![\"\"](\"http:\/\/blogs.nd.edu\/communism-fall2011\/files\/2011\/08\/marxism-and-the-state-91.jpg\")
<\/a>first was defeated in World War II.\u00a0 In contrast, when Soviet tanks moved into Berlin on May 2, 1945,\u00a0 the second had only begun to take hold.\u00a0 As a result, by the 1980s, there were as many countries in the world that looked like the Soviet Union and the People\u2019s Republic of China as those that looked like the United States and Great Britain.\u00a0 Yet paradoxically, at the point of its greatest impact, communism ceased to be viable.\u00a0 In\u00a0a shockingly brief period\u00a0between 1989 and 1991, almost all the communist-led governments in the world collapsed.”<\/p>\nToday, some observers are tempted to say that\u00a0we should have known all along what was going to happen.\u00a0 Was not world communism destined to fail?\u00a0 Should we not have recognized the rot, corruption, and lies that underlay these regimes\u2019 facade of stability?\u00a0 The problem with approaches like these is that many of the great moments in history, such as the French Revolution,\u00a0seem self-evident in retrospect.\u00a0 But Louis XVI did not know that he was going to have his head cut off until January\u00a0 21, 1793.\u00a0 And Mikhail Gorbachev did not know that he would preside over the dissolution\u00a0of the Soviet Union until 1991.<\/p>\n
In contrast, my approach is to read history forward by trying to put myself into\u00a0the shoes of the decision-makers who led these\u00a0 regimes.\u00a0 To\u00a0this end, I\u00a0have\u00a0built\u00a0this course around four simple\u00a0questions:<\/p>\n
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- \nWhy did many intelligent, well-educated people support the communist movement, from its inception in the 1840s until its demise?<\/div>\n<\/li>\n
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Why did the practice of communism dramatically diverge from its founders’\u00a0 utopian goals, most notably under Josef Stalin and Mao Zedong?<\/div>\n<\/li>\n- \n
Why did world communism last as long as it did?<\/div>\n<\/li>\n- \n
Why did the vast majority of commmunist regimes disappear almost overnight?<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\nIt would be impossible to cover the entire communist world in a single semester.\u00a0 Thus, I draw upon the experiences of a few select communist states to provide you with a perspective for understanding all of them.\u00a0 My primary cases will be the Soviet Union, China, and Germany.\u00a0 In addition, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Cuba, North Korea, and Poland, among many others, will make cameo appearances.\u00a0 Please feel free to ask me to lecture about\u00a0a case of your own choosing.<\/p>\n
To prepare yourself mentally for my first lecture, WATCH<\/a>\u00a0this inspirational video.<\/p>\n
.<\/span><\/p>\n
The use of electronic devices of any kind, including laptops, i-Pads, cell phones, video cameras, Kindles, and personal digital devices, is prohibited in my classroom!<\/em><\/p>\n
Top of Page<\/a><\/strong> \u00b7 <\/strong>Founders<\/a><\/strong> \u00b7 <\/strong>Competitors<\/a><\/strong> \u00b7 <\/strong>Defenders<\/a><\/strong> \u00b7 <\/strong>Reformers<\/a><\/strong> \u00b7 <\/strong>Losers<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This is your syllabus for “The Rise and Fall of World Communism.”\u00a0There is no paper syllabus.\u00a0I like this web format because it allows me to modify the course as\u00a0we move along.\u00a0Thus, please regard this syllabus as a project “in development” throughout the semester.\u00a0 I will add\u00a0comments on a regular basis to guide you\u00a0through the readings […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":114,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/communism-fall2011\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/communism-fall2011\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/communism-fall2011\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/communism-fall2011\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/114"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/communism-fall2011\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1"}],"version-history":[{"count":39,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/communism-fall2011\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":259,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/communism-fall2011\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1\/revisions\/259"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/communism-fall2011\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/communism-fall2011\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/communism-fall2011\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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