثم محاولة تكميم الأفواه والاستفراد بالرأي والحكم عندما تتحقق الغاية.
أعتقد أن الشواهد كثيرة على هذا الأمر تاريخياً في كلا الحركتين (وربما في أي حركة سياسية، دينية كانت أو شيوعية .. أو غيرها!!).

بعد قراءتي لهذا الكتاب، خطر في ذهني تساؤل هامّ:
‏أيكون مبدأ "الغاية تبرر الوسيلة" في حقيقته مبدأً بشرياً؟
بمعنى أنه قانون طبيعي لا بد أن نخضع له، بإرادتنا او بدونها، كبشر؟
ربما تكون هذه الطبيعة ناشئة عن أصلنا التطوري، والقاعدة الكبرى "البقاء للأصلح"!

لا بدّ أن أبحث في هذا الموضوع أكثر.

[Amal Omer · Rating 3 out of 5]

definitely more boring than i thought it would be. had moments where i learned a lot but pretty much exclusively regarding terminology and differences between marxism, Leninism, and communism specifically across different nations (the nation comparison was cool to read!)

other than that probably wouldn’t recommend. def not an intro to communism, probably more confusing than helpful for someone looking to start understanding communist theories.

jargon-y as heck which is boo

[Pawpaw · Rating 3 out of 5]

A decent introduction to communism by an obviously West/Capitalist leaning author. Note, it focuses heavily on the USSR/Russia. Covers 1900-1960. Lenin, Stalin, a little Krushchev.