Communism failed in Eastern Europe due to corruption, mismanagement, and oppression. Civil unrest ensued, and the appeal of a free market society led to the end of Soviet communist rule. Glasnost allowed for local leaders and the creation of new economic systems.
Communism has failed in Eastern European countries for the same reasons it routinely fails in others: corruption and mismanagement of assets result in citizens’ needs not being met, which usually leads to civil revolt and ultimately to end of communist rule. While the economic system known as communism may have worked well on paper, the political form imposed on Eastern European countries brought little more than oppression and hardship to the working-class citizens it exploited. Many of the Eastern European governments were puppet regimes handpicked by Communist Party leaders working remotely from Russia; communications between Russia and its Eastern European satellites were rarely two-way streets.
Bad management
One of the main reasons communism failed in Eastern Europe was due to human nature. Under economic communism, control over production should be given to workers, ostensibly with the guidance and supervision of a strong central state. Communist farmers who grew corn, for example, would donate the vast majority of their annual crops to the government; in return, the government would provide each farmer with a supply of corn for his own use, along with a share of all other goods produced by other self-controlled municipalities. Unfortunately, the timely distribution of goods has been severely hampered by corruption and mismanagement, a common problem in communist countries. Many citizens considered the provisions they received fair and satisfactory, while many others felt limited and did not have sufficient means to survive.
Civil revolt
When any form of government, capitalist or communist, fails to meet the basic needs of its people, civil unrest will ensue, and this was especially the case in Eastern Europe after World War II. Tyrannical Communist leaders, such as Joseph Stalin, used cheap Communist rule as a means to support their own agendas, while millions of civilians were systematically imprisoned or summarily executed. The message to Eastern European countries became clear: dissent simply would not be tolerated. During the 1950s and 1960s, one country after another in Eastern Europe began to rebel against the oppressive Soviet system which sought to keep them enslaved to a corrupt form of political communism.
Appeal of a free market society
At the time of the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991, economic communism was fast becoming a failed experiment in the eyes of the Western world. Many collective partnerships in Eastern European countries have discovered the benefits of a free market partnership, including the right to deal directly with buyers. Under economic communist rule, there were very few incentives offered to the most industrious workers; the idea of profit through increased production proved to be one of the strongest arguments against communism. Many Eastern European countries were eager to move towards a freer economic system.
End of the Soviet communist regime
Some historians credit former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev with implementing the policies that led to the end of Communist rule in Eastern Europe. Gorbachev’s policy of glasnost, which means openness, gave Eastern European countries the freedom to replace Moscow-controlled governments with local leaders. Once free from Soviet rule, individual countries were free to create their own economic systems, many of which still retain some elements of economic communism while also embracing capitalism and socialism.
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