Communism Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! == Analysis == === Reception === Emily Morris from [[University College London]] wrote that because [[Karl Marx]]'s writings have inspired many movements, including the [[Russian Revolution of 1917]], communism is "commonly confused with the political and economic system that developed in the Soviet Union" after the revolution.{{r|Morris}}<ref group="lower-alpha">{{harvp|Morgan|2015|ps=: "Communist ideas have acquired a new meaning since 1918. They became equivalent to the ideas of Marxism–Leninism, that is, the interpretation of Marxism by Lenin and his successors. Endorsing the final objective, namely, the creation of a community owning means of production and providing each of its participants with consumption 'according to their needs', they put forward the recognition of the class struggle as a dominating principle of a social development. In addition, workers (i.e., the proletariat) were to carry out the mission of reconstruction of the society. Conducting a socialist revolution headed by the avant-garde of the proletariat, that is, the party, was hailed to be a historical necessity. Moreover, the introduction of the proletariat dictatorship was advocated and hostile classes were to be liquidated."}}</ref> Morris also wrote that Soviet-style communism "did not 'work'." due to "an over-centralised, oppressive, bureaucratic and rigid economic and political system."{{r|Morris}} Historian Andrzej Paczkowski summarized communism as "an ideology that seemed clearly the opposite, that was based on the secular desire of humanity to achieve equality and social justice, and that promised a great leap forward into freedom."{{sfn|Paczkowski|2001|pp=32–33}} In contrast, Austrian-American economist [[Ludwig von Mises]] argued that by abolishing free markets, [[Economic calculation problem|communist officials would not have the price system]] necessary to guide their planned production.<ref name=":1">{{Cite web |last=Greaves |first=Bettina Bien |date=1 March 1991 |title=Why Communism Failed |url=https://fee.org/articles/why-communism-failed/ |access-date=13 August 2023 |website=[[Foundation for Economic Education]] |language=en}}</ref> [[Anti-communism]] developed as soon as communism became a conscious political movement in the 19th century, and [[anti-communist mass killings]] have been reported against alleged communists, or their alleged supporters, which were committed by anti-communists and political organizations or governments opposed to communism. The communist movement has faced opposition since it was founded and the opposition to it has often been organized and violent. Many of these anti-communist mass killing campaigns, primarily during the Cold War,<ref name="Aarons 2007">{{cite book |last=Aarons |first=Mark |url=http://www.brill.com/legacy-nuremberg-civilising-influence-or-institutionalised-vengeance |title=The Legacy of Nuremberg: Civilising Influence or Institutionalised Vengeance? (International Humanitarian Law) |date=2007 |publisher=[[Martinus Nijhoff Publishers]] |isbn=978-9004156913 |editor1-last=Blumenthal |editor1-first=David A. |pages=[https://books.google.com/books?id=dg0hWswKgTIC&pg=PA71 71], [https://books.google.com/books?id=dg0hWswKgTIC&pg=PA81 80–81] |chapter=Justice Betrayed: Post-1945 Responses to Genocide |access-date=28 June 2021 |editor2-last=McCormack |editor2-first=Timothy L. H. |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dg0hWswKgTIC&pg=PA69 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160105053952/http://www.brill.com/legacy-nuremberg-civilising-influence-or-institutionalised-vengeance |archive-date=5 January 2016}}</ref>{{sfn|Bevins|2020b}} were supported by the United States and its [[Western Bloc]] allies,<ref>{{cite book |last=Blakeley |first=Ruth |date=2009 |title=State Terrorism and Neoliberalism: The North in the South |url=http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415462402/ |publisher=[[Routledge]] |pages=[https://books.google.com/books?id=rft8AgAAQBAJ&pg=PA4 4], [https://books.google.com/books?id=rft8AgAAQBAJ&pg=PA20 20–23], [https://books.google.com/books?id=rft8AgAAQBAJ&pg=PA88 88] |isbn=978-0-415-68617-4}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=McSherry |first1=J. Patrice |author1-link=J. Patrice McSherry |editor1-last=Esparza |editor1-first=Marcia |editor2-first=Henry R. |editor2-last=Huttenbach |editor3-first=Daniel |editor3-last=Feierstein |title=State Violence and Genocide in Latin America: The Cold War Years (Critical Terrorism Studies) |chapter=Chapter 5: 'Industrial repression' and Operation Condor in Latin America |page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=acGNAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA107 107] |publisher=[[Routledge]] |year=2011 |isbn=978-0-415-66457-8 |url=https://www.routledge.com/State-Violence-and-Genocide-in-Latin-America-The-Cold-War-Years/Esparza-Huttenbach-Feierstein/p/book/9780415496377}}</ref> including those who were formally part of the [[Non-Aligned Movement]], such as the [[Indonesian mass killings of 1965–66]] and [[Operation Condor]] in South America.<ref>{{cite magazine |last=Bevins |first=Vincent |author-link=Vincent Bevins |date=18 May 2020a |url=https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2020/05/18/how-jakarta-became-the-codeword-for-us-backed-mass-killing/ |title=How 'Jakarta' Became the Codeword for US-Backed Mass Killing |magazine=The New York Review of Books |access-date=15 August 2021}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Prashad |first=Vijay |author-link=Vijay Prashad |date=2020 |title=Washington Bullets: A History of the CIA, Coups, and Assassinations |publisher=[[Monthly Review|Monthly Review Press]] |page=87 |isbn=978-1583679067}}</ref> === Excess mortality in Communist states === {{further|Mass killings under communist regimes|Crimes against humanity under communist regimes}} Many authors have written about excess deaths under Communist states and [[mortality rate]]s,{{refn|group=note|name=third}} such as [[excess mortality in the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin]].{{refn|group=note|name=fourth}} Some authors posit that there is a Communist death toll, whose death estimates vary widely, depending on the definitions of the deaths that are included in them, ranging from lows of 10–20 million to highs over 100 million. The higher estimates have been criticized by several scholars as ideologically motivated and inflated; they are also criticized for being inaccurate due to incomplete data, inflated by counting any excess death, making an unwarranted link to communism, and the grouping and body-counting itself. Higher estimates account for actions that Communist governments committed against civilians, including executions, human-made famines, and deaths that occurred during, or resulted from, imprisonment, and forced deportations and labor. Higher estimates are criticized for being based on sparse and incomplete data when significant errors are inevitable, and for being skewed to higher possible values.<ref name="ReferenceB">{{harvp|Harff|1996}}; {{harvp|Hiroaki|2001}}; {{harvp|Paczkowski|2001}}; {{harvp|Weiner|2002}}; {{harvp|Dulić|2004}}; {{harvp|Harff|2017}}</ref> Others have argued that, while certain estimates may not be accurate, "quibbling about numbers is unseemly. What matters is that many, many people were killed by communist regimes."{{sfn|Ghodsee|Sehon|Dresser|2018}} Historian Mark Bradley wrote that while the exact numbers have been in dispute, the [[order of magnitude]] is not.