The centenary of the death of Vladimir I. Lenin, the leader of the Russian Revolution, is a propitious moment to reconsider the global impact of communism, which was immense: it makes sense to call the 20th century the century of communism or, more appropriately , the century of communism and anti-communism.
These two movements capture, along with the dissolution of the Western colonial empires, the essential aspects of the political processes of that century, in which the cleavage generated by communism was central, not only to international politics, but also to the internally, in Europe and many countries in Asia and Latin America.
Eric Hobsbawm has called the “brief 20th century” the period between 1917, the beginning of the Russian Revolution, and 1991, when the regime in the Soviet Union collapsed.
The consequences of communism (utopia, unrealizable in a modern society, of a state that absorbs the economy and civil society) for the countries in which it triumphed are known, but I want to draw attention to the international ones: the Russian Revolution generated many more reactive regimes, that is, anti-communist, than replicative, that is, endogenous revolutions.
The fear of communism was more fecund, in terms of its institutional impact, than that of the international communist movement.
Outside of Russia, there were only ten regimes that were the product of endogenous revolutions: Albania, Romania and Yugoslavia in Europe;
Cambodia, North Korea, China (the most populous country in the world), Laos, Mongolia and Vietnam in Asia;
and Cuba in Latin America.
The remainder, in Central and Eastern Europe, were established by the Soviet Union around the Second War, by invasion in the three Baltic republics before, and by occupation afterwards (with varying local support, from substantial in Bulgaria to minimal in Poland).
On the other hand, the two right-wing totalitarian regimes, those of Italy and Germany, were largely reactions to the communist revolutionary threat.
In the German case, there has been a dispute about the centrality of this factor, what is known as the historians' debate (Historikenstreit), but there is no doubt that the fear of communism was a basic component of the national socialist ideology. and, more importantly, a primary determinant of support for this regime by large sectors of the economic and state elites, and what was its social base, the middle class.
Similar alignments characterized the dozens of civil and military authoritarian regimes in Europe, Latin America and Asia.
In the 1960s-70s, most Latin American countries had military regimes, established largely in response to the Cuban Revolution and its ramifications.
Perón's competitive authoritarianism in Argentina (1946-1955) presents similarities with regard to the support of state elites: in the 1946 elections, the "communist danger" (quite unrealistic) was a central argument of Perón's speech to the elites, and a cause of its support by main sectors of the state elites of the time, the Armed Forces and the Catholic Church (which, however, would end up facing it in the following decade).
This factor, the fear of communism, was also a determinant of the policies of Western democracies, both internally and towards the rest of the world.
The welfare states in these countries had varied origins but, in many, one of the objectives of the economic and political elites that instituted them was to inoculate their workers against communism.
Curiously, many sectors of these elites had adopted what I call “Marxism in reverse”: they accepted as valid the Marxist proposition of the inherently revolutionary character of the working class, and sought to contain it.
In their international politics, Western states tolerated the authoritarian regimes of Spain, Portugal, and Greece, and inspired or supported dictatorships in Latin America and other regions.
This behavior attenuated as the internal Soviet crisis intensified in the 1980s, especially after its catastrophic invasion of Afghanistan, and as Western leaders perceived the USSR to withdraw from active intervention in the domestic politics of others. countries.
The withdrawal - and then implosion - of communist regimes in the Soviet Union and Central Europe towards the end of the century was a factor leading to transitions to democracy in Latin America and other regions.
On the one hand, the economic and state elites and the local middle classes concluded that the communist threat, whatever its degree of realism, was losing force.
Not only was external sponsorship weakened, but also internal risk: the state socialist regime was no longer an alternative model for sectors dissatisfied with the social order of their countries.
Communism in the Soviet Union collapsed, the Russian Empire dismembered, and China and Vietnam became capitalist economies.
Only Cuba and North Korea survived, as state socialists, not very attractive as models to emulate.
On the other hand, the great Western powers not only withdrew their support for authoritarian regimes, but also actively cooperated with the democratization processes.
In short: the “ten days that shook the world”, title of the chronicle of the seizure of power written by the American communist John Reed, had consequences opposite to those expected by the Bolshevik leaders.
What's more: the “world revolution” that finally occurred was not the one prophesied by Leon Trotsky, but rather the totalitarian (two cases) and authoritarian (many more), also anti-liberal, but from the other end of the ideological spectrum.
Carlos Waisman is a sociologist. Professor and researcher in the Department of Sociology and International Studies, University of California, San Diego