i

But the symbolic level of the state is different from political

truth. This strong symbol can perfectly be, at the political
level, empty or even negative. The decision will be, finally, not
in the hands of Obama, but in the subjective determination of
the symbol. Could you accept the advice from an old
philosopher, from an old country? I just can say to you,
separate the levels. Do not confuse them. Enjoy the symbolic.
Do not trust the state. And concerning politics rely only on
yourself, on the collective action.

These words have been taken from a lecture that the French
philosopher and Marxist Alan Badiou titled Is the Word
Communism Forever Doomed? Now it is apparent that
communist has been regarded as such a disgusting word,
especially by people of the West (Americans). McCarthyism is
a disgusting testament to that. However coming back to
Badious paragraph, I believe he wants to ingrain in the people
a sort of analytic inclination before actually judging the
system. In the earlier parts of the lecture, he defined truth
as 2an organization or consequences of an event and an event
as a rupture in the normal disposition of bodies and normal
ways of a particular situation.I liken his definition of an event
to that of the paradigm given by the theoretical scientist
Thomas Cuhn in his book The Structure of Scientific
Revolutions.Thomas Kuhn defined paradigms as 3universally
recognized scientific achievements that, for a time, provide
model problems and solutions for a community of
researchers,"
Now in so far as political systems are concerned, it is common
knowledge that there have been and even now to some extent
two paradigms- free market capitalist liberalism and a closed
collective communism and going by Badious terminology
these tow are separate political events or possibilities or
alternatives but what is most important and what he intends to
deliver to the audience is not to confuse the symbol with the
event. For instance, here he talks of Obama as a symbol of a
democratic event. It is when we fail to distinguish between
these two levels that we begin to make unfair judgments.
Communism began as a remedy to combat the inequality
against workers. This is quite obvious and perhaps this is why
it does not deserve such blame and derision as do perhaps the
perverse dictatorship of Stalin- a symbol of the truth of the
event of communism.

Thus this is the problem I believe for for communism. It

suffered because of its symbols and again in the words of
Badiou

5
the most important contemporary problem is that the
political form of the party does not equate with the certain
organization and the creative transformation of the

Communist hypothesis.
So, now the other question is whether the problem with
communism has only been our failure to disassociate the
authoritarian symbols of communism with the event of
communism? Is there some sort of inherent disability that
handicaps this form of government so that it fails to compete
with modern liberal democracies like we have seen?
i
1
Badiou, Alan. Is the Word Communism Forever
Doomed?.Miguel Abreu Gallery New York.2008.2 Badiou, Alan. Is
the Word Communism Forever Doomed?.Miguel Abreu Gallery
New York.2008.
3 Kuhn, Thomas.Part X. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.1996

The End of History?

It was in a course of The Main Currents of Modern History in the

last semester that I was made aware of Franc Fukiyamas book
The End of History and the Last Man. The author makes no
secret of the fact that there was a lot of criticism that followed
especially because generally everyone feels that history can and
will never end. Things will keep happening, both ordinary and
revolutionary but Fukiyama does explain himself by saying that the
kind of history he is talking about is the story of the evolution of
man from a savage beast to a dignified individual with a sense of
self-worth. As logic will help us understand, the process of an
improvement is a linear progression with a definite destination and
this final destination is merely the opportunity presented by a
liberal democratic system.Moreover, he bases this definition on
Marx and Hegel who popularized evolutionary history. Fukiyama
says

4
It was made part of our daily intellectual atmosphere by Karl
Marx, who borrowed
this concept of history from Hegel and is implicit in our use of
the words like primitive
or advanced, traditional or modern
This End of History is in parts against military authoritarian
regimes ( 5
the Weakness of Strong States I) and communist
regimes ( 6the Weakness of Strong States II). Fukiyama talks about
the end because at least it is quite apparent after the collapse of
the soviet Union and the opening of the Chinese economy, we have
reached a certain point of final happiness. But why would he
anyone reach that conclusion or in other words, simply attribute
the End of History to the failure of communism? He explains this in
two parts:

1. Such regimes stifle economic progress but Fukiyama puts

forth a caveat because he says
6the experience of the Soviet Union, China and other socialist
countries indicate that while highly centralized economies
are sufficient to reach the level of industrialization represented by
Europe in the 1950s, they are woefully inadequate in creating
post industrial economies in which information and technological
innovation play a much larger role.