{{sfn|Bradley|2017|pp=151–153}} There is no consensus among [[genocide scholars]] and [[scholars of Communism]] about whether some or all the events constituted a [[genocide]] or [[mass killing]].{{refn|Most genocide scholars do not lump Communist states together, and do not treat genocidical events as a separate subjects, or by regime-type, and compare them to genocidical events which happened under vastly different [[regime]]s. Examples include ''Century of Genocide: Critical Essays and Eyewitness Accounts'',<ref>{{cite book |last1=Charny |first1=Israel W. |author1-link=Israel Charny |last2=Parsons |first2=William S. |last3=Totten |first3=Samuel |author3-link=Samuel Totten |year=2004 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5Ef8Hrx8Cd0C |title=Century of Genocide: Critical Essays and Eyewitness Accounts |publisher=[[Psychology Press]] |isbn=978-0-415-94430-4 |access-date=13 August 2021 |via=[[Google Books]]}}</ref> ''The Dark Side of Democracy: Explaining Ethnic Cleansing'',<ref>{{cite book |last=Mann |first=Michael |year=2005 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cGHGPgj1_tIC |title=The Dark Side of Democracy: Explaining Ethnic Cleansing |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |isbn=978-0-521-53854-1 |access-date=13 August 2021 |via=[[Google Books]]}}</ref> ''Purify and Destroy: The Political Uses of Massacre and Genocide'',<ref>{{cite book |last=Sémelin |first=Jacques |author-link=Jacques Sémelin |year=2007 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HIS-AwAAQBAJ |title=Purify and Destroy: The Political Uses of Massacre and Genocide |publisher=[[Columbia University Press]] |isbn=978-0-231-14282-3 |access-date=13 August 2021 |via=[[Google Books]]}}</ref> ''Resisting Genocide: The Multiple Forms of Rescue'',<ref>{{cite book |last1=Andrieu |first1=Claire |last2=Gensburger |first2=Sarah |last3=Sémelin |first3=Jacques |author3-link=Jacques Sémelin |year=2011 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=61HEQ2Y9iQ8C |title=Resisting Genocide: The Multiple Forms of Rescue |publisher=[[Columbia University Press]] |isbn=978-0-231-80046-4 |access-date=13 August 2021 |via=[[Google Books]]}}</ref> and ''Final Solutions''.<ref>{{cite book |last=Valentino |first=Benjamin |author-link=Benjamin Valentino |year=2013 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qqedDgAAQBAJ |title=Final Solutions: Mass Killing and Genocide in the 20th Century |publisher=[[Cornell University Press]] |isbn=978-0-8014-6717-2 |access-date=13 August 2021 |via=[[Google Books]]}}</ref> Several of them are limited to the geographical locations of "the Big Three", or mainly the [[Cambodian genocide]], whose culprit, the [[Khmer Rouge]] regime, was described by genocide scholar [[Helen Fein]] as following a [[xenophobic]] ideology bearing a stronger resemblance to "an almost forgotten phenomenon of national socialism", or [[fascism]], rather than communism,<ref>{{cite book |last=Fein |first=Helen |author-link=Helen Fein |year=1993 |chapter=Soviet and Communist Genocides and 'Democide' |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=n4TaAAAAMAAJ |title=Genocide: A Sociological Perspective; Contextual and Comparative Studies I: Ideological Genocides |publisher=[[SAGE Publications]] |isbn=978-0-8039-8829-3 |access-date=13 August 2021 |via=[[Google Books]]}}</ref> while historian [[Ben Kiernan]] described it as "more racist and generically totalitarian than Marxist or specifically Communist",<ref>{{cite journal |last=Heder |first=Steve |date=July 1997 |title=Racism, Marxism, Labelling, and Genocide in Ben Kiernan's 'The Pol Pot Regime' |journal=South East Asia |publisher=[[SAGE Publications]] |volume=5 |issue=2 |pages=101–153 |doi=10.1177/0967828X9700500202 |jstor=23746851}}</ref> or do not discuss Communist states, other than passing mentions. Such work is mainly done in an attempt to prevent [[genocide]]s but has been described by scholars as a failure.{{r|Weiss-Wendt 2008}}|group=note}} Among genocide scholars, there is no consensus on a common terminology,<ref name="Weiss-Wendt 2008">{{cite book |last=Weiss-Wendt |first=Anton |date=2008 |chapter=Problems in Comparative Genocide Scholarship |editor-last=Stone |editor-first=Dan |title=The Historiography of Genocide |location=London |publisher=[[Palgrave Macmillan]] |pages=42–70 |doi=10.1057/9780230297784_3 |isbn=978-0-230-29778-4 |quote=There is barely any other field of study that enjoys so little consensus on defining principles such as definition of genocide, typology, application of a comparative method, and timeframe. Considering that scholars have always put stress on prevention of genocide, comparative genocide studies have been a failure. Paradoxically, nobody has attempted so far to assess the field of comparative genocide studies as a whole. This is one of the reasons why those who define themselves as genocide scholars have not been able to detect the situation of crisis.}}</ref> and the events have been variously referred to as ''excess mortality'' or ''mass deaths''; other terms used to define some of such killings include ''[[classicide]]'', ''[[crimes against humanity]]'', ''[[democide]]'', ''genocide'', ''[[politicide]]'', ''[[Holocaust (disambiguation)|holocaust]]'', ''mass killing'', and ''[[Political repression|repression]]''.<ref name="Karllson & Schoenhals 2008">{{harvnb|Karlsson|Schoenhals|2008}}</ref>{{refn|Genocide scholar [[Barbara Harff]] maintains a global database on mass killings, which is intended mostly for statistical analysis of mass killings in attempt to identify the best predictors for their onset and data is not necessarily the most accurate for a given country, since some sources are general genocide scholars and not experts on local history;{{sfn|Harff|2017}} it includes [[anticommunist mass killings]], such as the [[Indonesian mass killings of 1965–1966]] (genocide and politicide), and some events which happened under Communist states, such as the [[1959 Tibetan uprising]] (genocide and politicide), the [[Cambodian genocide]] (genocide and politicide), and the [[Cultural Revolution]] (politicide), but no comparative analysis or communist link is drawn, other than the events just happened to take place in some Communist states in Eastern Asia. The Harff database is the most frequently used by genocide scholars.{{r|Tago & Wayman 2010}} [[Rudolph Rummel]] operated a similar database, but it was not limited to Communist states, it is mainly for statistical analysis, and in a comparative analysis has been criticized by other scholars,<ref>{{harvnb|Harff|1996}}; {{harvnb|Kuromiya|2001}}; {{harvnb|Paczkowski|2001}}; {{harvnb|Weiner|2002}}; {{harvnb|Dulić|2004}}; {{harvnb|Karlsson|Schoenhals|2008|pp=35, 79|ps=: "While Jerry Hough suggested Stalin's terror claimed tens of thousands of victims, R.J. Rummel puts the death toll of Soviet communist terror between 1917 and 1987 at 61,911,000. In both cases, these figures are based on an ideological preunderstanding and speculative and sweeping calculations. On the other hand, the considerably lower figures in terms of numbers of Gulag prisoners presented by Russian researchers during the glasnost period have been relatively widely accepted. ... It could, quite rightly, be claimed that the opinions that Rummel presents here (they are hardly an example of a serious and empirically-based writing of history) do not deserve to be mentioned in a research review, but they are still perhaps worth bringing up on the basis of the interest in him in the blogosphere."}}</ref> over that of Harff,{{sfn|Harff|2017}} for his estimates and statistical methodology, which showed some flaws.