Exploring Political Participation and Governing Structures in Communist States

Those who were not exposed to communist government often hold a warped view of it from Cold War propaganda, either an instilled fear of the enemy and the unknown or a misguided longing for its seeming simplicity. Often, especially when dealing with politics outside one’s borders, even the most advanced scholars will stray towards categorizing political systems as an unchanging monolith. This is especially prevalent in the “Western world”, with fresh memories of the Cold War and its proxy conflicts, and a looming fear of communist takeover. Many countries remain part of NATO, an organization originally formed to protect from communist aggression. In especially conservative and ultra-capitalist countries like the United States, even the suggestion of some form of socialized government, such as universal healthcare, is met with shouts of communism. Most look at countries that operated either in name or in practice under communist systems and remember only defined historical events, such as Pol Pot’s genocide, the Great Leap Forward, or the Great Purge. There is a caricature of a supreme leader like Joseph Stalin, and the idea that every decision was in the hands of this one person. Many with little knowledge of government operations think that all they needed to rule were secret police to suppress dissent and a brainwashed military to further expansionist foreign policy. What is forgotten is the fact that these states needed to function day to day in order to stay in power. They had defined structures that involved those in the upper echelons of government as well as the common people. In fact, communist regimes tended to have more government involvement in the literal sense, as most involved much of the population as members of the ruling party. This, of course, varied from country to country, and the structures of government in Cuba and Vietnam were far from the same. Instead of focusing on the villain of the communist monolith, there is much to learn about how these governments managed to keep a hold on their countries and how they differed from each other. Communist regimes had the same complexity and struggle as their liberal democratic counterparts, and an understated variance in how they operated at the highest and lowest levels of society.

Frequently, the idea of the communist monolith and the similarity of their regimes stems from the original source of communist dogma. The foundations of communism came in the nineteenth century, and the idea gained traction through a widespread disillusionment with what was seen as an unequal and unsustainable order. Karl Marx tore at the foundations of most traditional societies, especially with a claim that religion was the “opiate of the masses”, or essentially a harmful, blinding source of comfort for downtrodden lower classes (Wolff). This idea, as well as a general tide toward secularism, was especially damaging to the existing governments in many states. Many old monarchies of the time still used religion as a primary reason for their legitimacy. However, Marx’s most scathing critiques were towards the economic order, liberal capitalism, which existed in most countries which eventually would be taken over by communist regimes. Marx focused on the value of labor, and how the workers of the time produced more value than what they were paid while profits were hoarded by the upper class (Wolff). It was true that these workers, in the midst of rapid industrialization, often lived in squalor and worked in awful conditions, and Marx’s words resonated with them. With general, divisive language such as “Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing each other — bourgeoisie and proletariat” (“Manifesto of the Communist Party”, 50), Marx divided society into two groups. Everyone who wasn’t with communism therefore became against it, which goes far in explaining why communist societies, in many cases, were very repressive towards perceived enemies even for small slights.

Though it took decades, worsening conditions along with Marxist rhetoric that called for violent change pushed the so-called proletariat further towards revolution. The first communist state would come to power in Russia, and eventually surrounding nations, under the name of the Soviet Union. After a bloody, brutal civil war filled with repression and atrocities, a partly but not fully Marxist state existed. The Soviet Union would become the state communists around the world looked to as a model and as a leader. In the revolution, “thorough leveling [of society] had been achieved at a high price,” (Scheidel, 218), and those who considered themselves the proletariat were willing to sacrifice to achieve the same thing. Underground groups similar to the Bolsheviks would rise up suddenly, or in the case of China or Vietnam, continue a protracted guerilla war until the collapse of the state. These shared origins, as well as the similarities of the groups which used violence to achieve communist power, contributed to the myth of communist similarity on all fronts. However, the states they established would differ in essential ways.

