Demonization of Socialism - A brief read

After the collapse of the USSR and eventual victory of the USA and its allies in the cold war, socialism was demonized across the entire world. Propaganda movements still rage on where the only opposition to USSR-style socialism is seen as its arch rival, the US-style capitalism. This transition however is extreme if we see it in the context of Pakistan.

The worst example that can be taken of socialism-gone-bad is its transition to state-capitalism that was practised in Stalin’s USSR. Thus after dismantling the said state, USA’s capitalism was declared the clear winner of a capitalist/socialist war. However, what most of the people are kept unaware of is that USSR’s state-capitalism is not embraced in the rest of socialist communities from the rest of the world, including Pakistan.. Therefore, it was given a separate name, one used for the regional socialism practised in Stalin’s so called “first-ever-socialist-state”.. That name is “communism”. Communist called for international support for the USSR. Their selling agenda was that if it (USSR) sustains, so would the new forming socialist societies in the world. However, not everyone liked Stalin’s style of “socialism” so they refused to cooperate strictly with the USSR’s socialism. This separation then resulted in the coining of “communism” and forming a group separate from socialists themselves, called “communist”.

Fueled by the USSR's collapse and the loss in the cold war, anti-socialists were convinced that socialism was gone forever. But their future proved them wrong. The vicious circle of capitalist’s employer-employee relationship could not subdue the freedom and formation of an equal, humanly society.

After the collapse, in an effort to hide “modify” its behaviors, capitalists in some areas of the world turned into neo-liberalists. This movement incorporated a small chunk of socialist ideology, one which was as harmless to their own capitalistic profiteering beliefs as a homeopathic dose is to their patient (strictly Pakistani example). The modified capitalist formed neoliberalism. However this tom-foolery was exposed in a pretty creative economic burst of 2008. Capitalists, who formerly were going euphoric over the collapse of the USSR and the emergence of a new, pseudo-educated ideology of neoliberalism, and would often criticize the very existence of governments before 2008, rushed to the capitals of their countries to beg for bailout packages. And here comes the twist.

The bailout packages were given. The CEOs who made that debt bubble in the first place while accumulating hoards of money for their penthouses, hoes and yachts, they were bailed out of the debt bubble by their respective governments and guess who but the poor people were forced to bear the brunt of this implosion of capitalism.

Meanwhile socialism, thought to be dead after the USSR collapse, is taking a new breath. The “Occupy Wall Street '' protest after the implosion of capitalism and the very recent proclamation of Bernie Sanders as being a ‘socialist democrat’ in the 2016 US presidential campaign are proofs. The capitalist living in the USA and the countries that report directly to the USA (Zardari family from Pakistan as of now) now know that socialism is not dead. The yearning of a socialist to desire for a better, equal and stable world where everyone’s worth is determined by how much work they do in contributing to the society, without their language, colour, ethnicity, culture, gender and religion taken into account, this yearning is real, very solid and progressive. No amount of debt bubbles can stop it, nor can economies that exist on corporations taking debts from the government itself. This conglomerate of traditional politicians and corrupt corporations will have to stop ruling over the poor public one fine sunny day.