Khrushchev and Communism
by Fig
Email Sent from Ed Jan 26, 2013:
Does this look familiar to our country’s progress since 1959, scary to say the least and it appears to be picking up momentum.
“Who knew how prophetic this was?”
Nikita Khrushchev quote 9/29/1959.
Do you remember when he appeared at the UN and banged his shoe on the table? This was his entire quote:
“Your children’s children will live under communism. You Americans are so gullible. No, you won’t accept Communism outright; but we’ll keep feeding you small doses of Socialism until you will finally wake up and find that you already have Communism. We won’t have to fight you; WE’LL SO WEAKEN YOUR ECONOMY, until you fall like overripe fruit into our hands.”—Nikita Khrushchev, 1959
Ed—Thanks for distributing this.
It’s very timely, coming as it does when our glorious leaders are fighting over different ways to keep our country intact—politically, economically, and socially. Looking at that speech made me recall those days. Do you remember seeing newsreels of the shoe-banging incident? Although there apparently is some doubt as to what he actually said then (About.com, “Urban Legends”), since Khrushchev didn’t speak English (and didn’t give such short speeches, especially at the UN), there’s no doubt in my mind that this article accurately represents his beliefs. I was 25 then (and you were younger), and I remember thinking at the time that Khrushchev must be a clown. I knew that some people considered Communism/Socialism to be our most dangerous enemy, but I concluded that if he was the best leader the USSR could come up with, we had nothing to worry about. Also, I was confident the US would prevail—as we always had. But after reading your article, I decided to fill the gaps in my knowledge of world events during those years. In particular, I wanted to know what gave Khrushchev the confidence to threaten our country. After researching a little I realized that maybe I should have been a little more concerned back then. Here is what I learned.
At its peak, the USSR consisted of 15 Republics, all under central Communist/Socialist control (Britannica On line Encyclopedia, “Union of Soviet Socialist Republics”). In addition there were 23 Communist/Socialist (C/S hereafter) states in the remainder of the world, some of which were satellites of the USSR (About.com, “Geography”) So Khrushchev did have reason to be confident.
But 32 years after that speech the USSR dissolved as a country— 20 years after his death. He never lived to see that C/S was an IMMENSE FAILURE. That failure took down with it one of the two most powerful countries in the world, and the largest empire in the world. After its dissolution, NONE of those 15 Soviet Republics remained C/S states—including Russia itself. Now there are but 5 such states in the world; China, Cuba, Laos, North Korea, and Vietnam. Furthermore, China and Laos, previously staunch proponents of pure C/S, have not been afraid to borrow ideas from Capitalism, having introduced far-reaching market reforms (Wikipedia, “Communist State”, About.com, “Geography”). Therefore, pure C/S failed as a political, economic, and social system not only in the USSR, but also in 20 of the 23 other countries in which it has been tried.
Despite the failure of that huge world-wide experiment, the fear of C/S persists in the minds of many Americans. Unfortunately this persistent fear still affects the judgment of many people our age when thinking about the future of our country. Any serious discussion about our options is quickly limited by the knee-jerk remark, “that’s socialism”. But you and I are old enough to remember the days when our country was at the top of the list in nearly every category of success; its decline from those days hurts. Maybe thinking about the causes of failure of the C/S experiment in governing might actually help us as we try to find ways to restore the greatness of our country.
So what happened to C/S?
Even as Khrushchev was giving his speech, the seeds of destruction of the C/S system were already germinating. The underlying philosophy, “to each according to his need; from each according to his ability”, sounded good enough to the people living under C/S regimes that they were willing to suffer privation to help make the system work. But there was a serious flaw; C/S theory failed to take account of one important aspect of human nature; the desire to improve one’s life beyond the bare necessities, by working harder to accumulate the goods that make life more enjoyable. Most of us have that drive; and in the form of Capitalism it has been highly successful. Unfortunately, there are some who become so good at accumulating wealth, and the power that goes with it, that they can’t quit to enjoy what they have. They continue accumulating well beyond the point where they and their families are guaranteed a bountiful life. Some, possessed by this human drive, are willing to do anything that increases their wealth and power, even to the detriment of fellow citizens and their country. They meet the definition of sociopaths.
This certainly happened in the USSR—Communist Party officials were living extravagantly and making costly mistakes, while the workers were struggling to survive. Khrushchev himself unknowingly moved the USSR closer to dissolution when he denounced Stalin in a 1956 speech. After that the sociopathic greed of the leaders could no longer be hidden from the people, whose complaints could no longer be ignored. The people had had enough, and C/S in the USSR was doomed. So—was Khrushchev a true believer in the Communist system, or was he just another in a long line of greedy sociopaths around the world who figure out ways to convince ordinary people to support them in high style?
