REVOLUTIONS evoke great romanticism and hopes of a fair world. But their hype exceeds reality. The idea of revolutions today has become a fad, with elite teenagers clueless about Che Guevara’s ideology while fashionably donning T-shirts with his likeness. The revolutionary beats of bands let the yuppie middle-class soldiers of capitalism act like brave revolutionaries in charged weekend concerts, only to go back meekly and happily to their elite capitalist masters’ embrace come Monday. Even historically, revolutions gave mixed results. Many toppled autocratic regimes but failed to establish fair and successful states.

But one must first define them. I see them as non-elite movements, usually armed, that topple an autocratic state and change the political and/or economic systems hugely. In China and Russia, communism replaced capitalism economically and one-party rule replaced autocracy politically. But in France, only politics changed. In many, old-order armies also collapsed. My focus here is on revolutions led by revolutionary parties with egalitarian agendas. This excludes the French and Iranian revolutions that lacked such a party; Ethiopian and Salvadoran ones where army coups proclaimed revolutions; or East European parties where Soviet occupation gave communism. My focus is on 12 communist revolutionary parties in Albania, USSR, Yugoslavia, Mongolia, China, Cuba, Vietnam, Laos, North Korea, Nicaragua, Cambodia and Nepal.

Of these, only half are still in power: in China, Cuba, Vietnam, Laos, North Korea and Nepal. The rest got replaced largely peacefully, with the change in USSR starting a domino effect in most of the rest, though some, as in Cambodia, had fallen earlier. The reasons are well known. Despite raising living standards hugely, the highly autocratic systems stifled freedom and dreams of egalitarianism and led to dissent. Soon, the economies also stagnated and failed to keep pace with Western ones, the lack of creativity and innovation due to autocracy being a key reason. US competition and intrigues also played a role. But the internal failures made them more susceptible to US-related factors. Most of these post-communist states are doing better now with democracy and a mixed economy.

Among survivors, only North Korea and Cuba still employ both pillars of communism: one-party politics and a statist economy. Both are struggling. Cuba made huge social gains in egalitarianism, health and education, yet had to allow some private ownership. China, Vietnam and Laos practise one-barrelled communism: one-party rule but mixed economies. While many Marxists present China and Vietnam as communist success stories, their success has not come from a communist economy. In fact, they combine the worst of both worlds — political and economic — with political autocracy and economic capitalism. Both act as production sites for unfair global capitalism.

The aim of egalitarian states still excites the imagination.

Nepal’s communist party provides a unique exception in abandoning both one-party politics and a statist economy, disarming and winning power via free polls, like its state-level South Asian sister parties in West Bengal and Kerala earlier. Thus, communism has adopted democracy mainly in South Asia. Nepal provides an interesting model, with the party still retaining its egalitarian goals and communist name. If it can establish a thriving and fair economy through its devolved democracy and a mixed economy despite its landlocked status and deep ethnic divisions, it will provide a strong model.

The path of communist revolutions is no longer feasible but the aim of egalitarian states still excites the imagination. To­­­day’s capitalism can never give that. But the communist era shows that egalitarian economics can only come via egalitarian democracy. Yet, a clear economic egalitarian vision is still needed which can succeed despite the grip and competition of unfair capitalism. Clearly, it cannot be a state monopoly economy but must consist of a mixed economy with multiple forms of ownership of economic assets: private, non-profit, state, employee-owned and cooperatives. The goal is clear: demo-cratic freedoms politically, internal and external peace and an economy that produces sufficient decent jobs while avoiding large fiscal and external deficits and hence debt.

Ex-communist, homogeneous giants like Russia and China failed to give such a model. Can smaller, poorer and mostly ethnically divided states like Nepal, Bolivia and even Sri Lanka, Botswana and Costa Rica, where parties combine egalitarian aims, mixed economies and democracies, do so? Egalitarian moral aims must still live on but need to adopt new political and economic paths to egalitarianism. Socialism is dead; long live socialism in new ways.

The writer is a political economist with a PhD from the University of California, Berkeley.

murtazaniaz@yahoo.com

Twitter: @NiazMurtaza2

Published in Dawn, July 25th, 2023