An inhuman political system destined to fail — Ching Cheong
NOV 25 — My last overseas assignment took me back to eastern Europe for the 20th anniversary of the 1989 revolution, which precipitated the demise of communism on the continent.
I outline here my understanding of why communism collapsed, using my findings from this trip as well as my observation of communism over the past 35 years.
The interplay of four factors sounded the death knell for the communist system.
Politically, communism was inhuman.
As an economic system, it was inefficient.
An inhuman and inefficient system set in motion centrifugal forces leading to social instability.
Unstable societies became vulnerable to external challenges.
If these four factors were quantifiable, their respective weightage in the demise of communism, I reckon, would be 40, 30, 20 and 10 per cent, respectively.
Political repression, the hallmark of communism, is the single most important factor that caused its collapse in Eastern Europe.
This factor was highlighted in exhibitions in former East European communist countries to mark the 1989 Revolution.
As the Council of Europe so aptly put it in a 2006 resolution condemning the “crime of communism”: “All communist regimes have been, without exception, characterised by massive violations of human rights.”
These included individual and collective assassinations and executions, imprisoning people in concentration camps, starving and deporting them, torturing dissidents, the use of slave labour, persecuting groups on ethnic or religious grounds, suppressing individual liberties — and a whole litany of other crimes.
“The crimes were justified in the name of the class struggle theory and the principle of dictatorship of the proletariat. The interpretation of both principles legitimised the 'elimination' of people who were considered harmful to the construction of a new society and, as such, enemies of the communist regimes,” the Council of Europe resolution pointed out.
The starkest evidence of this inhuman system was the massive number of deaths it caused.
As Stephane Courtois noted in the “Black Book Of Communism”, from 1917 when the Bolsheviks took power in Russia to 1991 when the Soviet Union collapsed, the total number of unnatural deaths in all communist states amounted to a staggering 94 million. Of this total, China accounted for about 60 million.
Human rights atrocities on such a scale cannot be tolerated and a regime that condones such acts should immediately lose its mandate, legitimacy and raison d'etre.
But political repression might have been tolerated in the name of some grandiose ideal, if not for the economic failures of communism. Communist states were no match for their Western counterparts in producing the goods for the people. Within a space of three decades after World War II, they lagged far behind the West. By the late 1970s, chronic shortages of consumer goods were widespread in Eastern Europe.
In his book, “The Economics Of Shortages”, Hungarian economist Janos Kornai argued that the chronic shortages were the result of systemic flaws.
In a “shortage economy” — a term coined by Kornai — long queues to buy limited amounts of food and other necessities are the order of the day. If the item is sold out, the consumer is faced with two options: buy something that is close to what he wants (“forced substitutions”); or postpone the purchase until the item appears (“forced savings”).
An economic system that fails to satisfy the people's demand for daily necessities and to produce sufficient resources for the government is bound to collapse.
By the mid-1980s, most East European regimes had to depend on Western loans to keep themselves afloat.
Political repression and economic backwardness are prime ingredients for fomenting dissent or separatist sentiments. Anti-government or separatist movements tear apart the social fabric and undermine national stability.
As Adam Roberts wrote in “Civil Resistance In East Europe And The Soviet Revolutions Of 1989-91”: “The death knell of communism was sounded not by nuclear weapons nor by the use of military forces, but by civil resistance.”
And a politically repressive and economically backward society plagued by social instability is ill-equipped to take on external challenges of any kind.
Much has been written about the role of American policy in the downfall of the Soviet empire. Peter Schweizer's book, “Victory: The Reagan Administration's Secret Strategy That Hastened The Collapse of The Soviet Union”, describes how, beginning in 1982, then-US President Ronald Reagan mapped out a systematic strategy to undermine the Soviet Union by attacking its economic and political weaknesses.
The strategy included the use of hard and soft power: the US flexed its military muscle through the Strategic Defence Initiative, or “Star Wars”, and used Radio Free Europe to make anti-communist broadcasts to fan dissent in the Soviet bloc.
Polish-born Pope John Paul II was considered by many to have been instrumental in weakening the Soviet bloc.
Thus, political, economic and social weaknesses rendered the communist system vulnerable to external challenges. Once the rot set in, it was only a matter of time before the Soviet-led Eastern bloc collapsed.
To make sure what Karl Marx called “the spectre of communism” does not haunt Europe again, the European Parliament adopted a resolution in 2006 urging members “to educate all schoolchildren about the disastrous consequences of totalitarian dictatorships”.
To this end, the Prague Declaration of 2008 called for the establishment of an Institute of European Memory and Conscience to serve as both a research institute for totalitarianism studies as well as a pan-European museum and memorial for the victims of totalitarian regimes.
“Societies that neglect the past have no future,” said the declaration.
