Angela Hurtado

Humanities

Guerrero

04-03-09

Communism: The Possible Impossible

The Merriam-Webster Online dictionary defines communism as “a theory advocating the elimination of private property”. It’s funny because to me that sounds just like stealing. Image having your home, your car, your family and living a comfortable life only to have that taken by the government. In the movie Doctor Zhivago as the news of civil war broke out and Lenin, the leader of the Soviets was in the capital, an old man says “This Lenin, will he be the new tsar then?” Another man grabs him by the shoulder, looks him straight in the eye, and answers “Listen Daddy, no more tsars, no more masters, only workers in a worker state!” The regular everyday person in Russia was starving and freezing, the people had no where else to turn and Communism itself is not bad. The Russian people turned to the Bolsheviks (or Soviets) to put into action the revolutionary program that was supposed to change their lives. Instead, Lenin and the Bolsheviks applied their own version of revolution. The paper will prove how communism does not take into account a world of imperfect people and will also prove that an unindustrialized Russia was not ready for communism. The paper will also discuss how the Russian people were desperate and therefore Russia was a breeding ground for a working class revolution of some from. During the revolution the power switched from one class to another having absolute power. Then there is a question of why didn’t communism work in Russia? A good case in point was Boris Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago. As shown in Boris Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago, Communism could not live up to its political ideals in Russia.

Karl Marx

Karl Marx is widely considered to be the father of communism even though Marx co-authored the manifest of this political ideology with his friend and colleague, Friedrich Engels. Their works included the Communist Manifesto and Das Kapital. Both pieces of writing inspired the revolutionary thinker and leaders of the Russian Revolution (like Lenin). Karl Marx believed in a classless system of government. Marx was born in 1818 in Prussia. He began his revolutionary thinking when he was at the University of Berlin. After gradation he could not get a teaching job because of his radical views, and so he started writing. His writings got him in trouble due to their revolution idealism and so Marx was forced to flee to France. Not such a bad thing because that is where he met Friedrich Engels and together they wrote many articles and books, like the Communist Manifesto. The Communist Manifesto laid an extreme strategy for altering the government. The Manifesto called for change, that there is no need for government after socialist reeducation, that everyone would have a good life. But after publishing of the Manifesto, Marx could not find a country to live in that welcomed him. Finally he settled in England and began writing again but none of his writing sold, so he was poor. Engels believed so much in Marx and his writing that he took a job in Germany working for his father in order to support Marx. In 1867 Marx published the first volume of Das Kapital. But by the time volume one Das Kapital published, Karl Marx was old and sick. He died in 1883 but before he died he got a lot of work done on volume two and three of Das Kapital. Engels completed and published the last volumes. (Whiting, 17)

If Karl Marx is the father of communism then his children would be his books. There would have been no communism if not for Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto. The Communist Manifesto is broken up into four parts. In the first part, it talks about the Communists' view of history and the relationship between proletarians (working class) and bourgeoisie (exploitative middle class). The next part describes Marx’s view of the relationship between the Communists and the proletarians. The third part talks about the error in past socialist text. The final part talks about the relationship between the Communists and other parties. According to Judith Edwards in her book Lenin and the Russian Revolution in World History: “Karl Marx believed that in a fully equal communist society, people would produce as much food and other necessities as they were able to and would consume only what they needed. The community or state would be in charge of distributing goods to the people” (29). It sounds great but, that is all theory. If this was a world of perfect people who always did the right thing then we would never have crime or theft. The truth of the matter is that the world is full of very imperfect people that will not want to work extraordinarily hard for a very ordinary reward. The other problem with this is that it leaves too much power in the hands of the government and as the common phrase goes, absolute power corrupts absolutely. The point of communism is to make all people equal, “the community or state” (as stated above) will boil down to an elite upper class; the elite would be above the “others” therefore making people unequal and the whole point of communism is a classless society. Communism as a system of governing people is hypocritical in nature and there for unsuitable for any country with imperfect people.

Russia

The history of the Russian Revolution reads like a classic novel about the underprivileged trying to get the upper hand. The Russian Revolution had two main parts. Both of them took place in 1917. The first was the February Revolution. The second part was the October Revolution where Civil War broke out. Reds (Soviets) led by Lenin verses the Whites (Russian Conservatives) (Smele).

When the Revolution broke out, Russia was also fighting in World War I with England and France in order to support Siberia. From 1917 to 1918 Russia was fighting a war on two fronts. The supplies, money and food were running out and leaving nothing for the working class, again (Edwards). In Russia the working class was exploited with no regard for their well being. A Revolution like this had taken place one before in 1905. It took place after the Russians lost the Russo-Japanese War in 1904. The working class, who were already struggling to survive, was taxed heavily in order to compensate for the financial loss of the war. (Clements) Russia was a breeding ground for a working class revolution of some form. Due to the treatment of the people the question of a revolution changed from if a revolution could take place, to when a revolution would take place.

