Communism After the Fall
In his introduction to The Lexus and the Olive Tree, published in 1999, Thomas Freidman states that "[t]he world is 10 years old. It was born when the Berlin Wall fell in 1989. The Cold War system was replaced by a new, very greased, interconnected system called globalization." As a result of the fall of the Soviet Union, as signified by the fall of the Wall, and the death of the Cold War system, which had been dominated by two super powers and their perceived black and white politics, every country, but primarily communist countries, which include the former members of the Soviet Union, China, North Korea and Cuba, has had to re-evaluate its form of government and its relationships with other countries. In this paper I will study the changes that have take place as a result of the failure of communism and the dominance of capitalism in China, Cuba and North Korea.China is the most unusual of the countries I will study. It is unusual because of the continuous change its political systems have undergone during the 20th century. For most of the last 2000 years, the defining principles of Imperialist China were based on the teachings of Confucius. Amongst it many tenets Confucianism taught that all people have their place a
Peaceful coexistence is a fantasy that can be pursued only at the risk of betraying the revolution itself. As it was evident that Castro was intent on defying American imperialism, but that the country would not be able to diversify its economy on its own, the USSR stepped into the void and became its principal trading partner buying almost 705 of its exports and providing 60 percent of its imports. So now that we have studied the metamorphose of the government in China over the last fifty years, can we call it a communist regime and how did the fall of communism in the Soviet Union affect the changes which took place in China. Chuch'e is defined by Kim as "the independent stance of rejecting dependence on others and of using one's own powers, believing in one's own strength and displaying the revolutionary spirit of self-reliance. In addition, most literature suggests that Cuba's economy will continue to deteriorate until Castro is removed from power. Interestingly as much as the Ideas of Marx depend on the over throw of class and class struggle he never wrote anything on class struggle. In essence Marx believed that Man determines who he is by what he chooses to produce and how he produces it. This process deviated from Marxism in two major respects, first the proletariat never gained the productive capacity of capitalism, a concept that Marx believed was key to the success of the Revolution and secondly the establishment of a dictator of the proletariat created two classes which Marx also was against. However, with the fall of Russia, North Korea, who like Cuba, has no oil reserves of its own, lost a cheap source of oil and imports in the early 1990's fell by 75 percent. Unlike any other animal Man produces his own sustenance. Prior to World War II, Korea was a unified country which had been occupied at various times by China and Japan. Stalin was the first to lead from the top and build the aura of the infallibility of the leader. He also took central control over the economy, increased heavy industrial production at the expense of light industry and he collectivized the farms. 5 billion annually however Gorbachev was making significant changes in the economy of the USSR all of which had a negative impact on the economy of Cuba.
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