The Rise and Fall of Communism

The title of my review says it all, but in case some need elaboration: upon writing this I am currently doing Master of Arts in history program (my second master’s degree), in which I am mostly focusing on the history of political and religious ideologies. Communism and Fascism both receive a lot of attention in my work, and as a result I am becoming familiar with a lot of literature relating to those ideologies. Archie Brown’s work is definitely worthy of owning and reading all on its own, but especially in relation to the topics on which I am focused.

Short summary of the content: it’s exactly what the title suggests.

Why you should read it: because although Nazism tends to garner a lot of attention for its evils (which it absolutely should), Communism is less discussed in American academia for what it truly is, and this book is a remedy to that problem. I’ll end the review with a powerful quote as to why that is so:

“There has been much controversy about the numbers of those imprisoned and killed at various times in the Stalin years, but the opening of the archives has led to some convergence towards a middle (but still horrific) figure, some millions fewer than the earlier highest estimates and some millions more than the estimates of those who downplayed the scale of Stalins terror. Ronald Suny, the editor of a recent major volume on twentieth-century Russian history, suggests that the total number of lives destroyed by the Stalinist regime in the 1930s is closer to 1011 million than the 2030 million estimated earlier. Anne Applebaum, the author of a detailed study of political prisoners in the Soviet Union, arrives at a figure of 28.7 million forced labourers over the whole Soviet period. She includes in that number the special exiles, such as kulaks and particular nationalities, among them the Tatars and Volga Germans, who were deported during World War Two. Applebaum notes that a figure of around 786,000 political executions between 1934 and 1953 is now quite widely accepted, although her own view is that the true figure is probably significantly higher than that number. The Russian non-governmental organization Memorial, dedicated to investigating the cases of repression in the Soviet period, more recently came up with the figure of 1.7 million people arrested in 193738 alone, of whom, they say, at least 818,000 were shot.”

Brown’s book is an excellent history of the leadup, life, and death of Communism in the Warsaw Pact and Europe. Conversely not much and not enough of the book are set aside for the development and history of Communism in places such as Latin America and Asia. I don’t think this is by intentional omission, just the author’s failure to grasp the inherent problem with trying to represent all of Communism as a monolithic movement. To be fair, the author is aware of this-briefly going over the history of pre-Soviet Communism such as the American Religious Communes of the 19th century. Probably Brown’s biggest mistake thus was to write a single-volume account of a subject which is far too intricate and nuanced to be expressed in a single book. Otherwise, it’s a good book on the Soviet system and its failures-some of its virtues too.

A long and detailed, but far from dull, history and geopolitical analysis. Early in the book Dr. Brown distinguishes between communism and Communism (capital C). In its lower-case form it envisions an environment in which the economic behavior of individuals is fully governed by the utopian notion of from each according to his ability, to each according to his need, and political institutions wither away in an entirely individual, self-regulated (and enlightened) society.

In projecting the evolution of utopian communism beginning with real (capitalist-industrial) societies, Marx and Engels did not think much about the political and economic institutions needed between the overthrow of capitalism and the appearance of communism. Those institutions, political, economic, and social, were invented on the fly by Lenin. It is the combination of Marxs utopian ideas (whose impact, for example collective farming, was mostly negative) and Lenins institutions that result in Communism with a capital C.

Dr. Brown circumnavigates the world three times covering first the history (through the early post-WWII period) of the evolution of Communism in Europe (the Soviet Union dominating the pre-WWII period), the Americas (Cuba), and Asia, then the middle period of the Cold War (1948 through the mid-1980s), and finally the collapse (or present status) of most Communist governments in Europe, and the present (up to 2008) in China and other nations of Asia. China and Vietnam for example have largely, but not entirely, abandoned much, but not all, of the economic institutional structure of their original Leninism, but not the political or social institutions.

The author cross-analyzes this history from many angles, for example, Communism in power (the Soviet Union), East-central Europe, China, Vietnam) versus Communist political parties that remained part of pluralistic political systems (Western Europe, the U.S.) and never came to power. He focuses on the former, giving us a nuanced, country by country, portrait of the history and evolution of Communist institutions in nations where Communists took power. All these histories are individual, and yet all come out remarkably similar to the original institutional form developed by Lenin, and in Asia, modified by Mao Tse Tung.

Geopolitical analysis suffuses Browns historical telling. All Communist governments were influenced by the situation around them either regionally (Europe) or more widely (Cuban soldiers and doctors in Africa). In the post-war period, the U.S. and/or Western European presence is everywhere, sometimes less than constructively. Dr. Browns analysis of Communisms collapse (where it has collapsed) and why it had the sticking power it had (and still has in parts of the world) is as nuanced as the story of its ascension. A long book, but not to be missed by students of 20th-century history.

Very interesting book, and surprisingly easy to read. You shouldn’t consider though it unless you have a strong background in modern history. Communisn wasn’t a monolithic movement and the author does a good job of unraveling a very complex subject, from start to finish.

Brown write a good overview of the historical process of Communistic rise and fall, appropriately named. There were many great illustrations, details, overviews, comparisons, and contrasts that provided an understanding and capacity for Westerners who hadn’t experienced those days to partially internalize his messages. In general a very good read for generic context and background – I wouldn’t recommend it for advanced studies or in-depth analysis.

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