In contrast to the philosophy of C/S, Capitalism encourages and rewards that human drive for self-improvement in a competitive, free market. Our form of Capitalism, anchored to Democracy, has been very successful. But, human nature being what it is, greedy sociopaths can be found in any society. It makes no difference what the economic-political system is, the wealthy and powerful will always try to control it for their own benefit. And they make use of our human tendency to respect, even idolize them because of their success. This is not a new idea. Adam Smith, the hero of many proponents of capitalism and the “free market” (Adam Smith, “An Inquiry Into the Nature And Causes Of The Wealth Of Nations” Oxford University Press, 1998, page 157), warned us that there is
“—an order of men, whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the publick, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it.”
For these reasons, even our Democratic-Capitalist society, previously very successful, is suffering from the same sociopathic greed of political and business leaders that tore apart the USSR . “Too big to fail”? I suspect Khrushchev thought so. But I think most of us ordinary people would agree that our government and economy are increasingly under control of the wealthy and powerful.
And the greedy sociopaths among our business and political leaders will have no hesitation in using whatever tools they can to wrest final control from the people. We are rapidly becoming a “government of the people, by the wealthy and powerful, for the wealthy and powerful”.
However, in a democracy the power of the voter has to be dealt with. Successful sociopaths will divert attention of their victims away from their self-indulging goals; and they have many methods at their disposal. One is the use of blame; such as blaming our economic problems on certain members of society (the “takers”, or “the immigrants”). Blame is one of the many ways a people can be divided—a technique Hitler mastered. Whenever a leader makes such divisive statements, we should think about who is being served by those statements. Then there is propaganda—such as the constantly repeated mantra that the immensely wealthy are the “job creators” (Nick Hanauer, “Rich Americans Aren’t The Real Job Creators” The Atlantic, September 27, 2012). Also there is the proudly proclaimed slogan of the wealthy and powerful, that “corporations are people too, my friend”.
Then there is the reliable option of stirring up old fears; for example by labeling any idea that’s counter to the plans of the wealthy and powerful as “SOCIALISM”. In one breath those who so label any move to regulate business will, in the next breath, wring their hands about the extent to which we are in debt to China—a country whose STATE-CONTROLLED capitalism has transformed it into a political and economic powerhouse! Similarly, they can convince the people that “government is the problem, not the solution”. BUT— THE GOVERNMENT IS US—THE PEOPLE. So anything that reduces or weakens the government (“starve it so it can be drowned in a bathtub”) weakens the power of the people to limit the greedy sociopaths.
An even more effective and time-proven trick, one that’s being employed now, is to create or fake a “crisis”— a crisis which can be solved only by instituting drastic measures—measures which just happen to diminish the power of the people, while allowing the wealth and power of the sociopaths to increase. (Naomi Klein, “The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism”, 2007). The current conflict over the “fiscal cliff” is the latest example of the “Shock
Doctrine”.
And if the voters can’t be influenced (controlled), by any of the above techniques, there is always voter suppression. But there is still hope for the idea that we can take back our government. There is one outcome of the 2012 election about which all of us ordinary working people—Republican, Democrat, or Independent; Liberal, Conservative, or Libertarian—should feel good.
Although there was much concern that huge donations (excuse me—“free speech”) would influence voters to support the representatives of the wealthy and powerful— limitless cash failed miserably. It seems that a majority of our fellow citizens—in contrast to some politicians—can’t always be influenced by the wealthy and powerful.
The power of the people to overcome the schemes of the wealthy and powerful has recently been demonstrated in Iceland, where the banks failed because of the same corrupt practices that brought our own economy down. The people of Iceland refused to pay off the bank debts. In a quiet revolution, they brought down the government, took over the banks, and the bankers either
fled the country or are being tried. Iceland is now recovering from those financial crimes; its rebound showing the world that there is “more than one way to recover from a financial meltdown” ( “Fighting Recession the Icelandic Way”, Bloomberg News, Sept 26, 2012, Wikipedia). We have heard very little from our corporate media of the success of the Icelandic people in reclaiming their economy and their government. Suppression of such news serves only the wealthy and powerful!
Meanwhile our leaders, following the wishes of the power brokers, continue to insist that we the people must pay off the debts incurred by the financial sector and two prolonged and costly wars. But there actually are other options. For example, one organization has reported 20 common-sense ways our government can increase income and decrease spending, adding up to $881 Billion per year! (Institute for Policy Studies, “We’re Not Broke”, Dec. 5, 2012) This can be done without making life harder for our fellow citizens!