The actions by governments of communist states (Marxist-Leninist states) have been subject to criticism across the political spectrum. The actions of communist states have been especially criticized by anti-communists and right-wing critics, but also by other socialists such as anarchists, democratic socialists, libertarian socialists, orthodox Marxists, and Trotskyist communists. Communist states have also been challenged by domestic dissent. According to the critics, the actions and governance of communist parties within these states has often led to totalitarianism, political repression, restrictions of human rights, poor economic performance, and cultural and artistic censorship.
Several authors noted gaps between official policies of equality and economic justice and the reality of the emergence of a new class in communist countries which thrived at the expense of the remaining population. In Central and Eastern Europe, the works of dissidents Václav Havel and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn gained international prominence, as did the works of disillusioned ex-communists such as Milovan Đilas, who condemned the new class or nomenklatura system that had emerged under communist states. Major criticism also comes from the anti-Stalinist left and other socialists.Chomsky, Noam (Spring/Summer 1986). "The Soviet Union Versus Socialism." Our Generation. Retrieved 10 June 2020 – via Chomsky.info.Howard, M. C.; King J. E. King (2001). "'State Capitalism' in the Soviet Union". History of Economics Review. 34 (1): 110–126. .Wolff, Richard D. (27 June 2015). "Socialism Means Abolishing the Distinction Between Bosses and Employees" . Truthout. Retrieved 29 January 2020. Its socio-economic nature has been much debated, varyingly being labelled a form of bureaucratic collectivism, state capitalism, state socialism, or a totally unique mode of production.Andrai, Charles F. (1994). Comparative Political Systems: Policy Performance and Social Change. Armonk, New York: M. E. Sharpe. p. 140.
The governments of communist states have been criticized as authoritarian or totalitarian for suppressing and killing political dissidents and social classes (so-called "enemies of the people"), religious persecution, ethnic cleansing, forced collectivization, and use of forced labor in concentration camps. Several communist states have also been accused of genocidal acts, such as in Cambodia, China, Poland and Ukraine, although there is scholarly dispute regarding the Holodomor's classification as genocide. Especially in the West, criticism of communist states has also been grounded in criticism of socialism, by economists such as Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman, who argued that the state ownership and planned economy characteristic of Soviet-style communism were responsible for economic stagnation and shortage economies, providing few incentives for individuals to improve productivity and engage in entrepreneurship.Hayek, Friedrich (1935). "The Nature and History of the Problem"; "The Present State of the Debate". Collectivist Economic Planning. pp. 1–40, 201–243.Durlauf, Steven N.; Blume, Lawrence E., ed. (1987). The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics Online. Palgrave Macmillan. Retrieved 2 February 2013. doi:10.1057/9780230226203.1570.Biddle, Jeff; Samuels, Warren; Davis, John (2006). A Companion to the History of Economic Thought, Wiley-Blackwell. p. 319. "What became known as the socialist calculation debate started when von Mises (1935 ) launched a critique of socialism". Anti-Stalinist left and other left-wing critics see it as an example of state capitalism and have referred to it as a "red fascism" contrary to left-wing politics. First published in the July 1934 edition of Ce qu'il faut dire (Brussels). Other leftists, including Marxist–Leninists, criticize them for repressive actions, while recognizing certain advancements such as egalitarian achievements and modernization under such states. Counter-criticism is diverse, including the view it presents a biased or exaggerated anti-communist narrative. Some academics propose a more nuanced analysis of the governance of communist states.
Excess deaths under communist states have been discussed as part of a critical analysis of the governance of communist states. According to Klas-Göran Karlsson, discussion of the number of victims under communist states has been "extremely extensive and ideologically biased."Karlsson, Klas-Göran; Schoenhals, Michael (2008). Crimes Against Humanity under Communist Regimes. Forum for Living History. . Any attempt to estimate a total number of killings by communist states depends greatly on definitions, ranging from a low of 10–20 million to as high as 148 million. The criticism of some of the estimates are mostly focused on three aspects, namely that (i) the estimates are based on sparse and incomplete data when significant errors are inevitable; (ii) the figures are skewed to higher possible values; and (iii) those dying at war and victims of civil wars, Holodomor and other famines in communist states should not be counted. Others have argued that, while certain estimates may not be accurate, "quibbling about numbers is unseemly. What matters is that many, many people were killed by communist regimes." Right-wing commentators argue that these excess deaths and killings are an indictment of communism, while opponents of this view, including members of the political left, argue that these killings were aberrations caused by specific authoritarian regimes instead of communism, and point to mass deaths that they claim were caused by capitalism and anti-communism as a counterpoint to communist killings.