{{sfn|Dulić|2004}}|group=note}} These scholars state that most Communist states did not engage in mass killings;<ref>{{cite book |last1=Valentino |first1=Benjamin |author-link=Benjamin Valentino |date=2005 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LQfeXVU_EvgC |title=Final Solutions: Mass Killing and Genocide in the Twentieth Century |location=Ithaca |publisher=[[Cornell University Press]] |pages=91 |isbn=978-0-801-47273-2 |quote=Communism has a bloody record, but most regimes that have described themselves as communist or have been described as such by others have not engaged in mass killing.}}</ref>{{refn|In their criticism of ''[[The Black Book of Communism]]'', which popularized the topic, several scholars have questioned, in the words of [[Alexander Dallin]], "[w]hether all these cases, from Hungary to Afghanistan, have a single essence and thus deserve to be lumped together—just because they are labeled Marxist or communist—is a question the authors scarcely discuss."<ref name="Dallin 2000">{{cite journal |last=Dallin |first=Alexander |date=Winter 2000 |title=The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression. By Stéphane Courtois, Nicolas Werth, Jean-Louis Panné, Andrzej Paczkowski, Karel Bartošek, and Jean-Louis Margolin. Trans. Jonathan Murphy and Mark Kramer. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1999. xx, 858 pp. Notes. Index. Photographs. Maps. $37.50, hard bound. |journal=[[Slavic Review]] |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |volume=59 |issue=4 |pages=882–883 |doi=10.2307/2697429 |jstor=2697429}}</ref> In particular, historians Jens Mecklenburg and Wolfgang Wippermann stated that a connection between the events in [[Joseph Stalin]]'s Soviet Union and [[Pol Pot]]'s Cambodia are far from evident and that Pol Pot's study of Marxism in Paris is insufficient for connecting radical Soviet industrialism and the [[Khmer Rouge]]'s murderous anti-urbanism under the same category.<ref>{{cite book |editor-last1=Mecklenburg |editor-first1=Jens |editor-last2=Wippermann |editor-first2=Wolfgang |date=1998 |title='Roter Holocaust'? Kritik des Schwarzbuchs des Kommunismus |trans-title=A 'Red Holocaust'? A Critique of the Black Book of Communism |location=Hamburg |publisher=Konkret Verlag Literatur |language=de |isbn=3-89458-169-7}}</ref> Historian Michael David-Fox criticized the figures as well as the idea to combine loosely connected events under a single category of Communist death toll, blaming [[Stéphane Courtois]] for their manipulation and deliberate inflation which are presented to advocate the idea that communism was a greater evil than Nazism. David-Fox criticized the idea to connect the deaths with some "generic Communism" concept, defined down to the common denominator of party movements founded by intellectuals.<ref name="David-Fox 2004">{{cite journal |last=David-Fox |first=Michael |date=Winter 2004 |title=On the Primacy of Ideology: Soviet Revisionists and Holocaust Deniers (In Response to Martin Malia) |journal=[[Kritika (journal)|Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History]] |volume=5 |number=1 |pages=81–105 |doi=10.1353/kri.2004.0007 |s2cid=159716738}}</ref> A similar criticism was made by ''[[Le Monde]]''.<ref>{{cite book |last=Malia |first=Martin |date=October 1999 |chapter=Preface |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=H1jsgYCoRioC |title=The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression |publisher=[[Harvard University Press]] |page=xiv |isbn=978-0-674-07608-2 |access-date=12 August 2021 |via=[[Google Books]] |quote=... commentators in the liberal ''Le Monde'' argue that it is illegitimate to speak of a single Communist movement from Phnom Penh to Paris. Rather, the rampage of the Khmer Rouge is like the ethnic massacres of third-world Rwanda, or the 'rural' Communism of Asia is radically different from the 'urban' Communism of Europe; or Asian Communism is really only anticolonial nationalism. ... conflating sociologically diverse movements is merely a stratagem to obtain a higher body count against Communism, and thus against all the left.}}</ref> Allegation of a communist or red Holocaust is not popular among scholars in Germany or internationally,<ref>{{cite journal |last=Hackmann |first=Jörg |date=March 2009 |title=From National Victims to Transnational Bystanders? The Changing Commemoration of World War II in Central and Eastern Europe |journal=[[Constellations (journal)|Constellations]] |volume=16 |issue=1 |pages=167–181 |doi=10.1111/j.1467-8675.2009.00526.x}}</ref> and is considered a form of softcore antisemitism and Holocaust trivialization.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Heni |first=Clemens |date=Fall 2008 |title=Secondary Anti-Semitism: From Hard-Core to Soft-Core Denial of the Shoah |journal=[[Jewish Political Studies Review]] |location=Jerusalem |volume=20 |issue=3/4 |pages=73–92 |jstor=25834800}}</ref>|group=note}} [[Benjamin Valentino]] proposes the category of [[Communist mass killing]], alongside colonial, counter-guerrilla, and ethnic mass killing, as a subtype of dispossessive mass killing to distinguish it from coercive mass killing.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Valentino |first1=Benjamin |author-link=Benjamin Valentino |date=2005 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LQfeXVU_EvgC |title=Final Solutions: Mass Killing and Genocide in the Twentieth Century |location=Ithaca |publisher=[[Cornell University Press]] |pages=66 |isbn=978-0-801-47273-2 |quote=I contend mass killing occurs when powerful groups come to believe it is the best available means to accomplish certain radical goals, counter specific types of threats, or solve difficult military problem.}}</ref> Genocide scholars do not consider ideology,<ref name="Tago & Wayman 2010">{{cite journal |last1=Atsushi |first1=Tago |last2=Wayman |first2=Frank W. |title=Explaining the onset of mass killing, 1949–87 |journal=[[Journal of Peace Research]] |volume=47 |issue=1 |pages=3–13 |date=2010 |doi=10.1177/0022343309342944 |issn=0022-3433 |jstor=25654524 |s2cid=145155872}}</ref> or regime-type, as an important factor that explains mass killings.<ref name="Straus 2007">{{cite journal |last=Straus |first=Scott |date=April 2007 |title=Review: Second-Generation Comparative Research on Genocide |journal=[[World Politics]] |location=Cambridge |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |volume=59 |issue=3 |pages=476–501 |doi=10.1017/S004388710002089X |jstor=40060166 |s2cid=144879341}}</ref> Some authors, such as [[John Gray (philosopher)|John Gray]],<ref>{{Cite book |last=Gray |first=John |title=Totalitarianism at the crossroads |publisher=Social Philosophy & Policy Center |others=Ellen Frankel Paul |year=1990 |isbn=0-88738-351-3 |location=[Bowling Green, OH] |pages=116 |oclc=20996281}}</ref> [[Daniel Goldhagen]],{{sfn|Goldhagen|2009|p=206}} and [[Richard Pipes]],<ref>{{Cite book |last=Pipes |first=Richard |title=Communism: a history |date=2001 |publisher=Modern Library |isbn=0-679-64050-9 |edition= |location=New York |pages=147 |oclc=47924025}}</ref> consider the ideology of communism to be a significant causative factor in mass killings. Some connect killings in [[Joseph Stalin]]'s Soviet Union, [[Mao Zedong]]'s China, and [[Pol Pot]]'s Cambodia on the basis that Stalin influenced Mao, who influenced Pol Pot; in all cases, scholars say killings were carried out as part of a policy of an unbalanced modernization process of rapid industrialization.{{r|Karllson & Schoenhals 2008}}{{refn|The Cambodia case is particular because it is different from the emphasis Stalin's Soviet Union and Mao's China gave to [[heavy industry]]. The goal of Khmer Rouge's leaders goal was to introduce communism in an extremely short period of time through [[collectivization of agriculture]] in the effort to remove social differences and inequalities between rural and urban areas.