The people of China deserve an institute of memory and conscience too. — The Straits Times
NOV 25 — My last overseas assignment took me back to eastern Europe for the 20th anniversary of the 1989 revolution, which precipitated the demise of communism on the continent.
I outline here my understanding of why communism collapsed, using my findings from this trip as well as my observation of communism over the past 35 years.
The interplay of four factors sounded the death knell for the communist system.
Politically, communism was inhuman.
As an economic system, it was inefficient.
An inhuman and inefficient system set in motion centrifugal forces leading to social instability.
Unstable societies became vulnerable to external challenges.
If these four factors were quantifiable, their respective weightage in the demise of communism, I reckon, would be 40, 30, 20 and 10 per cent, respectively.
Political repression, the hallmark of communism, is the single most important factor that caused its collapse in Eastern Europe.
This factor was highlighted in exhibitions in former East European communist countries to mark the 1989 Revolution.
As the Council of Europe so aptly put it in a 2006 resolution condemning the “crime of communism”: “All communist regimes have been, without exception, characterised by massive violations of human rights.”
These included individual and collective assassinations and executions, imprisoning people in concentration camps, starving and deporting them, torturing dissidents, the use of slave labour, persecuting groups on ethnic or religious grounds, suppressing individual liberties — and a whole litany of other crimes.
“The crimes were justified in the name of the class struggle theory and the principle of dictatorship of the proletariat. The interpretation of both principles legitimised the 'elimination' of people who were considered harmful to the construction of a new society and, as such, enemies of the communist regimes,” the Council of Europe resolution pointed out.
The starkest evidence of this inhuman system was the massive number of deaths it caused.
As Stephane Courtois noted in the “Black Book Of Communism”, from 1917 when the Bolsheviks took power in Russia to 1991 when the Soviet Union collapsed, the total number of unnatural deaths in all communist states amounted to a staggering 94 million. Of this total, China accounted for about 60 million.
Human rights atrocities on such a scale cannot be tolerated and a regime that condones such acts should immediately lose its mandate, legitimacy and raison d'etre.
But political repression might have been tolerated in the name of some grandiose ideal, if not for the economic failures of communism. Communist states were no match for their Western counterparts in producing the goods for the people. Within a space of three decades after World War II, they lagged far behind the West. By the late 1970s, chronic shortages of consumer goods were widespread in Eastern Europe.
In his book, “The Economics Of Shortages”, Hungarian economist Janos Kornai argued that the chronic shortages were the result of systemic flaws.
In a “shortage economy” — a term coined by Kornai — long queues to buy limited amounts of food and other necessities are the order of the day. If the item is sold out, the consumer is faced with two options: buy something that is close to what he wants (“forced substitutions”); or postpone the purchase until the item appears (“forced savings”).
An economic system that fails to satisfy the people's demand for daily necessities and to produce sufficient resources for the government is bound to collapse.
By the mid-1980s, most East European regimes had to depend on Western loans to keep themselves afloat.
Political repression and economic backwardness are prime ingredients for fomenting dissent or separatist sentiments. Anti-government or separatist movements tear apart the social fabric and undermine national stability.
As Adam Roberts wrote in “Civil Resistance In East Europe And The Soviet Revolutions Of 1989-91”: “The death knell of communism was sounded not by nuclear weapons nor by the use of military forces, but by civil resistance.”
And a politically repressive and economically backward society plagued by social instability is ill-equipped to take on external challenges of any kind.
Much has been written about the role of American policy in the downfall of the Soviet empire. Peter Schweizer's book, “Victory: The Reagan Administration's Secret Strategy That Hastened The Collapse of The Soviet Union”, describes how, beginning in 1982, then-US President Ronald Reagan mapped out a systematic strategy to undermine the Soviet Union by attacking its economic and political weaknesses.
The strategy included the use of hard and soft power: the US flexed its military muscle through the Strategic Defence Initiative, or “Star Wars”, and used Radio Free Europe to make anti-communist broadcasts to fan dissent in the Soviet bloc.
Polish-born Pope John Paul II was considered by many to have been instrumental in weakening the Soviet bloc.
Thus, political, economic and social weaknesses rendered the communist system vulnerable to external challenges. Once the rot set in, it was only a matter of time before the Soviet-led Eastern bloc collapsed.
To make sure what Karl Marx called “the spectre of communism” does not haunt Europe again, the European Parliament adopted a resolution in 2006 urging members “to educate all schoolchildren about the disastrous consequences of totalitarian dictatorships”.
To this end, the Prague Declaration of 2008 called for the establishment of an Institute of European Memory and Conscience to serve as both a research institute for totalitarianism studies as well as a pan-European museum and memorial for the victims of totalitarian regimes.
“Societies that neglect the past have no future,” said the declaration.
The people of China deserve an institute of memory and conscience too. — The Straits Times
