Today we finally reached what is arguably the climax of my Russian History course – the rise of Marxist Communism. I think it’s a foregone conclusion that most people realize the inefficacy of the Marxist ideal, but I couldn’t help but be reminded of how amazing it is that this institution came about and disappeared so quickly.
As I sat listening to my teacher, I realized the only way to speak of communism is as a relic. That’s pretty astounding when you consider that 15 years ago it was still a major political force, and only 75 years before that Russia was still Russia, a firmly established feudal entity.
Despite this evanescence, I would argue that communism was the most profound idea of the 1900’s. By profound, I simply mean that it had an almost incalculable effect upon the course of history – be it for better or worse. Communism sits like a black hole in the middle of the 20th century. It warps the space-time of history around itself.
I think this is why even people who are not particularly interested in history find communism compelling. Has there ever been a social movement that has been as simultaneously brief and impacting? Historians often call it "The Great Experiment," but "History’s Great Sideshow" is just as appropriate a moniker. Despite it founders’ insistence that communism was congruent with the cyclical nature of history, it was actually an historical oddity with very little attachment to the past or the future.
Even before the official fall of communism in the early 90s, most communist states had for a long time devolved into merely revised forms of feudalism, with a dictator taking the place of a monarch. It can be argued that this is the state in which the two vestigial communist countries, Cuba and China, exist. They are communist in name alone.
So it is that, after a brief time in the sunshine of history, communism has gone back to being the only thing it ever was – a really good idea.