Background and overview
After the Russian Revolution, communist party rule was consolidated for the first time in Soviet Russia (later the largest constituent republic of the Soviet Union, formed in December 1922) and criticized immediately domestically and internationally. During the first Red Scare in the United States, the takeover of Russia by the communist Bolsheviks was considered by many a threat to free markets, religious freedom and liberal democracy. Meanwhile, under the tutelage of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, the only party permitted by the Soviet Union constitution, state institutions were intimately entwined with those of the party. By the late 1920s, Joseph Stalin consolidated the regime's control over the country's economy and society through a system of economic planning and five-year plans.
Between the Russian Revolution and the Second World War, Soviet-style communist rule only spread to one state that was not later incorporated into the Soviet Union. In 1924, communist rule was established in neighboring Mongolia, a traditional outpost of Russian influence bordering the Siberian region. However, throughout much of Europe and the Americas criticism of the domestic and foreign policies of the Soviet regime among anticommunists continued unabated. After the end of World War II, the Soviet Union took control over the territories reached by the Red Army, establishing what later became known as the Eastern Bloc. Following the Chinese Communist Revolution, the People's Republic of China was proclaimed in October 1949 by Mao Zedong, leader of the Chinese Communist Party.
Between the Chinese Communist Revolution and the last quarter of the 20th century, communist rule spread throughout East Asia and much of the Third World and new communist regimes became the subject of extensive local and international criticism. Criticism of the Soviet Union and Third World communist regimes have been strongly anchored in scholarship on totalitarianism which asserts that communist parties maintain themselves in power without the consent of the governed and rule by means of political repression, secret police, propaganda disseminated through the state-controlled mass media, repression of free discussion and criticism, mass surveillance and state terror. These studies of totalitarianism influenced Western historiography on communism and Soviet history, particularly the work of Robert Conquest and Richard Pipes on Stalinism, the Great Purge, the Gulag and the Soviet famine of 1932–1933.
Criticism of communist regimes including their effects on the economic development, human rights, foreign policy, scientific progress and environmental degradation of the countries they rule.
Political repression is a topic in many influential works critical of communist rule, including in The Great Terror and the Soviet famine of 1932–33 in The Harvest of Sorrow; Richard Pipes' account of the "Red Terror" during the Russian Civil War; Rudolph Rummel's work on "democide"; Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's account of Stalin's forced labor camps in The Gulag Archipelago; and Stéphane Courtois' account of executions, forced labor camps and mass starvation in communist regimes as a general category, with particular attention to the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin and China under Mao Zedong.
Soviet-style central planning and state ownership has been another topic of criticism of communist rule. Works by economists such as Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman argue that the economic structures associated with communist rule resulted in economic stagnation. Other topics of criticism of communist rule include foreign policies of expansionism, environmental degradation and the suppression of free cultural expression.
Artistic, scientific and technological policies Criticism of communist rule has also centered on the censorship of the arts. In the case of the Soviet Union, these criticisms often deal with the preferential treatment afforded to socialist realism. Other criticisms center on the large-scale cultural experiments of certain communist regimes. In Romania, the historical center of Bucharest was demolished and the whole city was redesigned between 1977 and 1989. In the Soviet Union, hundreds of churches were demolished or converted to secular purposes during the 1920s and 1930s. In China, the Cultural Revolution sought to give all artistic expression a 'proletarian' content and destroyed much older material lacking this. Advocates of these policies promised to create a new culture that would be superior to the old while critics argue that such policies represented an unjustifiable destruction of the cultural heritage of humanity.
There is a well-known literature focusing on the role of the falsification of images in the Soviet Union under Stalin. In The Commissar Vanishes: The Falsification of Photographs in Stalin's Russia, David King writes: "So much falsification took place during the Stalin years that it is possible to tell the story of the Soviet era through retouched photographs". Under Stalin, historical documents were often the subject of revisionism and forgery, intended to change public perception of certain important people and events. The pivotal role played by Leon Trotsky in the Russian Revolution and Civil War was almost entirely erased from official historical records after Trotsky became the leader of a Communist faction that opposed Stalin's rule.
The emphasis on the "hard sciences" of the Soviet Union has been criticized. There were very few Nobel Prize winners from Communist states. Soviet research in certain sciences was at times guided by political rather than scientific considerations. Lysenkoism and Japhetic theory were promoted for brief periods of time in biology and linguistics respectively, despite having no scientific merit. Research into genetics was restricted because Nazi use of eugenics had prompted the Soviet Union to label genetics a "fascist science". Suppressed research in the Soviet Union also included cybernetics, psychology, psychiatry and organic chemistry.