What is communism? Communism is the name for the economic-political philosophy originally thought up by Karl Marx and Freidrich Engels. They met each other in person for the first time in Paris in 1844, although they had communicated earlier. After four years, they published “The Communist Manifesto,” in which they showed their desire to erase the dreaded
Capitalism from existence. They felt that Capitalism was destroying the workforce by exploiting social-class structures. Marx and Engels wanted the workers to revolt against the bourgeoisie in a
“class conflict” that could only be achieved through revolution, eventually creating a communist society. In an ideal system, they felt that everyone would be treated by their individual abilities, and would receive goods according to
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Sadly, this just ended up making the situation worse off for everyone. Not only did Cuba’s economy plummet, so did its citizen’s quality of life. The Cuban leader, Fidel Castro, tightened his grip on the society, and the finger marks haven’t fully gone away.
Cuba’s situation is similar to that of China. After Chairman Mao’s rise to power, two major movements arose in China: The Cultural Revolution and the Great Leap Forward. The great leap forward was supposed to industrialize China and make it a prominent world power, but all they really did was shoot a lot of birds and starved to death. In a somewhat similar vein, the Cultural Revolution really took China backwards, as is was Mao’s way of eliminating opposition through murder and persecution.
An important thing to realize is that none of these, not a single one, was a true communist society. You see, communism is fundamentally a democratic system. In it’s purest form, there is no central government, but there is also no sense of anarchy. Every person contributes as much as they can in order to increase the welfare of everyone. The disappointing truth is, when