Gorbachev's policies of glasnost (political openness) and perestroika (economic restructuring), which included an easing of government censorship, exposed the average Soviet citizen to the fact they were far behind the West despite years of government propaganda. Regional economic autonomy led to a rise in regional nationalism and a diminished allegiance to the central government and the Communist party in general. The unintended results of glasnost and perestroika led to uskoreniye (speed-up of economic development) which was unable to counter the economic costs of inflation despite the government's attempts to hide it from the masses. Citizens began to realize that taking control of their own economic destiny (as exemplified by the rapidly expanding black market) led to greater prosperity for the individual, but still didn't match the prosperity of the West.

When they compared themselves to the West, Soviet citizens finally began to realize that they truly were "oppressed". As individual discontent grew, Soviet "states" began to become obstructionist to the Central Government's policies, turning instead to local initiatives and withholding tax revenues from Moscow. As the Politburo's power diminished at the local level, the Parliament (which prior to this period was a largely symbolic body) saw their power and prestige grow.

The Warsaw Pact states, looked upon the weakening power of the Soviet government as an opportunity to escape the Soviet's iron fist, by early 1991 the governments of Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland and Romania had thrown off the yoke and set the stage for a revolution in Soviet Union.

On August 19, 1991 a group of Communist Party hard-liners seized control of the government. The world watched in fascination as the State Emergency Committee placed a vacationing Gorbachev under house arrest and tried to take the Soviet Union back to a period of iron-clad Soviet control. Despite the political power of the Committee's members, which included the KGB Chairman, Internal Affairs Minister and Defense Minister, they were unable to consolidate control as Russian President Boris Yeltsin and members of the Parliament defiantly held the "White House" (Russian Parliament Building) and the citizens of Moscow and Leningrad rallied round the resistance.

Soviet armor arrived on the scene at the White House and promptly defected to Yeltsin's side. Yeltsin's denouncement of the coup via megaphone from the top of a Soviet tank was broadcast to the world and marked the beginning of the end for both the coup and the Soviet Union itself. Commandos dispatched to seize the White House and arrest Yeltsin and leaders of the resistance unanimously refused their orders and stood idly by.

The "Vodka Putsch" collapsed after four days and Gorbachev returned to Moscow. His power was fatally wounded, and in very real terms, Yeltsin was the nation's new leader, if not yet in name. Despite resigning from the Communist Party and the promise to purge Communist Party hardliners from the government, Gorbachev was never able to regain real power. By December, the transformation was complete, all of the Soviet Republics had declared independence and the Soviet Union was no more. Communism was no longer on the march, it was in full retreat.

Fifteen years is a long time on the world political stage. Today a new breed of Communists is organizing in South America, while China's communists are embracing a hybridized free-market system in an attempt to mitigate the inefficiencies of Communist economic policy.

In my view, China and the new Communist states of South America are doomed to failure just as the Soviet Union was. Their hybridization of economic markets into a "free yet directed" economy is merely smoke and mirrors. While such policies may increase the economic prosperity of citizens in the short term, it's this very economic prosperity of individuals which will eventually lead to the collapse of the world's remaining Communist States.

Die-hard leftists and neo-Communists point to Venezeula's apparent success as proof that a Communist state can survive, they also point to China's role as a major industrial produced as an indication that Communism will rise again and be a viable alternative to Democracy and free markets, these are both false beliefs. While Communism can indeed create short term benefits for a people, the inflexible nature of a directed economy can never compete with a free market without crippling government subsidies and false economic props. Likewise the unparalleled capacity of the free market for economic development cannot be matched by centralized planning; it's simply not flexible enough or quick enough to effectively respond to changing market conditions.

Prosperity, which Communism promises, is also Communism's greatest enemy. Prosperity leads to a desire for greater prosperity as individuals realize their potential and seek greater wealth and the comfort and security it provides. The nature of individuals to seek a better life for themselves consistently trumps the misdirection of their economic activity for the support of others. This doesn't mean that people do not have great capacity to help others, but forcing people to give up a portion of their economic prosperity against their will through centralized planning, and forcing people into economic roles they don't wish to take is are untennable positions for a government to take.

Venezeula cripples itself with each move into a directed economy; Citgo (the Venezeulan oil-company) has the potential to be a major player in the world oil economy, in many ways it already is; but the interference of the Central Government in Citgo will lead to it's demise. For any economic entity to succeed, it must be able to recognize and adapt to changes on it's own. Citgo is hampered with a Government that sees it as an unlimited cash cow, while investment in the structures needed to ensure it's viability go ignored and development of new reserves are hampered by the removal of the cash assets needed to ensure viability go to other, unconnected projects. The failure of a Communist State to re-invest in the economic structures that support it is a common theme as managers who have no real hard experience in the industry make decisions from political perspectives rather than empirical economic perspectives.

A similar economic hamstringing is occuring in China, while the Chinese have been very effective in creating a broad based economic engine, it has no depth as critical infrastructure is put into place as window dressing to pay homage to the state rather than put into place to give solid support to China's growing industry. Across China today, there are scores of viable yet abandoned factories from projects which have fallen out of political favor and have their support or even liscense to operate stripped from them for political considerations, causing much needed capital to simply evaporate. As millions of citizens stream into the cities to find work, they are herded like cattle into appaling living quarters and become virtual slaves to the state and its favored industry of the moment.

