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Economics Social Issues

How the Right Distorts History

Rhetoric, Authoritarianism, and the American Political Divide

The collapse of the Soviet Union at the close of the Cold War did not merely mark an ideological victory for capitalism; it presented the American political right with a powerful new rhetorical opportunity. In the absence of a visible, organized communist threat, the conservative movement employed a strategy that conflated all forms of collective economic thought—including democratic socialism—with the totalitarian excesses and failures of state-led communism. This rhetorical framing successfully mobilized conservative opposition by painting the entire left-leaning policy spectrum as a prelude to dictatorship, a dynamic that continues to shape American political polarization today.

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Economics Power Social Issues

The Failure of Communism

The Structural Failure of Authoritarian Communism: A Contrast with Democratic Socialism

The collapse of the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc in the late twentieth century is often cited as the definitive failure of communism. This historical judgment is accurate, but the reasons for the failure must be precisely understood. The demise of the Soviet model was not a refutation of all forms of collective social organization, but rather a catastrophic failure rooted in the structural exclusion of fundamental democratic, legal, and economic principles. The authoritarian communist regimes, generically known as Marxism-Leninism, demonstrated that the pursuit of economic equality without the bedrock of political freedom inevitably leads to tyranny, economic decay, and collapse.

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