But seriously, why didn't communism triumph in the 20th century when things were looking so good? If the russian revolution and chinese revolution can succeed, liberating 800 million people, 1/3rd of the world's population, defeat the nazis, why couldnt we finish the final stretch? What was the fatal flaw?
They were goaded into an arms race with the US. One they couldn’t keep up with and lead to stagnation in growth. Arming and supporting rebels around the world also didn’t help.
Focus on heavy industry instead of light manufacturing is another that doesn’t get brought up much.
Also I think we forget how adaptive capitalist structures are. People don’t have money? Introduce credit. Keep unemployment down? Have a jobs program in the form of the United States military.
These are just basic answers that others could answer much more thoroughly.
I think one of the things missing here is that the totally centralized economy supposed to be a temporary thing in theory, only for the immediate redistribution of resources for the worker. But since the post WWI revolutions didn't pan out and WWII followed after that, the centralized economy remained. It didn't have diversified investments redundancies like capitalist economies do and therefore didn't do well in the long haul.
Then you also have Stalin getting rid of anyone who would have done that. MLs love to blame Gorbachev and such but Stalin's the reason for Gorbachev.
One thing I've learned about Marxists is they too readily dismiss planning future governments as Utopian. Focusing on the here and now should be a priority but you really do need those Utopian nerds when the time comes to plan your society and ensure the ideological goal is carried through. Say what you want about George Mason and the US Constitution but it's been doing its job for almost a quarter millennia. IDK if the Soviet government had such consistent ideological planning. AFAIK they made it up as they went.
have you like read a single page of marx lmao
In which book does he actually go over how a socialist/communist government should work at any detail? It's not in Kapital and the manifesto has less than a page on it. I know he wrote other works but I'm not sure which has that.