The Soviet Union was the first communist state and by far the most powerful and present in world affairs. Its relatively recent collapse has given the average person much more insight on its internal workings, as there are few reasons to keep it secret anymore. This makes it far more accessible than the other communist regimes, as those which continue to operate have a direct interest in keeping their government structure secret. As the Soviet Union changed very much over time, it is necessary to take a more general view of their state which can be applicable in different periods of Soviet history. The Soviet Union is known, possibly more than any other communist regime, for its strict top-down nature and liberal use of terror against even the most powerful of its bureaucrats. This tradition began in its early years under Lenin, in which terror was seen as the main viable form in which the state kept power and furthered its goals (Scheidel, 217). In inheriting a notoriously backward country, the state felt responsible to move forward in development at any cost. This included extensive repression and the concentration of power in the upper echelons of government. Over the first decades of Soviet rule, purges and subsequent executions of government officials were common, and the secret police (NKVD) worked with near impunity (“Internal Workings of the Soviet Union”). In name, there was a complicated and extensive federal government system, with various states or “republics” and many other systems of geographical classifications especially for semi-autonomous areas. Obviously, the Communist Party was the only legal political party and held extensive duties and powers. The head of state was either the President or the General Secretary of the party, depending on the most powerful figure’s preference of title. There were various regional and state legislative bodies, but the main power was concentrated in the hands of the head of state and nomenklatura. The nomenklatura comprised the top levels and inner circle of the Soviet bureaucracy and was seen by outsiders and the government itself as holding nearly all the decision-making power (Lewin, 4).

Despite contemporary views on it, Soviet structure was more complex and relied more on the individual than it gets credit for. According to a later study, “the nomenklatura system — understood by the party and by many external observers as an ironclad controlling device over all the upper and lower leaderships — was not really that potent” (Lewin, 4). It is certainly true that Soviet bureaucracy was just as powerful, tedious, and organized as advertised. However, this is sometimes mistaken for comprising a mass of people who carried out the will of the nomenklatura unthinkingly. In fact, even under Stalin there was the same kind of bureaucratic infighting among the numerous committees, ministries, and agencies that mirrors “political gridlock” we see in industrialized democracies. According to Lewin, they “tended to split into powerful, difficult-to-coordinate bureaucratic fiefdoms each aiming at full control over its respective domain.” This tended to keep Stalin more responsible to the state and deprived the nomenklatura of their seemingly unlimited power. They were handcuffed both by Stalin’s threats and the various rules and paperwork of government agencies seen by outsiders to be beneath them (Lewin, 8). Needless to say, no decision from the top was entirely unopposed unless it came directly from Stalin. Stalin’s purges and violence were essential in keeping the government under his control, but officials had far more autonomy than previously thought. Once less repressive heads of state came to power, the bureaucracy became an even more powerful force and kept rulers’ power in check.

In the end, it was the stagnation of the Soviet economy and the subsequent dismantling of the ministries that oversaw it which led to the collapse of the state. In the late 1980s, Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev attempted a much-needed liberalization of the Soviet economy and governing structure, but this proved impossible due to the many responsibilities of the agencies he was dismantling. The reduced role of leaders in the bureaucratic system “translated into a sharply reduced capacity for monitoring agents’ activities at all levels of the centrally planned hierarchy, since the planning system acted simultaneously as the state’s management information system” (Solnick, 223). Gorbachev’s attempts to privatize the assets of the state ended up taking down the state itself. Instead of allowing slightly more freedom to economic industries and policymaking groups, the centralizing authority over them lost nearly all capacity to monitor what they used public funds for. The bureaucracy was too important and too centralized, and the attempt to even partly decentralize it was a major contributing factor to the collapse of the Soviet Union. However, decentralization wouldn’t end in this disaster scenario every time it was attempted.

China, in name, is the longest-lasting communist state of all time. Whether China really is still communist in practice is up to debate. Economically, the consensus is that it is not, but its governance still holds vestiges of communist practices and ideas. Its use of communism in governance is for two purposes: to remind people of the old Maoist ideas which unified China and established the state’s framework, and more importantly to keep power. In these respects, China is incredibly good at what it does. The Chinese Communist Party is a model for authoritarians everywhere and is undoubtedly the most powerful political party in the world. It has weathered its own huge policy mistakes, shifts in the world economy, and social unrest. It keeps a stranglehold on all power in China with the tolerance, and even approval, of a great portion of its citizens. As other communist states collapsed, “the C.C.P. made a tacit deal with the educated urban class from which most of the [1989 Tiananmen Square] protesters came. One-party rule would create the orderly conditions for people to become wealthy, in exchange for which they would refrain from political protest” (Buruma).

While it is obviously important to note how the CCP has stayed in power for so long, for the purpose of this study it is more important first to examine its formation, which laid the groundwork for the powerful state we see today. There was a far more bottom-up nature of Chinese communism than Soviet communism in its first decades. After its initial suppression by the ruling capitalist authoritarian Kuomintang, it was reborn in an underground movement with bases in geographically isolated, far-flung regions of China. The guerilla movement truly found its base of support among the rural peasants its leader, Mao Zedong, made promises to. In its decades-long struggle towards ultimate victory, the soldiers were, for the most part, the opposite of professional: there were stories of townspeople “led by a woman aged 61, who is affectionately known as the ‘mother of the partisans.’” (“American Author’s Striking Account of Chinese Guerilla Warfare”). These were not uncommon stories. Mao’s communist regime came to power with broad support, partly due to the people’s hatred of their KMT and Japanese adversaries, but more importantly due to its promises of a reformed, more orderly society. This order was desperately needed after a century of exploitation, chaos, and incompetence in China and its government.