{{r|Karllson & Schoenhals 2008}} As there was not much industry in Cambodia at that time, Pol Pot's strategy to accomplish this was to increase agricultural production in order to obtain money for rapid industrialization.<ref>{{cite book |last=Mann |first=Michael |year=2005 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cGHGPgj1_tIC |title=The Dark Side of Democracy: Explaining Ethnic Cleansing |edition=illustrated, reprint |location=Cambridge |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |page=343 |isbn=9780521538541 |access-date=28 August 2021 |via=[[Google Books]] |quote=As in other Communist development plans, this agricultural surplus, essentially rice, could be exported to pay for the import of machinery, first for agriculture and light industry, later for heavy industry (Chandler, 1992: 120–8).}}</ref> {{paragraph break}} In analyzing the Khmer Rouge regime, scholars place it within the historical context. The Khmer Rouge came to power through the [[Cambodian Civil War]] (where unparalleled atrocities were executed on both sides) and [[Operation Menu]], resulting in the dropping of more than half a million tonnes of bombs in the country during the civil-war period; this was mainly directed to [[North Vietnam|Communist Vietnam]] but it gave the Khmer Rouge a justification to eliminate the pro-Vietnamese faction and other communists.{{r|Karllson & Schoenhals 2008}} The [[Cambodian genocide]], which is described by many scholars as a [[genocide]] and by others, such as Manus Midlarsky, as a [[politicide]],{{r|Straus 2007}} was stopped by Communist Vietnam, and there have been [[allegations of United States support for the Khmer Rouge]]. South East Asian communism was deeply divided, as China supported the Khmer Rouge, while the Soviet Union and Vietnam opposed it. The United States supported [[Lon Nol]], who seized power in the [[1970 Cambodian coup d'état]], and research has shown that everything in Cambodia was seen as a legitimate target by the United States, whose verdict of its main leaders at that time ([[Richard Nixon]] and [[Henry Kissinger]]) has been harsh, and bombs were gradually dropped on increasingly densely populated areas.{{r|Karllson & Schoenhals 2008}}|group=note}} Daniel Goldhagen argues that 20th century communist regimes "have killed more people than any other regime type."{{sfn|Goldhagen|2009|p=54}} Some authors and politicians, such as [[George G. Watson]], allege that [[genocide]] was dictated in otherwise forgotten works of [[Karl Marx]].<ref name="Grant 1999">{{cite journal |last=Grant |first=Robert |date=November 1999 |title=Review: The Lost Literature of Socialism |journal=The Review of English Studies |volume=50 |number=200 |pages=557–559 |doi=10.1093/res/50.200.557}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last=Ijabs |first=Ivars |date=23 May 2008 |title=Cienīga atbilde: Soviet Story |trans-title=Worthy answer: Soviet Story |work=Latvijas Vēstnesis |language=lv |url=http://www.lv.lv/?menu=exblogi&sub=&type=full&id=44 |access-date=15 June 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110720194148/http://www.lv.lv/?menu=exblogi&sub=&type=full&id=44 |archive-date=20 July 2011 |quote=To present Karl Marx as the 'progenitor of modern genocide' is simply to lie.}}</ref> Many commentators on the political right point to the mass deaths under Communist states, claiming them as an indictment of communism.<ref name="Piereson">{{cite web |last=Piereson |first=James |title=Socialism as a hate crime |url=https://newcriterion.com/blogs/dispatch/socialism-as-a-hate-crime-9746 |access-date=22 October 2021 |website=New Criterion}}</ref>{{sfn|Engel-Di Mauro|Engel-Di Mauro|Faber|Labban|2021}}<ref name="Satter 2017">{{cite news |last=Satter |first=David |date=6 November 2017 |title=100 Years of Communism—and 100 Million Dead |work=[[The Wall Street Journal]] |url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/100-years-of-communismand-100-million-dead-1510011810 |access-date=22 October 2021 |issn=0099-9660}}</ref> Opponents of this view argue that these killings were aberrations caused by specific authoritarian regimes, and not caused by communism itself, and point to mass deaths in wars and famines that they argue were caused by [[colonialism]], capitalism, and anti-communism as a counterpoint to those killings.<ref>{{harvp|Bevins|2020b}}; {{harvp|Engel-Di Mauro|Engel-Di Mauro|Faber|Labban|2021}}; {{harvp|Ghodsee|Sehon|Dresser|2018}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last1=Sullivan |first1=Dylan |last2=Hickel |first2=Jason |author2-link=Jason Hickel |date=2 December 2022 |title=How British colonialism killed 100 million Indians in 40 years |url=https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2022/12/2/how-british-colonial-policy-killed-100-million-indians |work=[[Al Jazeera English|Al Jazeera]] |access-date=14 December 2022 |quote=While the precise number of deaths is sensitive to the assumptions we make about baseline mortality, it is clear that somewhere in the vicinity of 100 million people died prematurely at the height of British colonialism. This is among the largest policy-induced mortality crises in human history. It is larger than the combined number of deaths that occurred during all famines in the Soviet Union, Maoist China, North Korea, Pol Pot's Cambodia, and Mengistu's Ethiopia.}}</ref> According to [[Dovid Katz]] and other historians, a [[historical revisionist]] view of the [[double genocide theory]],<ref>{{cite web |last1=Liedy |first1=Amy Shannon |last2=Ruble |first2=Blair |date=7 March 2011 |url=https://www.wilsoncenter.org/event/holocaust-revisionism-ultranationalism-and-the-nazisoviet-double-genocide-debate-eastern |title=Holocaust Revisionism, Ultranationalism, and the Nazi/Soviet 'Double Genocide' Debate in Eastern Europe |publisher=[[Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars|Wilson Center]] |access-date=14 November 2020}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last=Shafir |first=Michael |date=Summer 2016 |url=http://jsri.ro/ojs/index.php/jsri/article/viewFile/798/696 |title=Ideology, Memory and Religion in Post-Communist East Central Europe: A Comparative Study Focused on Post-Holocaust |journal=Journal for the Study of Religions and Ideologies |volume=15 |issue=44 |pages=52–110}}</ref> equating mass deaths under Communist states with the Holocaust, is popular in [[Eastern European]] countries and the [[Baltic states]], and their approaches of history have been incorporated in the [[European Union]] agenda,<ref name="Satori">{{cite news |url=https://satori.lv/article/latvias-soviet-story-transitional-justice-and-the-politics-of-commemoration |title=Latvia's 'Soviet Story'. Transitional Justice and the Politics of Commemoration |website=Satory |date=26 October 2009 |access-date=6 August 2021}}</ref> among them the [[Prague Declaration]] in June 2008 and the [[European Day of Remembrance for Victims of Stalinism and Nazism]], which was proclaimed by the [[European Parliament]] in August 2008 and endorsed by the [[OSCE in Europe]] in July 2009. Among many scholars in [[Western Europe]], the comparison of the two regimes and equivalence of their crimes has been, and still is, widely rejected.