The Impact of Communism and Nationalism on Society

Communism and Nationalism had both played a major role in weakening the ideologies of people’s thoughts, which ultimately significantly changed peoples behaviors. Due to the development of nationalism this resulted in the enlightenment, which developed the changed from an agricultural to an industrial society to manufacturing to factory production. Due to this the type of work changed tremendously, such as converting to unfamiliar tools such as iron and steel. Things became much more urban, which resulted in the meaning of social classes and how they all were known as modern day laborers, in addition those professions that were once considered to be artisan were being now becoming industrialized and those people were ultimately left with no jobs, and putting them out of work rapidly.

Although there are some negative factors of the spread of nationalism it was seen as a wake-up call of self-worthiness, which of course resulted in the often rebels from different colonies. By 1871 the industrialization was at its peak in Britain. Many innovations were commonly used by their citizens, such as merchandized factory productions, the use of coal, and the transportation outlets; which increasingly benefitted the economic expansion in Britain as a whole due to colonist beginning to recognize their value and families it had developed a more positive outlook on life.

After the result of World War I Africans had become more active in political manners after the war was over. Africans who had fought in the war had learned the new ideas in the west about freedom and Nationalism. Even back in Africa it was valued and taught to glorify the privilege of liberty and equality, as word spread more and more people began to be intrigued and sneaked their way to reforming their dreams of freedom. Unfortunately that dream just remained as is.

Shortly after Nationalism, Communism was developed in response to Nationalism. So we can assume if Communism would not be a concept without Nationalism. Communism greatly affected the process of rich landowners’ wealth and property as they were being distributed to the public. The idea of communism was strongly encouraged rebellion in hopes of achieving total social equality, which was considerably impossible for those particular citizens. People had different views on life and had different ideas. It was an unfair circumstance for everyone.

As mentioned in the text Karl Marx was born into a middle class family in Germany. In his early adulthood years as his potential profession as a professor declined because of his professed in atheism, Marx shortly after began to take the role as a journalist and a publisher; due to Marx critical and radical views about liberalism the newspapers was suppressed in Cologne in 1842. By 1847 Marx joined a German socialist revolutionaries class known as the communist league, which inspired him to publish the Communist Manifesto in 1848. In his writing Marx specifically explained that communism is simply defined as a political theory that advocates to a society that allowed all property is publically owned and each person’s work is paid according to their abilities and needs resulting in their production. People who worked for major factories for decades had earned very little labor rights despite their hard work and dedication to the corporations. . As the idea of communism spread Europe began to lose control of its colonies and territories with WWI being a major turning point.

The beginning of the Soviet Union in 1922 was developed in caused by the first communist party known as Bolsheviks, which was led by Vlasimir Lein. Originally, Bolsheviks had their fair share of struggles in obtaining power of Russia, but eventually dictatorship took place and Bolsheviks gained full control and power of Russia. By 1924 Joseph Stalin gained complete control, and as a result of Stalin’s new role he created in his own economic system of complete socialism known as the Five Year Plan. Surprisingly the plan worked by impressive organization by contributing specific goals throughout the country; which included controlling agricultural ownership.

Due to Stalin’s powerful role in the communist’s party he declared that all negative speeches regarding the communist party were prohibited. The Soviet Union was emerged as one of he most powerful nations on earth and many other communist nation, such as China looked up to Stalin because of his despotism communist role in Russia. However post Soviet Union social changes arose, for instance education for the elites emerges, the position of women were highly suggested, such as creating greater opportunities for women.

As for Asia as mentioned in the text at the end of WWII the British arranged a turning point with both the Indian National Congress, which mostly gathered those in the Hindu and Muslim league. India had divided their continent into British Muslims, and Hindus and was unwilling to identify as a single Indian state. As a result Britain then realized that British India would have to identify and separate themselves as a single state known as Hindu, while the other half of India known as the Muslim majority would have to identify themselves as Pakistan in a different region; however since Pakistan was the majority and Hindu was the minority part of India. Pakistan would have to consist themselves into two separate regions that divided them by more than 1,000 away from one another. The only congress leader that opposed to the separation of Hindu and Muslims was congress leader Mahatma Gandhi. It was mentioned in the text on in chapter 28 that a stubborn woman asked, “If two brothers were living together in the same house and wanted to separate and live in different houses, would you object?” Gandhi replied, “if only we could separate as two brothers. But we will not. It will be an orgy of blood. We shall tear ourselves asunder in the womb of her mother who bears us.” What Gandhi was implying was you should never let go where you come from because when you do that is when tensions starts to arise. By 1947 Hindu and Muslims officially separated and later lead to extreme violence and rebellion across the new boarders, which is what Gandhi predicated. However other areas in Asia also declared their independence when the Dutch failed to restore control over the Dutch East Indies, resulted in Indonesia to emerge as their own independent nation in 1949. Despite the French’s efforts to regain themselves it created strain between communist lease of Vietnamese Ho Chi Minh, which later resulted in a defeat in 1954 which granted the French to gain control of Vietnam.

Initially two Chinese governments existed in China, which consisted of the Nationalist government of Chiang Kai-shek, which was located in south and central china and was extremely supported by the Americans. While the other side was The Communists side, which was under the leadership of Mao Zedong, where he had developed on the northern side of China His goal was to create an anti-imperialist movement that would lead towards the greater goal of socialism.

The revolution first began in the 1930s. Admittedly Northern China had a very strong liberation Army that included more than one million troop members. By attraction millions of peasants were intrigued with the communist party due to that fact being the promises that were made; them being the promise of land, and as a result many joined Mao’s army. By 1958 Mao began a program known as the Great Leap Forward, which consisted of collective farms, and villages where they were all combined into a total of 30,000 people. Mao ultimately had high hopes for this program to have the efforts of speeding up to the desire economic growth and mainly to reach the final stage of communism. Nonetheless the project was an utter mess because the Chinese citizens were not supportive of the transformation and due to frequent and bad weather.

By the end of World War II all of Western Europe faced similar issues they needed to rebuild their economies, recreate their democratic institutions, and limit the overall growth of the communist party. After the Cold War the communist party had extreme troubles regaining their power back and were eventually short lived. However must communist joined forces with other parties, such as Social Democrats, also known as Socialist, in addition to the communist and Socialist parties working hand in hand for their benefit their overall goal together was to overthrow the traditional conservative politics.

Most people are aware that Nationalism and Communism are both forces behind political systems of the government and are commonly known today. In most countries there regions are either an entirely nationalistic or communistic or even sometimes an even balance between of the two, for example like China. Communism does have the capacity of working in its own unique form.