The Aftermath of Communism

A few excerpts from a piece by Marian L. Tuby:

Twenty years ago, the Berlin Wall came down and with it communist rule in Central Europe. . . . Communism, to use (with an appropriate sense of irony) Leon Trotsky’s words, ended up in “the dustbin of history.”

In spite of its monumental failure to bring social peace and material abundance, socialism is enjoying something of a renaissance. From Venezuela to Bolivia to South Africa, government ministers espouse the supposed virtues of socialism. Even in the West, some policies are taking government intervention in the economy to levels unseen in decades. Given the renewed interest in alternatives to capitalism, it is perhaps appropriate to recall the last time that socialism was tried with real gusto.

Few recall communist rule in Eastern Europe in the 1950s—the height of its glory. The fog of time shrouds painful memories of firing squads and forced labor camps. However, I am old enough to remember communism on its last leg—communism that no longer had the confidence to pull the trigger, but still had the strength to lock the door of a prison cell. . . .

Shortages, some Americans will recall from the 1984 Robin Williams movie “Moscow on the Hudson,” were an everyday reality in the Soviet bloc. . . . .

Of course, shops can be filled with goods, roads can be rebuilt, and houses renovated. The psychological scars of communism take much longer to heal. . . .

As the Austrian philosopher Friedrich von Hayek explained in his 1944 classic, The Road to Serfdom, central planning leads to massive inefficiencies and long queues outside empty shops. . . As there can be no agreement on a single plan in a free society, the centralization of economic decision-making has to be accompanied by centralization of political power in the hands of a small elite. When, in the end, the failure of central planning becomes undeniable, totalitarian regimes tend to silence the dissenters—sometimes through mass murder.

Some 100 million people have died in the pursuit of a communist utopia. Eliminating profit and private property was meant to end social ills, such as inequality, racism, and sexism. But the closer a society got to Marxism — whether it was half-hearted attempt as in Hungary or a whole-hearted attempt as in Cambodia—the bloodier the result. Survival in a communist society necessitated lies, theft, and betrayal. Thus, as the former Czech President Vaclav Havel wrote, most people in the former Soviet bloc grew up without a moral compass. These morally compromised survivors of communism find it difficult to reflect on the past and to come to terms with it. . .

Important things to think about.