Why Communism Failed

communism, neoliberal self, neoliberalism, subjectivity

Why Communism Failed

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Clarissa

September 1, 2026

Why did communism fail? Because it couldn’t do the one thing that, according to its own theory, it had to achieve, which is to create a new type of human beings. It didn’t manage to become part of the subjectivation process. It remade countries, institutions, buildings, seas, forests, and so on. But it did not remake human beings. Marx said himself that unless human beings were remade, there was no hope. And they weren’t. So the whole experiment collapsed. Not before murdering millions, of course.

This is why I’m interested in how subjectivity is refashioned. This is at the bottom of everything. The inner architecture of human beings. And why some regimes can’t touch it while others have people pushing each other out of the way in their rush to change their sense of self.

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8 responses to “Why Communism Failed”

Anonymous

September 1, 2026

I think this is a misreading of Marx but not a misreading of how people actually preform communism. Marx never wanted for the human beings to change, but their relationship to the means of production and economic system. The problem is, you cannot change this means of production without a large mass of society that wishes to overthrow the means of production, and unfortunately, the bolsheviks that took power were more concerned with taking the state repression instruments of the Tsar and reforming them into their own red totalitarianism.

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1. Clarissa
  
  September 1, 2026
  
  “Finally, when all capital, all production, all exchange have been brought together in the hands of the nation, private property will disappear of its own accord, money will become superfluous, and production will so expand and man so change that society will be able to slough off whatever of its old economic habits may remain. . . Just as the peasants and manufacturing workers of the last century changed their whole way of life and became quite different people when they were drawn into big industry, in the same way, communal control over production by society as a whole, and the resulting new development, will both require an entirely different kind of human material.”
  
  https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/11/prin-com.htm
  
  We had to learn it by heart in the USSR. This was the explanation for why communism was still not achieved by the end of the 1980s. The “entirely different kind of human being” hadn’t come into existence.
  
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bluebird of bitterness

September 1, 2026

Back in my appallingly ignorant and misspent youth, I was seduced into believing multiple utopian ideologies because I was naïve enough to think you really could repeal human nature. Fortunately, I grew up.

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1. Clarissa
  
  September 1, 2026
  
  That’s exactly what it all hinges on. Communism is possible if you completely change the entire nature of human beings. The founders of Communism knew this. They said it openly. In the USSR it was part of the official narrative. “We are trying to create a completely new species of man.” Literally, that’s what we were told.
  
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Anonymous

September 1, 2026

Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf that bolshevism, in order to survive, must encompass everything. When Hitler launched Babarossa he delivered a fatal, if suicidal, blow to global communism. Stalin well understood this. World communisms failure meant communisms failure. Communism could not compete, instead it had to completely control. Since, as you say, communism couldn’t remake the individual it had to completely remake the world. It failed on both accounts.

Walnut

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Stille

September 1, 2026

Communism, like whatever’s going on in the West right now, created some pretty previously unseen species of man. In both cases, these were a small minority.

I think, question is, why did neoliberalism’s new man make the movement successful in a way that communism wasn’t, even though I’d guess they hit similar percentages of the population. What makes neoliberalism more elitist, so to say.

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1. Clarissa
  
  September 1, 2026
  
  Communism directs the libidinal power towards the community. Neoliberalism directs it towards the self. The latter is a lot more enjoyable. In communism, there is no individual, just the community. In neoliberalism, there is no community, just the individual.
  
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oldcowboy3

September 1, 2026

“Why did communism fail?” Because it tries to ignore hundreds of thousands of years of human evolutionary instincts/hormones. Newborns are helpless, totally dependent upon their mothers; while new mothers desperately need both assistance and protection.

Observant managers of mixed sex employees notice that a man will usually work harder, even asking for additional hours/opportunities, as he seeks a girlfriend and his efforts only increase should he succeed — because for men dopamine and oxytocin create not only the euphoria of love but the sudden drive to protect a newly acquired dependent.

“This is at the bottom of everything. The inner architecture of human beings.” Both successful businesses and societies not only understand gender differences but encourage those male drives, communism not so much ;-D

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