{{r|Satori}} === Memory and legacy === Criticism of communism can be divided into two broad categories, namely that [[criticism of Communist party rule]] that concerns with the practical aspects of 20th-century [[Communist state]]s,<ref name="Bruno Bosteels 2014">{{cite book |last=Bosteels |first=Bruno |title=The Actuality of Communism |date=2014 |publisher=[[Verso Books]] |isbn=9781781687673 |edition=paper back |location=New York City, New York |author-link=Bruno Bosteels}}</ref> and [[criticism of Marxism]] and communism generally that concerns its principles and theory.<ref>{{cite book |last=Taras |first=Raymond C. |title=The Road to Disillusion: From Critical Marxism to Post-Communism in Eastern Europe |date=2015 |publisher=[[Taylor & Francis]] |isbn=9781317454786 |edition=E-book |location=London |author-link=Raymond Taras |orig-date=1992}}</ref> Public memory of 20th-century Communist states has been described as a battleground between the communist-sympathetic or [[anti-anti-communist]] political left and the [[anti-communism]] of the [[political right]].{{sfn|Ghodsee|Sehon|Dresser|2018}} Critics of communism on the political right point to the [[excess deaths]] under Communist states as an indictment of communism as an ideology.{{r|Piereson}}{{sfn|Engel-Di Mauro|Engel-Di Mauro|Faber|Labban|2021}}{{r|Satter 2017}} Defenders of communism on the political left say that the deaths were caused by specific authoritarian regimes and not communism as an ideology, while also pointing to [[anti-communist mass killings]] and deaths in wars that they argue were caused by capitalism and anti-communism as a counterpoint to the deaths under Communist states.{{sfn|Bevins|2020b}}{{sfn|Ghodsee|Sehon|Dresser|2018}}{{sfn|Engel-Di Mauro|Engel-Di Mauro|Faber|Labban|2021}} According to Hungarian sociologist and politician [[András Bozóki]], positive aspects of communist countries included support for social mobility and equality, the elimination of illiteracy, urbanization, more accessible healthcare and housing, regional mobility with public transportation, the elimination of semi-feudal hierarchies, more women entering the labor market, and free access to higher education. Negative aspects of communist countries, on the other hand according to Bozóki included the suppression of freedom, the loss of trust in civil society; a culture of fear and corruption; reduced international travel; dependency on the party and state; Central Europe becoming a satellite of the Soviet Union; the creation of closed societies, leading to xenophobia, racism, prejudice, cynicism and pessimism; women only being emancipated in the workforce; the oppression of national identity; and relativist ethical societal standards.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Bozóki |first=András |date=December 2008 |title=The Communist Legacy: Pros and Cons in Retrospect |url=https://www.researchgate.net/figure/The-Communist-Legacy-Pros-and-Cons-in-Retrospect_tbl2_228979606 |website=[[ResearchGate]]}}</ref> [[Memory studies]] have been done on how the events are memorized.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Kaprāns |first=Mārtiņš |date=2 May 2015 |title=Hegemonic representations of the past and digital agency: Giving meaning to 'The Soviet Story' on social networking sites |journal=Memory Studies |volume=9 |issue=2 |pages=156–172 |doi=10.1177/1750698015587151 |s2cid=142458412}}</ref> According to [[Kristen Ghodsee|Kristen R. Ghodsee]] and [[Scott Sehon]], on the political left, there are "those with some sympathy for socialist ideals and the popular opinion of hundreds of millions of Russian and east European citizens nostalgic for their state socialist pasts.", while on the political right, there are "the committed anti-totalitarians, both east and west, insisting that all experiments with Marxism will always and inevitably end with the gulag."{{sfn|Ghodsee|Sehon|Dresser|2018}} The "[[victims of Communism]]" concept,<ref>{{cite journal |last=Neumayer |first=Laure |date=November 2017 |title=Advocating for the Cause of the 'Victims of Communism' in the European Political Space: Memory Entrepreneurs in Interstitial Fields |journal=Nationalities Papers |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |volume=45 |issue=6 |pages=992–1012 |doi=10.1080/00905992.2017.1364230 |doi-access=free}}</ref> has become accepted scholarship, as part of the double genocide theory, in Eastern Europe and among anti-communists in general;<ref>{{cite journal |last=Dujisin |first=Zoltan |date=July 2020 |title=A History of Post-Communist Remembrance: From Memory Politics to the Emergence of a Field of Anticommunism |journal=[[Theory and Society]] |volume=50 |issue=January 2021 |pages=65–96 |doi=10.1007/s11186-020-09401-5 |s2cid=225580086 |quote=This article invites the view that the Europeanization of an antitotalitarian 'collective memory' of communism reveals the emergence of a field of anticommunism. This transnational field is inextricably tied to the proliferation of state-sponsored and anticommunist memory institutes across Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), ... [and is proposed by] anticommunist memory entrepreneurs. |doi-access=free}}</ref> it is rejected by some Western European{{r|Satori}} and other scholars, especially when it is used to equate Communism and [[Nazism]], which is seen by scholars as a long-discredited perspective.<ref name="Doumanis 2016">{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Yd8mDAAAQBAJ |title=The Oxford Handbook of European History, 1914–1945 |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |year=2016 |isbn=9780191017759 |editor-last=Doumanis |editor-first=Nicholas |edition=E-book |location=Oxford, England |pages=377–378}}</ref> The narrative posits that famines and mass deaths by Communist states can be attributed to a single cause and that communism, as "the deadliest ideology in history", or in the words of [[Jonathan Rauch]] as "the deadliest fantasy in human history",<ref>{{cite news |last=Rauch |first=Jonathan |date=December 2003 |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2003/12/the-forgotten-millions/302849/ |title=The Forgotten Millions |work=[[The Atlantic]] |access-date=20 December 2020}}</ref> represents the greatest threat to humanity.{{sfn|Engel-Di Mauro|Engel-Di Mauro|Faber|Labban|2021}} Proponents posit an alleged link between communism, left-wing politics, and socialism with genocide, mass killing, and [[totalitarianism]].<ref>{{cite journal |last=Mrozick |first=Agnieszka |date=2019 |editor1-last=Kuligowski |editor1-first=Piotr |editor2-last=Moll |editor2-first=Łukasz |editor3-last=Szadkowski |editor3-first=Krystian |url=https://www.ceeol.com/search/article-detail?id=788051 |title=Anti-Communism: It's High Time to Diagnose and Counteract |journal={{ill|Praktyka Teoretyczna|pl}} |publisher=Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań |volume=1 |number=31, ''Anti-Communisms: Discourses of Exclusion'' |pages=178–184 |access-date=26 December 2020 |via=Central and Eastern European Online Library |quote=First is the prevalence of a totalitarian paradigm, in which Nazism and Communism are equated as the most atrocious ideas and systems in human history (because communism, defined by Marx as a classless society with common means of production, has never been realised anywhere in the world, in further parts I will be putting this concept into inverted commas as an example of discursive practice). Significantly, while in the Western debate the more precise term 'Stalinism' is used – in 2008, on the 70th anniversary of the Ribbentrop–Molotov Pact, the European Parliament established 23 August as the European Day of Remembrance for Victims of Stalinism and Nazism – hardly anyone in Poland is paying attention to niceties: 'communism' or the left, is perceived as totalitarian here. A homogenizing sequence of associations (the left is communism, communism is totalitarianism, ergo