Understanding and explaining the rise and fall of dominant political ideologies is no easy task, making it difficult to point out the reasons communism failed to survive. Apart from the complexity of the factors involved, the fact that so many countries adopted communism during the 20th century makes it almost impossible to figure out the exact reasons for its demise.
Although most communist nations dealt with similar problems, one can hardly ignore the differences between them. If you doubt the importance of this argument, simply recall that countries such as Cuba and North Korea continue to boast communist regimes. Hence, revealing the reasons communism failed not only requires us to limit the scope of our analysis, but also to accept that it continues to be the dominant political ideology in some countries.
Due to the difficulties involved in figuring out the reasons communism failed, which we have pointed out above, the following post will focus on the Soviet Union. This seems appropriate since the Russians were not only the first to adopt communism, but were the main force behind its international expansion. As a superpower, the Soviet Union was not exposed to the same threats as smaller nations, thus making it easier to maintain the stability of its political regime. Hence, the following is actually a list of the five reasons communism failed to survive in Russia, rather than the world in general.
If you are interested in academic topics, then be sure to also read one of our previous posts regarding the most influential papers in economics. Considering the effect of communism on a nation’s economic performance, these papers might help clarify some of the troubles these regimes ran into. Otherwise, we hope you still enjoy the list of reasons communism failed in the Soviet Union, which takes a number of objective factors into consideration, while ideological arguments are left aside. In other words, we abstained from considering philosophical reasons, in order to focus on more tangible issues, such as economic collapse.