Stroke of Literary Genius

In Boris Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago he describes the life of the main character in revolutionary Russia; in addition to Russia’s challenged political and social limits. As a consequence it was banned in the Soviet Union for thirty years. How could one book have been such a threat? The answer is that the novel really questioned the reality of the communist system as it developed in Russia. In the literary world, this stroke of literary genius broke the mold of the writers of the time by speaking the truth of the author’s experience. Pasternak had lived through the early years of the Soviet system. The novel was defiant in nature and, intended by the author or not, has become a political declaration.

How a country cannot survive, let alone thrive, when the people have nothing and when they do try to have something, they are considered to be criminals? This novel shows cannot be. This is illustrated in the book when Dr. Zhivago says “Our use of the land is illegal. We have taken the law into our own hands, and conceal what we are doing from the state.”(Pasternak, 249). This quote explains that although communism creates a worker’s state for the workers, nothing is truly the workers. All land is the private property of the state. That is the reality of communism. It is in human nature to try to achieve. Not allowing one to achieve, whatever the goal may be, is like asking someone to stop breathing. They can do it for a period of time but not for very long. What the Russian government asked of the people was not fair and so the people themselves were forced to break the law in order to survive. Another example of this in the novel is when Dr. Zhivago writes in his journal “The wood we cut is stolen, it is no excuse that we steal from the state or that the property once belonged to Krueger” (Pasternak, 278). This quote explains that everything is the states

Should Have, Could Have, Would Not Work

The paper has already established that the Russian people were ready for a revolution of some form. So, simply put, why wasn’t communism able to live up to its political ideology? It should have been able to succeed in Russia and it would have been able to if only the country was completely industrialized. When Karl Marx wrote the Communist Manifesto he had written it for countries that were completely industrialized like England. Although Russia had some industrialized components, it was a long way from being completely industrialized. According to Business Day Online “in the case of the Soviet Union when in February 1931, Stalin predicted and warned his people: "We are 50 or 100 years behind the advanced countries. We must make good this lag in 10 years. Either we do it or they crush us." And he drove his people with the proverbial whip and scorpion, and forced them to industrialize at a desperate pace. And Russia industrialized in 10 years flat!” (Chinweizu). Russia did not become industrialized until 1941; twenty four years after the start of the revolution. To ask a country, that had yet to be industrialized, to follow a plan for an industrialized nation is similar to ask an elementary school science team to perform a collegiate level experiment. It could be done but the experiment would probably not go as well as if the same science team had waited until they were in college. The elementary school science team is Russia unindustrialized trying to perform the college level experiment of becoming a classless society. Russia did not meet the entire requirement for a country to become communist. One of the reasons Communism could not live up to its political ideals in Russia was because Russia was unindustrialized.

Conclusion

The idea of Communism is not “bad” or cruel in fact it is very fair. In theory, the concept of providing for all and equality among men is beautiful. While we are all created equal, we are not all the same. We are individuals with infinite diversity. Communism does not take this into account and use diversity as strength. Rather it is viewed as a threat. Additionally, there is always an elite class that rules the masses. Communism sets up a comparably similar socio-economic structure to that which it is supposed to replace or defeat. The theory of communism has exquisite ideals, the problem stems not from its purpose or intent to make all equal; the problem is communism is a theory, a well thought out concept, and nothing more, once variables are added like the stamina of the human spirit, the determination of the mind, the love one feels for their family, the need to find a better life for them and the pride one feels for their country. Any idea about political reform, no matter how well thought out by its knowledgeable author, stands a chance to fail if it doesn’t take these things into account; Communism could not live up to its political ideals because it did not take into account the needs and the diversity of the people it aimed to serve.

Works Cited

Chinweizu “Marcus Garvey and the Black Power movement: Legacies and lessons for

contemporary Black Africa (5)”

Business Day Online13 March, 09

< http://www.businessdayonline.com/olddmp/listdetails.php?recordID=17458 >

Clements, Joe; Corridor, Shawn .ed Encyclopedia of Russian History

Vol.1 New York City, New York:

Macmillan References, 2004.

"Communism" Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. 2009.

