- PROLETARIAN REVOLUTIONS

The socialist ideal was spread by the Communist Manifesto and many other books written by Marx and/or Engels. It was the beginning of a sequence of events that changed History and inspired many political and social movements in Europe and, later, around the world. The first of those movements was that of the Bolsheviks. While the 19th century was fundamental for the modernization of the great European economies, Russia continued depending on agrarian economy and feudal relations of vassalage between lords and peasants. The social Russian structure was pyramidal with the Czar on the top, always ignoring the people’s situation that in most cases were in complete poverty. The unsustainable Russian social situation made people organize a popular protest in front of the Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg –they wanted better labor conditions. Czar Nicolas II, afraid of the thousands of workers congregated in the protest, ordered to open fire against the people. Many people died because of the military repression. After this, the revolutionaries started to conspire against the monarchy and the light of the revolution was burned. After a first attempt in 1905, the climax of this revolution took place in 1917, with a new revolutionary movement conducted by the Bolsheviks, a group of peasants who wanted an absolute revolution of the Proletariat, which shed the blood of thousands of people. The Czar ordered the Army to eliminate the revolutionary groups, but the soldiers’ misery resulted in divisions inside the Army; part of them decided to help the revolutionary cause. This situation forced the Czar to resign and a civil war started in the country. In 1918, the Royal Family was killed and, in 1922, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was born.

Vladimir Lenin was the first leader of the new nation and of the Communist Party; he was also the most important leader during the Revolution. After the war Lenin issued the New Economic Policy, and placed the Soviet Union in the market economy, being then a pluralistic society of early Soviet rule. At the same time, however, he prohibited factionalism and insisted on the principle of the one-party rule. Lenin suffered a series of strokes and, in March 1923, the last one left him without speech and effectively ended his political career. Lenin died in Nizhny Novgorod on Jan. 21, 1924. After his death, Stalin took power and began an era of repression and harassment against his opponents. His management of the economy consisted of five-year plans with which the capital obtained by the industry was invested in other industries that helped modernize the weapons and the army, instead of providing for the wellbeing of the Russian society. During the Second World War, Stalin defended his territory using the freezing weather as his best ally to destroy the German invaders. When Hitler was defeated, and after the Yalta Agreement held among the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union (Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Josef Stalin), Stalin started what was later called the “Eastern Block”, formed by the Soviet Union and the countries of the Warsaw Pact (Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, German Democratic Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania & Albania) and Yugoslavia. Although each country had a different process towards communism, they were known for its strict State control, violation of human rights, persecution of the opponents, and the lack of freedom. In other words, they created societies based on fear.

In its turn, China’s road to communism was different because of its geographical, cultural, and political history. The Chinese Communist Party was created at the beginning of the twenties. Although it was inspired on the Soviet Revolution, its leader Mao Zedong, soon chose his own way of communism, keeping harsh control over the people and their minds, and policies that were later known as ‘Maoism’. Mao controlled the People’s Republic of China until his death, in 1979. One of his most controversial policies, the ‘Cultural Revolution’ implemented since the 60’s, was the cause of nationwide famine and terror – Mao is said to be responsible for the death of 50-70 million persons. Mao’s death enabled pragmatism in social, political and economic Chinese polices and the deconcentration of power from one person’s hands, although his practices were replicated in the massacre of Tiananmen Square, in 1989, the same year of the ‘Fall of the Berlin Wall.’