Communism Afterwards
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In “The Collapse of Communism: Approaches for a Future History,” the question of why communism collapsed a ruling and economic system is explored. Many western minds would draw the conclusions that the “belongings for freedom and the economic superiority of modern capitalism” was the single penetrating blow to communism that was its downfall. But one of the bigger questions that is overlooked is: why did the social economics prove so disastrous in the 1980s? The privatization of major production here in the Western world compared to the government controlled operations by communist countries proved ill fated. Communist countries used the “single party truth” theory, which the author states could create no support for a working government that didnt have a solid foundation. The communist government had one party; this suppressed the ideas of many with the thought that there is one government and one truth. The government in communism is the supreme decision maker, eliminating what we would call inalienable rights, among the many. This political suppression of communist citizens combined with the economy proved its demise.
The East German government that was run by Communists, a few years before its collapse was a thriving country. But at its collapse, its economic residue was “perceived in terms of second-rate machines, crumbling housing, cardboard cars, and an atmosphere choked by chemical fumes and lignite dust.” It flourished in the beginning but did not make it far. The health of the Eastern Europeans was also at risk with the toxins in the atmosphere that were produced. When the Soviet Union collapsed along with communism, the Western economies seemed to be flourishing. This couldnt have painted a better picture for the end of the Cold War; it showed the “evil” empire falling to its demise while the Western world was thriving. But this may have just been coincidence; a capitalist economy sees recessions from time to time, and it just so happened that we were peaking at the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union. But regardless after the collapse “politics followed economics”
With the radical movements occurring in the 1960s in Western Europe and the Americas, criticisms of class conflict and the militant uprisings of student movements affected the political spectrum very heavily. By the 1980s parties have been separated into “xenophobic