Observers in China noted a “a great deal [of societal characteristics] that [were] lacking before: discipline, constructive purpose, confidence in man’s ability to improve his environment, cooperative effort toward a common goal, individual concern for communal welfare…” not even a year into Communist leadership (Bodde, 266). The Communist Party was one of the pillars of the new state (along with a huge revolutionary army) and the vehicle of change through its policies, but it would be inaccurate to say the Great Leap Forward or the Cultural Revolution could have happened without mass participation. Government participation was massive, through specifically formed people’s congresses, peasant, labor, or women’s groups, and other “representative groups”. In these groups, people bonded, assisted each other, and discussed the development of the state (Barnett, 77). These groups gave people a sense of belonging and seemed to be a real manifestation of the people’s communism Marx had dreamed of. Their existence gave off the image of a flexible governing body that listened to its citizens, but they had a darker intention. They allowed easy surveillance by the upper echelons of the party through their usually mandatory inclusion of a party cadre, and were a good way for the party to categorize different people and crush dissent among certain interest groups. This structure would be used harshly in later years, such as in the Anti-Rightist Purge or Cultural Revolution, where each group would have to name a certain portion of participants as traitors to be imprisoned or executed. In the end, while they gave the people an illusion of participation in government policies, they held no real power. The government structured them so “the individual obeys the organization, the minority obeys the majority, the lower ranks obey the higher ranks, branch organizations unitedly obey the Central Committee” (Barnett, 78). In the end, it was Mao and his clique who held all the power. However, it was their policies in land redistribution and healthcare which had gained the loyalty of the people in the first place. This manufactured participatory ethic through mass organization, extremely effective propaganda, and suppression of information allowed the CCP to stay in power through otherwise unforgivable failures like the Great Leap Forward. Mao died revered across China, and his more able successors were able to preserve the state through economic liberalization. This fostered a continually increasing standard of living that mitigated the CCP’s unapologetic repression, at least in the eyes of the people.

China used communist policies where it suited them, and abandoned them when they stopped being viable: “Party members paid lip service to the party orthodoxy, and children were still taught it at school, but nationalism, and even bits of warmed-over Confucianism, began to replace the old Communist dogma” (Buruma). At the decisive moment, the Chinese successfully transitioned to a market economy while the Russians didn’t, but this doesn’t tell the whole story. China’s communist state survived, while the Soviet Union didn’t, because it was more successful in manipulating its people and didn’t use the threat of violence as its main way to keep power. The Soviets may have had a more flexible government structure in practice, but the CCP succeeded in portraying a more flexible image to its citizens. They thus maintained support and avoided collapse at their most vulnerable point. The CCP maintains power today through simple unspoken coercion, old party dogma, and a booming economy that keeps those with the power to rebel satisfied.

Nevertheless, in 1989 both China and the Soviet Union faced unrest and the possibility that their communist system would collapse forever. It is useful to see which different steps China and the Soviet Union took at the decisive moments which altered the course of their nations. The first and most important reason these years led to different results was the order in which both communist parties reformed: “the Soviet style of delivering political reform but failing in economic reform merely gave the people more freedom to grumble and revolt. The Chinese reversed the order of reform, thereby giving people both limited opportunity and cause to grumble or revolt” (Segal, 849). It is a cynical view, but a logical one. The Chinese had delivered enough economic prosperity to both cement their legitimacy with a large proportion of the population and key players in the functioning of the state. This allowed the 1989 protests to be easily crushed without going any further. The Soviets had damaged their own legitimacy through economic failure, then eased up on the repressive measures which kept their regime in place. They mistakenly gave their population a chance to challenge their mandate to govern at their lowest and least united point, and it led to their downfall. Even with these larger political processes and different approaches being present, there were still two decisive moments where the state needed the loyalty of the army to survive. These were the successful suppression of the Tiananmen Square Protests of April-June 1989 and the failed Soviet hardliner coup in 1991. The difference in the results of these military endeavors comes down to the unity of the ruling parties in the face of these challenges. The fact the “People’s Liberation Army of China fought for its party demonstrated that the PLA and its ruling party were sufficiently united in June 1989 to fight for the existing system. In the Soviet case, the armed forces were certainly deeply divided and the party was a hollow shell” (Segal, 849). The PLA’s actions reflected the united front of its party against the protesters. The Soviet armed forces’ actions reflected the split among its party rulers, some of whom were leading the coup against one another. Instead of being given direct orders by their superiors, the Soviet military had to pick which orders it would follow in the midst of great confusion. Looking at these cases reveals the course of action of both states in the face of deep crisis, perhaps the greatest indication of the strength of a state. Short-term decisive action is just as important as long-term planning, and the fact China succeeded in both while the Soviet Union failed in both is the most important reason only one of the two states survives today.