the left is totalitarian) and the ahistorical character of the concepts used (no matter if we talk about the USSR in the 1930s under Stalin, Maoist China from the period of the Cultural Revolution, or Poland under Gierek, 'communism' is murderous all the same) not only serves the denigration of the Polish People's Republic, expelling this period from Polish history, but also – or perhaps primarily – the deprecation of Marxism, leftist programs, and any hopes and beliefs in Marxism and leftist activity as a remedy for capitalist exploitation, social inequality, fascist violence on a racist and anti-Semitic basis, as well as homophobic and misogynist violence. The totalitarian paradigm not only equates fascism and socialism (in Poland and the countries of the former Eastern bloc stubbornly called 'communism' and pressed into the sphere of influence of the Soviet Union, which should additionally emphasize its foreignness), but in fact recognizes the latter as worse, more sinister (the ''Black Book of Communism'' (1997) is of help here as it estimates the number of victims of 'communism' at around 100 million; however, it is critically commented on by researchers on the subject, including historian Enzo Traverso in the book ''L'histoire comme champ de bataille'' (2011)). Thus, anti-communism not only delegitimises the left, including communists, and depreciates the contribution of the left to the breakdown of fascism in 1945, but also contributes to the rehabilitation of the latter, as we can see in recent cases in Europe and other places. (Quote at pp. 178–179)}}</ref> Some authors, as [[Stéphane Courtois]], propose a theory of equivalence between class and racial genocide.<ref name="Jaffrelot & Sémelin 2009">{{cite book |editor-last1=Jaffrelot |editor-first1=Christophe |editor-link1=Christophe Jaffrelot |editor-last2=Sémelin |editor-first2=Jacques |editor-link2=Jacques Sémelin |date=2009 |title=Purify and Destroy: The Political Uses of Massacre and Genocide |translator-last=Schoch |translator-first=Cynthia |series=CERI Series in Comparative Politics and International Studies |location=New York |publisher=[[Columbia University Press]] |pages=37 |isbn=978-0-231-14283-0}}</ref> It is supported by the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, with 100 million being the most common estimate used from ''[[The Black Book of Communism]]'' despite some of the authors of the book distancing themselves from the estimates made by Stephen Courtois.{{sfn|Ghodsee|Sehon|Dresser|2018}} Various museums and monuments have been constructed in remembrance of the victims of Communism, with support of the European Union and various governments in Canada, Eastern Europe, and the United States.<ref name="Ghodsee 2014">{{cite journal |last=Ghodsee |first=Kristen |author-link=Kristen Ghodsee |volume=4 |issue=2 |pages=115–142 |title=A Tale of 'Two Totalitarianisms': The Crisis of Capitalism and the Historical Memory of Communism |journal=[[History of the Present]] |year=2014 |url=http://scholar.harvard.edu/files/kristenghodsee/files/history_of_the_present_galleys.pdf |jstor=10.5406/historypresent.4.2.0115 |doi=10.5406/historypresent.4.2.0115}}</ref><ref name="Neumayer 2018">{{cite book |last=Neumayer |first=Laure |author-link=Laure Neumayer |year=2018 |title=The Criminalisation of Communism in the European Political Space after the Cold War |publisher=[[Routledge]] |isbn=9781351141741}}</ref> Works such as ''The Black Book of Communism'' and ''[[Bloodlands]]'' legitimized debates on the [[comparison of Nazism and Stalinism]],{{r|Jaffrelot & Sémelin 2009}}<ref>{{cite journal |last=Kühne |first=Thomas |date=May 2012 |title=Great Men and Large Numbers: Undertheorising a History of Mass Killing |journal=[[Contemporary European History]] |volume=21 |issue=2 |pages=133–143 |doi=10.1017/S0960777312000070 |issn=0960-7773 |jstor=41485456 |s2cid=143701601}}</ref> and by extension communism, and the former work in particular was important in the criminalization of communism.{{r|Ghodsee 2014}}{{r|Neumayer 2018}} According to [[Freedom House]], Communism is "considered one of the two great totalitarian movements of the 20th century", the other being Nazism, but added that "there is an important difference in how the world has treated these two execrable phenomena.":<ref>{{Cite web |last=Puddington |first=Arch |date=23 March 2017 |title=In Modern Dictatorships, Communism's Legacy Lingers On |url=https://freedomhouse.org/article/modern-dictatorships-communisms-legacy-lingers |access-date=5 August 2023 |website=[[Freedom House]] |language=en}}</ref> The failure of Communist governments to live up to the ideal of a [[communist society]], their general trend towards increasing [[authoritarianism]], their bureaucracy, and the inherent inefficiencies in their economies have been linked to the decline of communism in the late 20th century.{{r|Ball & Dagger 2019}}{{sfn|Lansford|2007|pp=9–24, 36–44}}<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal |last=Djilas |first=Milovan |author-link=Milovan Djilas |date=1991 |title=The Legacy of Communism in Eastern Europe |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/45290119 |journal=The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs |volume=15 |issue=1 |pages=83–92 |jstor=45290119 |issn=1046-1868}}</ref> [[Walter Scheidel]] stated that despite wide-reaching government actions, Communist states failed to achieve long-term economic, social, and political success.<ref>{{cite book |last=Scheidel |first=Walter |title=The Great Leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century |publisher=[[Princeton University Press]] |year=2017 |isbn=978-0691165028 |chapter=Chapter 7: Communism |author-link=Walter Scheidel}}</ref> The experience of the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the [[North Korean famine]], and alleged economic underperformance when compared to developed free market systems are cited as examples of Communist states failing to build a successful state while relying entirely on what they view as ''orthodox Marxism''.<ref>{{cite book |last=Scheidel |first=Walter |title=The Great Leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century |date=2017 |publisher=[[Princeton University Press]] |isbn=978-0691165028 |pages=222 |author-link=Walter Scheidel}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Natsios |first=Andrew S. |title=The Great North Korean Famine |date=2002 |publisher=[[Institute of Peace Press]] |isbn=1929223331 |author-link=Andrew Natsios}}</ref>{{page needed|date=June 2021}} Despite those shortcomings, [[Philipp Ther]] stated that there was a general increase in the standard of living throughout Eastern Bloc countries as the result of modernization programs under Communist governments.<ref>{{cite book |last=Ther |first=Philipp |url=https://press.princeton.edu/titles/10812.html |title=Europe Since 1989: A History |publisher=[[Princeton University Press]] |year=2016 |isbn=978-0-691-16737-4 |page=132 |quote=Stalinist regimes aimed to catapult the predominantly agrarian societies into the modern age by swift industrialization. At the same time, they hoped to produce politically loyal working classes by mass employment in large state industries. Steelworks were built in Eisenhüttenstadt (GDR), Nowa Huta (Poland), Košice (Slovakia), and Miskolc (Hungary), as were various mechanical engineering and chemical combines and other industrial sites. As a result of communist modernization, living standards in Eastern Europe rose. Planned economies, moreover, meant that wages, salaries, and the prices of consumer goods were fixed. Although the communists were not able to cancel out all regional differences, they succeeded in creating largely egalitarian societies. |author-link=:de:Philipp Ther}}</ref> Most experts agree there was a significant increase in mortality rates following the years 1989 and 1991, including a 2014 [[World Health Organization]] report which concluded that the "health of people in the former Soviet countries deteriorated dramatically after the collapse of the Soviet Union."