Hey /r/AskHistoarians
Recently, the whole 'resist capitalism' movement has taken steam & a lot of pro-communist supporters are joining in & pushing their ideology. Which is fine, I believe we should have more options on the table then just capitalism. However, as a man who knows a thing or two about history, I can not recall state communism ever working. I also know that history repeats itself. And in this case, a lot.
Stalin, Mao, Lenin, Castro, The Kim Dynasty, Pol Pot, Minh & Khrushchev have at least over 100 million deaths in their collective hands combined. From famine, political assassinations, death from forced labor, proxy wars with the west, even more famine, mass murder and other unspeakable atrocities. As I see it, communism only works in theory but fails horribly in practice.
So, has there ever been a state that was successful without millions of civilians dying? Also, did I get anything wrong in what I posted above? Thank you in advance!
I sincerely hope my post suits the rules of this sub, but my answer touches more on the perception of history rather than historical facts themselves. Although it's rather ideological than scientific, please, don't delete it =(
This is a very common misconception. Capitalism is an economical system, while communism is an economical, political, social and ideological system, and also includes vast outlook on a huge amount of anthropological sciences like history itself and even philosophy. So, what part of a vast array of elements that is communism are you comparing with an economical system of capitalism?
Answering your question directly would mean counting evils of all capitalist/capitalistlike systems ever existed as well, including such as Nazi Germany, for example, or late colonial empires. Hell, many researchers say that even the economical system of USSR was not communism but "state monopoly capitalism" =) What you probably meant under "capitalism" is liberalism, because liberalism without capitalism is a hardly conceivable idea, but capitalism can easily exist without liberalism.
So, to answer your question correctly we either have to compare capitalism as an economical system with communism as an economical system or liberalism as a socio-political system with communism as a socio-political system.
Which in itself is a huge problem due to a very different nature of those systems, amount of time they existed and terrible level of biases and brainwashing. Capitalism came to be in the middle of XVIIth century riding the wave of scientific and technological revolution and spearheading an industrial one. It was a natural phenomenon. Adam Smith started researching capitalism more than 100 years after capitalism came to be. Liberalism was a product of an entire XVIIIth century. It had at least 100 years of capitalism dismantling old feudal economical powerbase of aristocracy in favor of the bourgeoisie. It was a natural phenomenon as well. Communism, on the other hand, is an ideology of the future. It doesn't assert and legitimize already existing changes in political and social landscape like liberalism does. It doesn't grow from an appropriate scientific/technological revolution as capitalism did. Even right now, over 150 years after the birth of communist ideology there is no man for communism to be, there is no science and technology for communism to be. There is no communist state to ever exist. For example, USSR never claimed itself to be communist, it only strove to achieve it("in the next 20 years, I promise!").
And there're also issues with age and bias. Communism came to be in 1849 into a world with approx. 200 years old capitalism and 60 years(since French Revolution) old liberalism. Into a world with such terrible labor laws and non-existent social security that in Communist Manifesto they demanded ending child labor in factories as one of the most important things for communism to be. Into a world where self-proclaimed beacon of freedom and democracy(USA) is a racist state with race-based slavery and people killing Indians just for fun. Into a world where the most economically progressive country(Great Britain) sucks blood and resources from actual Indians in India, fights to colonize leftovers in Africa and starves Irish people because "capitalism!(and a bit of sectarianism/ethnic hatred)". And so on and so on. How conveniently you forget early times of capitalism and liberalism. Can you maybe forget Stalin and Mao for communism as well? ;)
Capitalism and liberalism went through a lot and done a lot. They had their highs and lows. Lets have a full perspective. To say right now that communism is a failed system and an utopia is similar to people saying that liberalism was a failed system and an utopia in 1815 after the defeat of France.
So, you compare something that is at the pinpoint of its 200-350 years of natural evolution with something that existed only as a project, an experiment and a dim glimpse into tomorrow. Man dreams of flying, makes himself bird wings out of wax and feathers, then falls off a cliff to his death. Does it mean the dream of flying is stupid and dangerous and no one should pursuit it?
Devils advocate : I'm not pro Communism, but Capitalism could be considered to have similar stats for its humble beginnings in the 1600's, just not as direct and brutal as Communism & certainly not in as compressed a timescale.
And you'll see stats of 2 million bandied about for Pol Pot, when its closer to 1 million plus. Some #'s are a rounding of all Cambodians lost in the wars of that era. Student of Khmer history & it drives me crazy when the deaths from US bombings are conveniently placed on the Khmer Krom (Khmer Rouge), a brutal evil that is responsible for the vast majority of deaths.