Why did Communism fall?

Why did Communism fall?


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Defiant47

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Here's a question for you: why did communism fall and capitalism triumphed in the great ideological wars? Why are nearly all the countries capitalist right now and not communist? Since, I will not provide an "other" option, if unsatisfied with the answers, imagine having to vote for the most accurate one, the closest to your answer, the greatest factor, etc. (i.e. best answer).

Answer 1:

It was an inherently flawed system. Since capitalism was superior, it would be only logical and only a matter of time before capitalism would defeat and triumph over communism.

Answer 2:

It was a matter of chance and opportunity. Why do countries right now have the exact borders that they have? Why did a certain battle result in defeat despite favourable odds? Why did marksman A defeat marksman B despite both having equal skill? Some values are the result of chance, and whether it be favourable, equal, or unfavourable odds that communism would succeed, chance played the biggest role. For example, if the western world had been communist instead, then the world right now would probably be close to what it is, but with communism and capitalism swapped places.

Answer 3:

It was an inherently evil system. Since it was evil, then the will of good men was roused and rallied to defeat an evil foe. These good men prevailed, and brought down the horrible beast that was communism.

Now I know Answer 1 and 3 may have some similarities, but if it's inherently flawed because it's inherently evil, then vote Answer 3. We'll let Answer 1 be a simple matter of evil depending on the people in power, but defeat was still assured to due the inherent flaws.
 
Depends, what event or series of events do you regard as the fall of communism? If you are referring to the fall of the Soviet Union, then a combination of dislike of Russian rule by the satellite states and poor internal management.
 
I refer to the fact that right now we have one communist nation (Cuba) and one pseudo-communist nation (China). If you have difficulties pinpointing an answer, answer the question "Would capitalism have succeeded had the positions in ~1950s been exactly the opposite: Russia and others were capitalist, and America and western world were communist?".
 
None of the above. It fell due to incompetent leadership.

I'd say that a matter of chance (ADDED: your answer, that is). Had the leadership been better, then Russia would have fared better. It just so happened that capitalist's leadership was better than communist's leadership.
 
It did not ask people in china vietnam north korea and laos.
 
It did not ask people in china vietnam north korea and laos.

So you believe that capitalism hasn't defeated communism yet? There's still a chance that those countries will all rise up, conquer most of the world, and make it communist?
 
Capitalism won due to greed and monetary power. Communism failed due to lack of trading partners (due to the "war" vs democracies), and due to dictatorship within.

A hybrid of the two will prevail.
 
what do you mean by communism?

What do you mean by capitalism?

Almost all words used in political conversation today have been evacuated of all meaning.
 
The Soviets were screwed from day one. There was no chance in hell that they were going to win. The simple fact is that the Soviet system of Socialism/Communism, could not compete with the west in an enlongated arms race. It also didn't help that they had really stupid and incompetent leaders.
 
the truth to why communism fell is because it never was popular in Poland or in East Germany and never really got into Yugoslavia. So the 3 arguably most important members of the warsaw pact after russia never liked or got into communism. That was the downfall of communism in Europe.
 
Answer #2. Though Communism is inferior to Capitalism, it could have worked out well enough to be the world leader. That it didn't had to do with pure chance (though the odds were against them, they could have won).
 
I'd say that a matter of chance (ADDED: your answer, that is). Had the leadership been better, then Russia would have fared better. It just so happened that capitalist's leadership was better than communist's leadership.

I say it was a matter of design. Choice one for me.

Even the US does not have a strictly capitalist system, but it is designed to reward performance. The (partially-hybrid) capitalist system is designed to encourage good leadership in the sense that badly run companies do not thrive and are supplanted by better run companies, regardless of the 'evilness' of the organization otherwise... communism does not reward performance, so it does not perform in the long run by design. IOW, Communism is built like a bad company, so to speak. If there is a better system, it will be supplanted in time.

We are human (at times selfish and greedy, other times philanthropic... we're all over the map, not some uniformly behaving cohort), so any system we live under needs to acknowledge that and work with that, and work with the people who actually live within the system, warts and all.
 
The Soviets were screwed from day one. There was no chance in hell that they were going to win. The simple fact is that the Soviet system of Socialism/Communism, could not compete with the west in an enlongated arms race. It also didn't help that they had really stupid and incompetent leaders.
Which is ironic, seeing as how the Soviet leadership put the military as the top priority. Despite spending upwards of 15% of their GNP on defense (which we hadn't done since 1946) they couldn't compete with our 6% under President Reagan.
 
Which is ironic, seeing as how the Soviet leadership put the military as the top priority. Despite spending upwards of 15% of their GNP on defense (which we hadn't done since 1946) they couldn't compete with our 6% under President Reagan.

Exactly, they could not afford to keep up the arms race. America was richer than them, and America had better soldiers and better factories. It might have helped not to have put military as such a high priority, and perhaps try to improve the living conditions of their satellite states.
 
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