<ref name="Ghodsee 2021">{{cite book |last1=Ghodsee |first1=Kristen |last2=Orenstein |first2=Mitchell A. |author1-link=Kristen Ghodsee |date=2021 |title=Taking Stock of Shock: Social Consequences of the 1989 Revolutions |url= |location=New York |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |page=78 |doi=10.1093/oso/9780197549230.001.0001 |isbn=978-0197549247}}</ref> Post-Communist Russia during the [[IMF]]-backed economic reforms of [[Boris Yeltsin]] experienced surging [[economic inequality]] and [[poverty]] as unemployment reached double digits by the early to mid 1990s.<ref>{{cite book |last=Scheidel |first=Walter |author-link=Walter Scheidel |title=The Great Leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century |publisher=[[Princeton University Press]] |year=2017 |isbn=978-0691165028 |pages=51, 222–223 |quote=Following the dissolution of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and then of the Soviet Union itself in late 1991, exploding poverty drove the surge in income inequality.}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Mattei |first=Clara E. |date=2022 |title=The Capital Order: How Economists Invented Austerity and Paved the Way to Fascism |pages=301–302 |url=https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/C/bo181707138.html |location= |publisher=[[University of Chicago Press]] |isbn=978-0226818399 |quote="If, in 1987–1988, 2 percent of the Russian people lived in poverty (i.e., survived on less than $4 a day), by 1993–1995 the number reached 50 percent: in just seven years half the Russian population became destitute.}}</ref> By contrast, the [[Central Europe|Central European]] states of the former Eastern Bloc–Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia–showed healthy increases in life expectancy from the 1990s onward, compared to nearly thirty years of stagnation under Communism.<ref>{{harvp|Hauck|2016}}; {{harvp|Gerr|Raskina|Tsyplakova|2017}}; {{harvp|Safaei|2011}}; {{harvp|Mackenbach|2012}}; {{harvp|Leon|2013}}</ref> Bulgaria and Romania followed this trend after the introduction of more serious economic reforms in the late 1990s.<ref>{{cite journal |first1=C. |last1=Dolea |first2=E. |last2=Nolte |first3=M. |last3=McKee |url=https://jech.bmj.com/content/56/6/444 |title=Changing life expectancy in Romania after the transition] |journal=[[Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health]] |year=2002 |volume=56 |issue=6 |pages=444–449 |doi=10.1136/jech.56.6.444 |pmid=12011202 |pmc=1732171 |access-date=4 January 2021}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Chavez |first=Lesly Allyn |date=June 2014 |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/335675821 |title=The Effects of Communism on Romania's Population |access-date=4 January 2021}}</ref> The economies of Eastern Bloc countries had previously experienced stagnation in the 1980s under Communism.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Hirt |first1=Sonia |last2=Sellar |first2=Christian |last3=Young |first3=Craig |date=4 September 2013 |title=Neoliberal Doctrine Meets the Eastern Bloc: Resistance, Appropriation and Purification in Post-Socialist Spaces |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09668136.2013.822711 |journal=[[Europe-Asia Studies]] |volume=65 |issue=7 |pages=1243–1254 |doi=10.1080/09668136.2013.822711 |s2cid=153995367 |issn=0966-8136}}</ref> A common expression throughout Eastern Europe after 1989 was "everything they told us about communism was a lie, but everything they told us about capitalism was true."{{r|Ghodsee 2021}}{{rp|192}} The right-libertarian think tank [[Cato Institute]] has stated that the analyses done of post-communist countries in the 1990s were "premature" and "that early and rapid reformers by far outperformed gradual reformers" on [[Lists of countries by GDP per capita|GDP per capita]], the [[United Nations Human Development Index]] and [[political freedom]], in addition to developing better institutions. The institute also stated that the process of privatization in Russia was "deeply flawed" due to Russia's reforms being "far ''less'' rapid" than those of Central Europe and the [[Baltic states]].<ref>{{Cite web |last1=Havrylyshyn |first1=Oleh |last2=Meng |first2=Xiaofan |last3=Tupy |first3=Marian L. |date=12 July 2016 |title=25 Years of Reforms in Ex-Communist Countries |url=https://www.cato.org/policy-analysis/25-years-reforms-ex-communist-countries-fast-extensive-reforms-led-higher-growth#introduction |access-date=7 July 2023 |website=[[Cato Institute]]}}</ref> The average post-Communist country had returned to 1989 levels of per-capita GDP by 2005.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Appel |first1=Hilary |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PHhTDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA36 |title=From Triumph to Crisis: Neoliberal Economic Reform in Postcommunist Countries |last2=Orenstein |first2=Mitchell A. |date=2018 |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |isbn=978-1108435055 |page=36}}</ref> However, [[Branko Milanović]] wrote in 2015 that following the end of the Cold War, many of those countries' economies declined to such an extent during the transition to capitalism that they have yet to return to the point they were prior to the collapse of communism.<ref>{{cite journal |year=2015 |title=After the Wall Fell: The Poor Balance Sheet of the Transition to Capitalism |journal=[[Challenge (economics magazine)|Challenge]] |volume=58 |issue=2 |pages=135–138 |doi=10.1080/05775132.2015.1012402 |quote=So, what is the balance sheet of transition? Only three or at most five or six countries could be said to be on the road to becoming a part of the rich and (relatively) stable capitalist world. Many of the other countries are falling behind, and some are so far behind that they cannot aspire to go back to the point where they were when the Wall fell for several decades. |last=Milanović |first=Branko |author-link=Branko Milanović |s2cid=153398717}}</ref> Several scholars state that the negative economic developments in post-Communist countries after the fall of Communism led to increased nationalist sentiment and [[Nostalgia for Communism|nostalgia for the Communist era]].{{sfn|Ghodsee|Sehon|Dresser|2018}}<ref>{{Cite book |last=Ghodsee |first=Kristen Rogheh |title=Red hangover: legacies of twentieth-century communism |date=October 2017 |publisher=Duke University Press |isbn=978-0-8223-6934-9}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |date=5 December 2011 |title=Confidence in Democracy and Capitalism Wanes in Former Soviet Union |work=Pew Research Center's Global Attitudes Project |url=http://www.pewglobal.org/2011/12/05/confidence-in-democracy-and-capitalism-wanes-in-former-soviet-union/ |access-date=24 November 2018}}</ref> In 2011, ''[[The Guardian]]'' published an analysis of the former Soviet countries twenty years after the fall of the USSR. They found that "GDP fell as much as 50 percent in the 1990s in some republics... as capital flight, industrial collapse, hyperinflation and tax avoidance took their toll", but that there was a rebound in the 2000s, and by 2010 "some economies were five times as big as they were in 1991." Life expectancy has grown since 1991 in some of the countries, but fallen in others; likewise, some held free and fair elections, while others remained authoritarian.