Merriam-Webster Online. 7 March 2009
<http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/communism>

Dr Zhivago. David Leal. Turner Entertainment and Time Warner Company,

2001

Edwards Judith. Lenin and the Russian Revolution. Berkley Heights, New Jersey. Enslow

Publishers. Inc 2001

“Karl Marx: the manifesto of the communist party”

8 March 2009 Spark Notes 20 feb.09

<http://www.sparknotes.com/philosphy/marx/section2.rhtml>

Sherrow, Victoria. Life during the Russian Revolution. San Diego, California, Lucent

Books, 1998
Smele, Jonathan “War and Revolution in Russia 1914 - 1921” 2 March, 2009

British Broadcasting Company. 2004-04-28

< http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwone/eastern_front_01.shtml >

“Timeline: Russia”

British Broadcasting Company 2 march 2009

<http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/country_profiles/1113655.stm>

Whitting, Jim. The Russian Revolution 1917. United States. Mitchell Lane Publishers.

Inc, 2008

Angela Hurtado
Guerrero
Humanities
February 25, 2009
Communism: the Possible Impossible
I. Thesis: As shown in Boris Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago communism cannot live up to its political ideals
II. Communism
a. The father of communism: Karl Marx (The Russian revolution, 1917: 17)
i. Das Kapital (9)
ii. Communist manifesto (8)
b. Manifesto
i. Quote from manifesto
ii. Communism ideals
III. The history of the Russian revolution reads like a classic novel about the underprivileged trying to get the upper hand
a. Russia was a breeding ground a working class revolution of some form.
b. Problem is one group having absolute power
IV. In Boris Pasternak’s symbolic autobiography Doctor Zhivago, describes the life of two people with intertwining lives post revolutionary Russia in this time honored tale.
a. The book(once Yuri comes home from the war )
b. Post revolutionary
V. Analysis: why didn’t communism work in Russia
a. Russia was not completely industrialized
b. Manifesto was for industrialized countries
VI. Conclusion
a. Restate thesis

thesis

In Dr. Zhivago the author explores whether or not communism can truely meet its political ideals.

Annotated Biography

Russian Revolution of 1917." World Book Student. 2009. San Diego. 13 Feb. 2009
.

We found this website very helpful because it gave all the information in a way that wasn't unapproachable. It gave detailed information of what happened in Russia like the October revolution, the February revolution and what was happening outside of Russia like World War One. We like that a section of the article was on the aftermath. It was very helpful in understanding the effects of the war.

Research Questions

Dr. Zhivago- Boris Pasternak

Right now I am at page 144 of a 493 page book. so far in the book the plot that has followed two main characters and there lives and how they were effected by it. the unique thing that the plot takes place in war torn Russia during its pre- to post revolution life. The two main characters are Lara Guishar and Yuri Zhivago. Lara, who father had died, moved to a town with her mother and brother. She was about 15 and soon after moving she had an affair with Victor a man who was in his fifties. to break the relationship she runs away and works very hard as a nanny. she works very hard and one day decides to shoot the man that had made her so miserable. she misses and ends up married to Pasha and has a child. Yuri parents both dies and he end up studying to be a doctor and marries to Tonia and had a son. When war breaks out Dr. Zhivago goes to work and Pasha is killed in war so Lara becomes a nurse. They meet in a small town and that's as far as I am right now.

The Russian Revolution is two revolutions in Russia, and the events surrounding them, which led to the switch of the old Tsarist Autocracy to the Soviet Union in 1917. The two revolutions were The October Revolution and The February Revolution.

1. What effect does food and money have on the progression of a revolution?
2. What effect did the Russian revolution have on the different social classes of the time?
3. How did the railroad effect the events leading up to, the revolutions, and after?

FOOD CRISIS

Currently there is a food crisis going on in the world do to the rising cost of food. Although in the US where the average person spends only 10% of there income on food is not affected as much as countries like Haiti where there are riots because people are not able to eat enough food.

I was asked the question that if I lived in Haiti would resort to violence to get food. I think that I would. Normally I am not a violent person and I truly believe that violence is not the best answer but sometimes it is the only answer. In Egypt for example there was a peaceful mach and the police used hoses and other things to control the crowd and that was peaceful march.

So when something that really does make the difference between life and death is at stake. Maybe violence is the only answer.

Movie Review- Minority Report

THIS WEEKEND I WATCHED A MOVIE CALLDED MINORITY REPORT It is set in Washington, D.C. in the year 2054, where a special police department called "pre-crime" apprehends criminals based on what is shown by three psychics called"pre-cogs".

The main characters are John Anderton, a pre-crime officer, Danny Witwer, WHO is sent to observe the process, a pre-cog named Agatha, and Lamar Burgess Anderton's superior.
The world in the movie doesn’t differ a lot from the world in real life because it is a movie that is set only 46 years in the future.

I think that world was created to protect the people from being murdered. This movie made me think that may be there is no way to have a world without murder because the system to make it happen would never be one hundred percent.