Compassionate and truly democratic Marxism: Is it rational?
Communism fell apart in the former Soviet union like a pack of cards and overnight the ideologically driven (or we presumed so) communist dictators turned into tyrannical despots with an ideology to do just one thing — hold their countries to ransom, disallow democracy and help foster corruption. If you imagine the current dictators of many former Soviet republics (except the Baltic states, along with Ukraine and Georgia), they all came from humble background, were driven by socialist philosophy and hence they had a cause, if I can say that. All of them suddenly had a vested interest, to get free from the Union and continue a government in their republics, with a firm hand. And they had a legacy of communism which made them suspicious of the term, “democracy".
Perhaps Trotsky was one of the few Bolsheviks who believed in an international, non bureaucratic communist order which Marx explained in his communist manifesto. The problem was the Utopian idea of workers’ groups who would facilitate a functional “classless” society and hence the democracy would mean no western democracy styled elections but everything managed and nurtured by workers, with a philosophy of “collective leadership”. The idea of communism was to uplift the working class or the proletariat but it ended up in a system that was driven by the ruthless suppression of people’s rights and choices, especially in the case of Lenin, Stalin, Castro, Honecker, Mao and so on.
Now, coming to the Soviets, Gorbachev wanted a reformative communism, with limited democracy to experiment with, which would have led to a multi party state, powered by socialism. Perhaps he was moving towards compassionate communism or Marxism (which perhaps Marx would have not approved) with freedom of expression, democracy and some degree of private capital to fund entrepreneurship and private business. Gorbachev couldn’t control the dissemination of his nation though because he was “nice” and didn’t want to use a willing army to control the events, for the fear of bloodshed.
My idea of compassionate communism has the following ingredients: free speech, mixed economy, multi-party democracy with collective leadership at the top (Swiss model of presidency), social security, less automation, increase of job prospects both in the government and the private sector, entrepreneurship, and proper government led healthcare and education, along with expert execution of climate change initiatives and farm reforms based on collective farming, where farmers own their produce. It is like having Kibbutz on steroids. People like Stalin or Mao destroyed the system by manipulating it. The rich people were targeted (they could have been taxed higher rather than being sent to Gulags) along with other intellectuals and this foundation was going to collapse one day. In countries like Venezuela, there is total lack of governance and high corruption in the name of socialism and people are seeking migration to neighboring Columbia and even the United States. For all this to become better, within the socialistic framework, there are multifold opportunities. It may sound utopian in some way but then the systems of governance have always been evolving and there lies the hope.