While most other communist states fell either in the Soviets’ power bloc or under heavy Soviet or Chinese influence, it is important to briefly go over their different means of control and governing structures. Many of these states are also only communist in name today but still contain strong socialist elements and traditions. Others that have fallen are still useful to examine in how they run when they were claiming to be communist.

One of the best examples of a state which created their own traditions is Yugoslavia, who escaped the Soviet sphere of influence under Josip Broz Tito. Yugoslavia became one of the leaders of the non-aligned movement, and while still authoritarian, was repressive to a lesser degree. One of the only federal Communist states, the central government was already used to delegating some degree of power (Mohandesi, 268). Surprisingly, this bled into the legislature of Yugoslavia as well. The Yugoslav government made real efforts to bring amateur politicians into their Federal Assembly, in order to avoid the nomenklatura system being practiced in Russia and China. According to Daniel Nelson, “the Yugoslav commitment to a participatory ethos, integrally related to the theme of workers’ democracy, means that diminishing the monopoly of professional politicians in the legislature assumes great significance” (Nelson, 163). There were frequent student and activist movements which Tito took care to suppress with words instead of bullets, most strikingly in 1968 (Mohandesi, 271). The more progressive governing ideals of “self-management” and a non-Stalinist tradition made Yugoslavia far more successful in their implementation of communist ideals and workers’ democracy. In the end, it would be ethnic tensions within the multinational state which would cause its collapse more so than a failed communist system.

One state which similarly presents an anomaly is Poland, one of the states which was the least satisfied with communism and expressed it frequently. Having originally been invaded by the Soviets alongside Nazi Germany, Poland was perhaps more ravaged than any other country in World War II. With strong national memory of Soviet cruelty and deception in the Katyn Massacre and Warsaw Uprising, Poland was one of the least friendly states towards Soviet domination. By the 1970s communist rule was turbulent, and “facing open dissent and counter-elites, the Polish communist regime [had to] use all means at its disposal to maintain its political control.” (Nelson, 163). Poland sought to hold control with an upper party elite, but even those chosen for this elite did not completely fall in line and sought greater participation. An expanded decision-making and “deliberative” role were given to those in the Polish Sejm, the legislative body, and more low-ranking members were included to satisfy the people. Nelson argues that a national legislature “may be more important for who is in it than for what it does” (Nelson, 170). The widened desire for participation among the Polish forced the government to respond out of necessity to frequent bouts of unrest. It is often seen that greater authority was given to people’s representative bodies such as the Sejm in the face of political unrest (Nelson, 164), and this could be seen as its own mass political participation by the governed in an authoritarian system. This would not be enough, and unrest continued even after the measures to open up the Sejm in the 1970s. Poland’s communist regime would recognize the futility of hanging on to power at the Iron Curtain’s breaking point in 1989 and abdicate rather smoothly (Kojder, 248). Communist regimes with less stable means of control like Poland’s had to make concessions to their people and were forced to act by pressures outside the state more frequently than those in the Soviet Union or China.

Communist governments did not all fit the same mold and dealt with their problems differently. They took different approaches to popular dissent, providing representative bodies for their people, propaganda, and governance at the highest level. There was also great variance in each state’s inclusion of Marxist principles and ideals within their government, and how they projected their ideals to the people. Top government officials had to make conscious efforts to hold their states together and all their decisions did not go unopposed, though it is often presented that way. Instead of rigid, unbending hierarchies, communist parties often had to rely on interpersonal relationships or illusions in order to keep power. Perhaps most crucial was their variance in crises and decisive moments, and measures each took in order to reinforce state stability. Like all other governments, their reactions in these moments determined their survival. Communism did not exempt rulers from having to govern, keep their people happy, and keep the state functioning from day to day. Examining their governing structures not only helps one understand 20th-century history but also the core, basic levels of government itself.

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