<ref name=":22">{{Cite web |title=End of the USSR: visualising how the former Soviet countries are doing, 20 years on {{!}} Russia |date=17 Aug 2011 |first1=Mark |last1=Rice-Oxley |first2=Ami |last2=Sedghi |first3=Jenny |last3=Ridley |first4=Sasha |last4=Magill |url=https://theguardian.com/news/datablog/2011/aug/17/ussr-soviet-countries-data |access-date=21 January 2021 |website=The Guardian}}</ref> By 2019, the majority of people in most Eastern European countries approved of the shift to multiparty democracy and a market economy, with approval being highest among residents of Poland and residents in the territory of what was once [[East Germany]], and disapproval being the highest among residents of Russia and [[Ukraine]]. In addition, 61 percent said that standards of living were now higher than they had been under Communism, while only 31 percent said that they were worse, with the remaining 8 percent saying that they did not know or that standards of living had not changed.<ref>{{Cite web |first1=Richard |last1=Wike |first2=Jacob |last2=Poushter |first3=Laura |last3=Silver |first4=Kat |last4=Devlin |first5=Janell |last5=Fetterolf |first6=Alexandra |last6=Castillo |first7=Christine |last7=Huang |date=15 October 2019 |title=European Public Opinion Three Decades After the Fall of Communism |url=https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2019/10/15/european-public-opinion-three-decades-after-the-fall-of-communism/ |access-date=15 June 2023 |website=[[Pew Research Center]]'s Global Attitudes Project |language=en-US}}</ref> According to Grigore Pop-Eleches and Joshua Tucker in their book ''Communism's Shadow: Historical Legacies and Contemporary Political Attitudes'', citizens of post-Communist countries are less supportive of democracy and more supportive of government-provided social welfare. They also found that those who lived under Communist rule were more likely to be left-authoritarian (referencing the [[right-wing authoritarian personality]]) than citizens of other countries. Those who are left-authoritarian in this sense more often tend to be older generations that lived under Communism. In contrast, younger post-Communist generations continue to be anti-democratic but are not as left-wing ideologically, which in the words of Pop-Eleches and Tucker "might help explain the growing popularity of [[right-wing populists]] in the region."<ref>{{cite news |last1=Pop-Eleches |first1=Grigore |last2=Tucker |first2=Joshua |date=12 November 2019 |title=Europe's communist regimes began to collapse 30 years ago, but still shape political views |newspaper=The Washington Post |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/11/12/europes-communist-regimes-began-collapse-years-ago-still-shape-political-views/ |access-date=20 August 2022}}</ref> [[Conservatives]], [[Liberalism|liberals]], and [[social democrats]] generally view 20th-century Communist states as unqualified failures. Political theorist and professor [[Jodi Dean]] argues that this limits the scope of discussion around political alternatives to [[capitalism]] and [[neoliberalism]]. Dean argues that, when people think of capitalism, they do not consider what are its worst results ([[climate change]], [[economic inequality]], [[hyperinflation]], the [[Great Depression]], the [[Great Recession]], the [[Robber baron (industrialist)|robber barons]], and [[unemployment]]) because the [[history of capitalism]] is viewed as dynamic and nuanced; the history of communism is not considered dynamic or nuanced, and there is a fixed historical narrative of communism that emphasizes [[authoritarianism]], the [[gulag]], starvation, and violence.<ref>{{cite web |last=Ehms |first=Jule |date=9 March 2014 |url=https://marxandphilosophy.org.uk/reviews/7871_the-communist-horizon-review-by-jule-ehms/ |title=The Communist Horizon |website=Marx & Philosophy Society |access-date=29 October 2018}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Ghodsee |first=Kristen |author-link=Kristen Ghodsee |year=2015 |title=The Left Side of History: World War II and the Unfulfilled Promise of Communism in Eastern Europe |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QkJ5CAAAQBAJ&pg=PT18 |publisher=[[Duke University Press]] |page=xvi–xvii |isbn=978-0822358350}}</ref> Ghodsee,<ref group="lower-alpha">{{harvp|Ghodsee|2018|ps=: "Throughout much of the twentieth century, state socialism presented an existential challenge to the worst excesses of the free market. The threat posed by Marxist ideologies forced Western governments to expand social safety nets to protect workers from the unpredictable but inevitable booms and busts of the capitalist economy. After the Berlin Wall fell, many celebrated the triumph of the West, cosigning socialist ideas to the dustbin of history. But for all its faults, state socialism provided an important foil for capitalism. It was in response to a global discourse of social and economic rights—a discourse that appealed not only to the progressive populations of Africa, Asia, and Latin America but also to many men and women in Western Europe and North America—that politicians agreed to improve working conditions for wage laborers as well as create social programs for children, the poor, the elderly, the sick, and the disabled, mitigating exploitation and the growth of income inequality. Although there were important antecedents in the 1980s, once state socialism collapsed, capitalism shook off the constraints of market regulation and income redistribution. Without the looming threat of a rival superpower, the last thirty years of global neoliberalism have witnessed a rapid shriveling of social programs that protect citizens from cyclical instability and financial crises and reduce the vast inequality of economic outcomes between those at the top and bottom of the income distribution."}}</ref> along with the historians [[Gary Gerstle]] and [[Walter Scheidel]], suggest that the rise and fall of communism had a significant impact on the development and decline of [[labor movement]]s and social [[welfare state]]s in the United States and other Western societies. Gerstle argues that organized labor in the United States was strongest when the threat of communism reached its peak, and the decline of both organized labor and the welfare state coincided with the collapse of communism. Both Gerstle and Scheidel posit that as economic elites in the West became more fearful of possible communist revolutions in their own societies, especially as the tyranny and violence associated with communist governments became more apparent, the more willing they were to compromise with the working class, and much less so once the threat waned.<ref>{{cite book |last=Gerstle |first=Gary |author-link=Gary Gerstle |date=2022 |title=The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order: America and the World in the Free Market Era |url=https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-neoliberal-order-9780197519646?cc=us&lang=en& |location=Oxford |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |page=12 |isbn=978-0197519646}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last=Taylor |first=Matt |date=22 February 2017 |title=One Recipe for a More Equal World: Mass Death|url=https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/ypxw55/one-recipe-for-a-more-equal-world-mass-death |work=[[Vice (magazine)|Vice]] |access-date=27 June 2022}}</ref> Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. 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