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Socialism Vs Communism

Connection the Past to Present &

Interrupting The Role of Cognitive Dissonance

Socialism and communism are ideological doctrines that have many similarities as well as many differences. One main distinction between socialism and communism is that socialism refers to an economic system, while communism refers to both an economic and a political system. Both socialism and communism are based on the principle that the goods and services should be owned publicly and controlled by a centralized organization. However, socialism asserts that the distribution should take place according to the amount of individuals' production efforts, while communism asserts that that goods and services should be distributed among the populace according to individuals' needs.

Connection to the Present

Socialism is liberal. More people (preferably everyone) have some say in how the economy works. Democracy is liberal. More people (preferably everyone) have some say in how the government works. "Democracy," said Marx: "is the road to socialism." In America, liberal ideas are commonly reflected in the Democratic Party.

Communism is conservative. Fewer and fewer people (preferably just the ruling party and/or secretary) have any say in how the economy works. The Republican Party is the main champion for conservative values in America.

According to Marx, socialism is a stage on the way to communism, which has not yet been achieved. Marx saw industrialized workers rising up to take over control of their means of production, but the exact opposite in most cases has happened. Countries that have gone “Communist” have been agrarian, underdeveloped nations; the prime example being the Soviet Union. But the Soviet Union essentially abandoned this system in 1921 when Lenin instituted the New Economic Policy that allowed for taxation, local trade, some state capitalism and extreme profiteering. Later that year, he purged 259,000 from the party’s membership and therefore purged them from voting and fewer and fewer people were involved in making decisions.

Connection to the Present

In the fall of 2001, after an eight-month review of 175,000 Florida ballots never counted in the 2000 election, an analysis by the National Opinion Research Center confirmed that Al Gore actually won Florida and should have been President. However, coverage of this report was only a small blip in the corporate media as a much bigger story dominated the news after September 11, 2001. In addition, it showed that millions of U.S. citizens, including a disproportionate number of black voters, were blocked from voting in the election because of legal barriers, faulty procedures or dirty tricks, according to civil rights and legal experts.

The largest category of those legally disenfranchised consists of almost 5 million former felons who have served prison sentences and been deprived of the right to vote under laws that have roots in the post-Civil War 19th century and were aimed at preventing black Americans from voting.

But millions of other votes in the 2000 presidential election were lost due to clerical and administrative errors while civil rights organizations have cataloged numerous tactics aimed at suppressing black voter turnout. Polls consistently find that black Americans overwhelmingly vote for Democrats.

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Marxism eventually evolved into became Stalinism. The term Stalinism was used by anti-Soviet Marxists, to distinguish the policies of the Soviet Union from those they regard as more true to Marxism. Those opposed to Stalin argued that the Stalinist USSR was not socialist, but a degenerated worker state—a state in which exploitation is controlled by a ruling party that gained benefits and privileges at the expense of the working class.

Many Communists that defended Stalin were driven by a psychological condition called Cognitive Dissonance. This is when: "The existence of dissonance [lack of agreement, conflict], being psychologically uncomfortable, motivates the person to reduce the dissonance and leads to avoidance of information likely to increase the dissonance." Basically, they didn't want to hear any criticism, and would go out of their way to deny facts. This thought process left many socialists clinging to the Soviet Union even though they knew Stalin was a disaster. They called themselves Communist even though they supported none of Stalin's viewpoints and very few of Lenin's revisionism. In Russia, Lenin remains a Hero of the Revolution despite the fact that his initial push for socialism crippled the economy and Stalin is revered by Communists for toppling the Third Reich.

Connection to the Present

In one of Ronald Reagan's famous speeches he laid out the insistence of a balanced budget: "There can be no security anywhere in the free world if there is no fiscal and economic stability within the United States." And yet, like Lenin revising Marx, when Reagan was governor of California he didn't practice fiscal restraint. And when he was elected president in 1980 he did the exact opposite of his campaign promise and tripled the deficit and there has been "no fiscal and economic stability" since his flip-flop. Fiscal restraint was never implemented.

This abrupt reversal of conservative ideals left many conservatives clinging to the Republican Party, even though they supported little of Reagan's new policies. Despite this, Reagan remains a hero of the Republican Party and is revered by conservatives for toppling the Soviet Union.

Conservatives that defend George W. Bush are arguably in the same situation as the Communists that defended Stalin and the Republicans that defended Reagan. Stalin was never a "socialist" and Bush was never really a true "compassionate conservative", but many conservatives inherently rejected any criticism and often went out of their way to deny facts, because it was found in conflict with what they wanted to or were made to believe.

Reagan isn't Lenin and Bush isn't Stalin, but the parallels are notable. George W. Bush, like Stalin, inherited a failed revolution that relied on a cult-like worship of his predecessors and a rejection of the facts, which can be contributed to Cognitive Dissonance.

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