In 1918, the Bolshevik Party consolidated power over the newly established Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic. In 1949, the communist party of China,the victors of a generation-spanning civil war, seized power under the facade of a coalition government. Both of these events birthed their own accompanying ideologies, Marxism-Leninism and Maoism respectively. Over the next 40 years, these ideologies would be adopted by governments covering the width and breadth of the third world, From Central America, to Sub Saharan Africa to Indochina. But in their export form, these ideologies took on a remarkably different flavor. While the regimes in Havana, Hanoi, Luanda and Phenom Phen derived their legitimacy from the accompanying ideal of a classless communist society, those in Tripoli, Addis Ababa, Harare, Kabul and Ulan Bator took their credibility from the advances of their patron states in Moscow and Beijing. Simply put, while the former states were communist in theory, the latter were communist in practice.
The reasons for this are simple. The states which identified with internationalist Marxist romanticism, the struggle of the proletariat, the (purely hypothetical) dismantling of the state and the establishment of true communism were brought into existence by idealistic revolutionaries who sincerely believed in the earth shaking potential of Marxism Leninism as a vehicle by which to achieve these ends.
By contrast, the latter states saw their Marxist-Leninist political systems installed by forces operating from within the government, often those in the armed forces. These regimes were established, not in order to facilitate worldwide proletarian revolution, but as a fusion of Marxism Leninism with post colonial third world nationalism. We can refer to this as "Nasserism-Leninism".
The leaders of these movements had seen the mobilization of labor as an integral part of Marxism Leninism and considered this to be the best way to build up their countries, with the added bonus that superficial adherence to said ideology ensure that aid packages and skilled workers would be provided by the USSR and Warsaw Pact states. Concessions had to be made where cultural issues, religion in particular, were concerned but the regimes in question were able to reconcile their status as a subordinate of the soviet union with national pride.
Now its your turn to participate. Is Marxism-Leninism, as a vehicle for national development, a valid ideology within the communist framework? Discuss
Thursday, November 5, 2009
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