Communism and its Geographical Reach

Democracy in the United States was in part a rejection of the British monarchy. Cuba's choice of communism was in part a rejection of the corrupt dictatorship of Batista. In addition, the political and economic history of each nation plays an important part in its choice of democracy or communism. The United States was a relatively wealthy nation with social and political stability, aside from its differences with Britain. Its leaders wanted more freedom than the colonies had experienced, which democracy would make ensure.

Democracy has been maintained in the United States for over two hundred years in large part because it has worked successfully. Russia, a poor nation torn internally by conflicts over the repressive and absolutist czar, chose communism as a radical solution to severe social, economic and political problems. Russia, like Cuba and China after their revolutions, was simply in too much turmoil to attempt the kind of democracy attempted in the United States. Unli

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will of the people played a major role in ousting the czar, but that will was squelched by Lenin and his fellow Marxist revolutionaries and would not be heard from again until the fall of communism and the accompanying fall of the Soviet Union itself. Communism in Russia collapsed primarily because it failed miserably in delivering the economic and political justice it promised to deliver in its ideal expression in Marx and Engels. In the aftermath of the Soviet Union's failed communist experience, Russia and the other republics of the former Soviet Union are experimenting courageously, awkwardly, and of necessity with both democratic and capitalistic forms of political and economic practice. Communism survived as long as it did in Russia only because its leaders, from Lenin to Stalin to Khrushchev to Brezhnev, controlled the military and political machinery of the country and were able to force the people to obey: "The communist phenomenon represents a historical tragedy. Born out of an impatient idealism that rejected the injustice of the status quo, it sought a better and more human society--but produced mass oppression." The same experience occurred in other nations where communism was seen as an ideal solution to th
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Approximate Word count = 1737
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)

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