Communism Essay, Research Paper

This definition is right and is fully accurate, but it only

demonstrates the theory of communism and doesn^t explain how it really

worked. It doesn^t say that the theory never worked out, because it is

impossible to make it work. I am going to tell some things about

communism in USSR where my parents lived all their lives, but when I

was born it was already dying out. So, mostly everything that I am

going to tell is based on what my parents and grandparents told me

about life in USSR. Communism suggests that everybody is equal in

rights and economically. That meant that everybody would be paid the

same for all kinds of jobs, so the janitor and doctor or lawyer would

be paid the same amount of money for totally different jobs. That is

obviously unfair and impossible. Since everybody was supposed to be

equal, no one in the government could have too much power, and that is

why they made took people who were elected from each area and these

were supposed to be the government. They were supposed to make the

decisions, elect all the other government officials and all the other

very important things. That made the ordinary man think that the

government is controlled by people just like him, with only high school

education (some even without it), poor, being in politics for the first

time in their lives. That is impossible. Such people can run no

government. The most annoying thing is that almost no one noticed that,

and if someone did, they were immediately terminated without any

questions. There was a small group of people who controlled everything

in the country. It was mostly the KGB and the General Secretary. Just

look at the name they picked, it suggests that he not the most powerful

man in the country; he is just a small general secretary. That^s all he

is. How obviously stupid all this seems now. But at that time it was

almost a religion, if one did not believe in it with all his/her heart

he/she were terminated or sent to concentration camp where they either

died or lived there for many years until all their doubts were beaten

out of them. Jewish people were some of the people to who the

government was the most unfair. They couldn^t get a good education,

good job, anything good or well paid. There were only two ways: the

army (or navy) or some pitiful civilian job, like a janitor, or some

other dirty job with a salary, with which you can barely buy something

to eat. These are some of the many experiences that my parents and

grandparents lived through during their lives in the USSR. My

experiences in that country are not that big. By the time I began to

understand something about life and what was going on around me,

Gorbachev came to power and he was the first man to try to change these

stupid communist rules. He opened up the country, he let in the other

currencies, and started the well-known Perestroika. The main part of

Perestroika was Glasnost, which means permitting open discussion of

political and social issues and freer dissemination of news and

information. That meant that people could finally openly talk about the

government, and say what they like and don^t like about it. Gorbachev

also let people have private property, so people started their own

businesses. That gave a real chance to poor people and also Jews.

Perestroika was the first step to democracy. Communism was falling very

fast. Everyone liked this new kind of life. This is what I have learned

myself. My last experience with communism is watching the Russian news

right now, and seeing those communist party meetings on the streets,

and seeing that there are no young people in there. All the people who

bring red flags and pictures of Lenin and Stalin with them are mostly

people well over fifty. And I understand them. For them life before

Perestroika was very good, they had their old easy jobs, good pay, good

apartments, cheap food, nothing to worry about. Perestroika brought

them problems, like constant problems with retirement pay, very

expensive food, for which they had no money, most of them lived and

live in poverty. And for the young people, the new life brought many

chances, they could now show what they can, prove their abilities, have

their own property. They could now just buy themselves an apartment,

when in communist times most of the people had to live in their

parents^ or grandparents^ apartments. One couldn^t just go and buy an

apartment. One had to sign up and wait in line for many, many years and

only their children could finally get a small apartment, which would

also be considered being very lucky. For some people communism was

good, but for most of them it was a disaster. No man is created equal,

and no one can make all the people equal. It is obvious that the

communist theory is impossible to be true in real life. It could have

never worked. Communism was started by poor people, who never worked

and didn^t life working. Their goal was to take away all the money from

the rich people who worked their butts off all their lives, and divide

it equally between all the people. Sounds fair, doesn^t it? That is how

the revolution of 1917 started and how communism was brought to life.

That is how the nightmare began.