Freshman Seminar: The Rise and Demise of World Communism
Course Description
The rise and fall of world communism was one of the great dramas of the 20th century, born in wars (World War I, World II, the Vietnam Wars), offering an alternative conception of modernity to that of the capitalist world, but ultimately succumbing to the pressures of Cold War, capitalist globalization, and popular disaffection. The result was either systemic collapse (the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe) or a fundamental alteration of key economic and foreign-policy features of the communist system (China, Vietnam, Laos). Beyond that, two states remain---North Korea and Cuba---that are very different from each other, but that have in common that they have neither collapsed nor fundamentally altered their systems. We will trace communism’s origins in Marxism and Leninism, its victory in the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, its construction of an “anti-imperialist” international sub-system (the “world communist movement”), its spread throughout Europe and Asia (plus Cuba), and its ultimate demise or alteration. What did communist revolutions, states, and non-ruling communist parties have in common, in both their domestic and international orientations? How did they differ from each other? Why did international communism fracture into competing models of domestic and foreign policy? Why did the Soviet Union and, with it, the world communist system ultimately collapse? What should we make of China’s remarkable rise after altering its economic (but not its political) system? And, looking back, how might we assess the communist legacy: achievement or tragedy?
Book will be provided by Instructor.