For sure, there is great economic improvement of the lives of individuals in China, but this improvement is not based on an individuals performance under the whip, but rather his or her loyalty to the party. Businessmen have to constantly balance the needs of their economic activity with the dictates of the state, this leads to the inevitable hiding and hoarding of capital and the development of the black market. This black economy will continue to grow in China just as it did in the Soviet Union. As people begin to rely more and more on the black market and less and less on the state, the state's power will be undermined, and once individuals have tasted the sweetness of the economic apple, they are loath to abandon the flavor for bland handouts of Soylent Green. The Chinese culture historically has produced shrewd economic minds and many would argue that this culture actually supports the Communist system, I beg to differ. While today, Chinese culture independent of the state is complimentary to Communism, it's a certain eventuality that as the masses migrate into the middle class, the dictates of human nature take over, driving the individual to acquire more, want more, and most importantly, want more than the other guy. This desire to not only keep up with the Joneses, but to surpass them will eventually manifest itself in China, and in many ways it already has. As people move up in social and economic status, they demand a share of the political power which governs it. With prosperity comes a desire for more prosperity and as this desire increases, it must be accomodated. Communism by it's very nature, no matter what hybridization you put into it, fails to meet this challenge of the masses for greater and greater economic and political power. Eventually the balance will tip in the favor of the indivual as he (or she, but not in China) gains power and demands more control over his life.

The Chinese will be able to keep the lid on for the foreseeable future, but underneath the facade is a growing middle class, a middle class that will begin to demand protection for it's status and the protection of rights that become a need when wealth is generated. The state can not only content itself with protection of life (security, food, shelter, etc.), it must, if it wishes to survive in a modern economic construct, provide its citizens with protections for liberty and secure the mechanisms necessary for the pursuit of happiness, these latter two philosophic constructs cannot be accomodated in a political system such as Communism. Communism cannot deliver liberty to the populace, because the populace must always remain the property of the state to continue its viability. An individual cannot be considered property and have liberty at the same time, the two concepts are mutually exclusive. The pursuit of happiness means the pursuit of the things you want, not the things the state decides to provide for you, central planning cannot deliver the broad spectrum of goods and services the pursuit of happiness entails. Even if a Communist government were to try to respond to the changing tastes of individuals, it is incapable of responding fast enough or efficient enough to effectively deliver.

[Aside: Before you fire off an email telling me that Chinese citizens are not property, I will address that as follows: If someone (state or individual) tells you where you must live, if you must receive permission to work, if at a moments notice you can be forcibly removed from your home and job to be placed in another home and job not of your choosing, you are in fact property of another, be it individual or state.]

Communism, in a very real way, is slavery. The only difference between a traditional "slave" (as some Muslim communities still practice) and a Communist slave is who holds the whip. It doesn't matter to the slave if the whip is held by an individual or an actor of the state, he is still a slave, and slavery cannot be tolerated.

So on this day, with the anniversay of the collapse of the Soviet Union on the horizon, I urge you, my meager readership to think about the existance of Communist slaves the world over. Realize that our fellow human beings are held in bondage and prevented the very freedoms we all too often take for granted. I urge you not to fear the rise of Communism in South America or it's continued presence in China, Cuba and N. Korea, instead I urge you to despise it as the citizens of the Soviet Union came to. Recognize that "Che worship" is the worship of oppressors and those that would enslave other men to their will, to their dictates. The concept that a state can make better decisions for an individual is an truly evil concept. To deny an individual the control of their own destiny is to encourage evil in the world. To fail to support Democracy is to support the imposition of another's will on the individual.

As we remember the collapse of the Soviet Union, we must turn our attention to the other Evil Empires emerging. We must, at every turn do whatever we can to encourage dissent and rebellion in those areas of the world where an individual is stripped of his individual right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. We must expose the man behind the curtain of Communist regimes and point out their failings at every turn, as loudly as we can so that the oppressed of the world know that we support them in their natural quest for freedom and liberty. We cannot continue to stand idly by while more and more people fall under the control of their "betters", for the concept of "betters" does not exist in a world where all men are created equal.

As we remember the collapse of the Soviet Union, we must look forward to the disintegration of Communism worldwide; in some cases this means we must destabilize those nations which oppress their citizens, in others it means we must "cook" their economy, drive it to a fever pitch where the ability of the state to control it collapses, in others we will have to act to remove regimes that are bent on oppression and where starvation is considered a means of control, in all, we must reject the tennents of Communism and do our best to bring about it's eventual demise.

This is what we should think about as we remember the collapse of the Soviet Union. It was a victory over Communism surely, but it was only one battle, albeit a major one, but the war against Communism and for the freedom of mankind is far from over.

--Jason

UPDATE: Welcome Ace of Spades HQ readers, please feel free to take a look around, and thank you for taking the time to give my words a brief bit of your attention.

MAJOR UPDATE: Just a few hours after I posted this, Bloomberg reports that the last Soviet Premier/Dictator, Mikhail Gorbachev, praises Hillary Clinton. If that's not telling, I'm not sure what is.

There are those that would look favorably on Gorbachev, I do not. While his policies led to the eventual fall of the Soviet Union, don't think for a second that Gorbachev was anti-Communist, he wasn't. The collapse wasn't an intended outcome of Gorbachev's polices; the intent of his policy was to stave off the economic and political collapse of the Soviet regime. He would have been more than happy to serve out his time as a Soviet Premier / Dictator for Life, thankfully, the world had different plans.

-JC