Distinctions

It is important to lay out some distinctions about Marxism. Marxism is a revolutionary theory, meaning that it is not a political ideology that should be exercised in governments. Yes I know that it is commonly held that the Communist Manifesto was written as the handbook for implementing Communism. However a reading of the Manifesto will reveal that in fact it is a simple summation of what is meant by; Communism, who the bourgeoisie and proletarian are, what the current situation of Capitalism is and what is the Communist party's role in History.

Communism is not something that can be forced on society. Forcing Communism ignores the basic structure of humanity, it would be a top down approach with the superstructure forcing change in economy, not change in the economy bringing change to the superstructure. Impatience and want to force the Revolution can be seen as the major failing of all so-called Communist governments but, although communistic governments failed to heed one of the basic tenets of Marxism they furthered the evolution of the theory into practice. Lenin was perhaps the first to recognize this disconnect with Marxist theory. To make sense of creating a Communist government, Lenin latched onto the idea of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. When the opportunity to overthrow a capitalist-bourgeois government is presented a Dictatorship of Proletariat should arise, take control of the means of production and enter the stage of socialism. Here is the philosophical genius of Lenin, the distinction between socialism and communism. Lenin defined socialism as the historical stage of transition between capitalism and communism, it occurs fully in the period of capitalism but prepares for the transition to communism. In this way Lenin avoided contradicting Marxism.

Communism has thus never existed nor should it within the Historical Now. Socialism can act a sort of place holder for the proletariat till the end of History and the Revolution but it should never be confused with communism.

To those who would point the collapse of the Soviet Union and the opening of China to capitalism as the failure of socialism, showing its inability to serve the proletariat and to function as a stable government, I would say this is ignorance of the facts and unwillingness to comprehend historical factors. On the surface yes, socialism failed but, was the Soviet Union and China's interpretation of socialism the only acceptable one... no. It is a generalization and oversimplification of socialism to claim that the USSR and China were the only countries able to define socialism. There is a political spectrum among the capitalist countries of the world and so by extension there is a political spectrum among socialist countries. The fall of the USSR, more appropriately, showed the inability of the political right within socialism to continue to evolve and change. One needs only to look at history to understand that forces of change eventually overcome reactionists. The opening of China is instead an attempt to preserve socialism not its death. China unlike the USSR is trying to evolve socialism parallel to the evolutions in capitalism thus preserving it, however China is still dominated by a conservative and right-wing approach to socialism.