And this is probably true because how can anyone play war games
with the United States of America during the Cold War.

2. The second is the desire for recognition said by 8Plato himself.

Men are not merely economic animals. It does not require
much thought to know that during the totalitarian regimes of
Stalin in the Soviet Union, there was no way this could be
appreciated.
There are a lot more examples of Communist Russia and China
opening up, so to speak provided in the Weakness of Strong States
II in The End of History and the Last Man. For instance,
concerning China 8when Deng Xiaoping set the country on the
course of economic reform in 1978, many Chinese still had a vivid
memory of markets from the 1950s.Other real world examples
would include the failure of communism in East Germany as well
as in sub-Saharan Africa.

4,8
Fukiyama, Francis. Introduction to The End of History and the
Last Man. The Free Press,1992
5
Fukiuyama, Francis. Contents of The End of History and the Last
Man. The Free Press, 1992
6
Fukiyama, Francis. Part I AN OLD QUESTION ASKED ANEW, the
weakness of strong states II. The End of History and The Last
Man. The Free Press.1992

The Problem of Legitimacy:

Of course people believe in owning property commensurate with

their ability and of course people hope that their ability will enable
them to live with dignity and with fundamental rights. But there is
one more thing that plagues extreme right authoritarian and left
communist regimes, that is of legitimacy.

9
The crises that the communist world faced in the 1970s and 1980s
had their roots in the paradox of Marxs idea of the dictatorship of
the proletariat. In both China and the Soviet Union, the
government claimed to represent the workers of the world, yet
these were two of the most repressive regimes of their era:
engaged in state-sponsored censorship, they functioned as police
states, and were designed to prevent public expressions against
government actions. So then the fundamental question is what is
the consent in all this? The consent that is so fundamental to the
theory of social contract upon which democracy is based and which
had its first manifestations in the ideals of the French Revolution.

I believe the problem of legitimacy is not so much a case of the

present as it is of the future. Illegitimate governments, sure why
cannot they function when even in a liberal democracy, rigged
elections happen?

Controversy explodes in the matter of continuity when the

government has to elect new leaders. Leaders no matter how
powerful they are grow old and die. We are all human and it is in
this stage that his government is overtaken by a better more
legitimate government. In the conclusion to The Weakness of
Strong States II, Fukiyama says about the various military
dictators in Latin America that they will eventually have to
confront the fact that they have no long term source of legitimacy
and no good formula for solving the long term economic and
political problems that they will face. As an illustration, we had the
power struggle after Stalin between Georgi Malenkov (Stalins heir
apparent) and Nikita Kruschev.
Perhaps this question of legitimacy is even more powerful than the
twin questions of economic progress and desire for recognition
because ultimately the former is a pre-requisite for the latter. We
talk about Fundamental rights for citizens but the only way to
secure such is to have a powerful upper entity that oversees the
offer of such entitlements and to have this powerful upper entity
formed by common consent to uphold the common good. Hobbes
talked of it although his government was a necessary authoritarian
one but Rousseau speaks of the social contract, the consent of the
people and that ultimately sovereignty is granted by the people.

Eric Lis TED talk titled 10

A Tale of Two Political Systems seemed
like good reasoning for the success of communism at first. The
irony is when he talks about democratisation of the Chinese
Communist Party. Does it not seem that democracy has won over
communism when the very speaker who tries to use reason and
data to sort of legitimise the Chinese Communist system does so
using democratic principles?

Fukiyama speaks of the failure of authoritarian governments in

failing to consider the affairs of civil society in The Weakness of
Strong States I and II. I believe civil society should be in the
distinct middle separate from the people and the party. What Eric
Li says though is that the Chinese are alien to such a notion but he
does say that they have their own kind within the party. I fail to
understand the significance of this. Nobody can be their own
judge. Its even more absurd when the CCP proponent himself is a
venture capitalist.
The bottom line is that things have changed so much from early
20th century Russia and China so much that no country that
pledges itself to the communist ideal is a hundred percent
communist.

11
Yasheng Huang concludes in his counter-point argument to Eric
Lis TED talk:

The idea of democracy is not that it leads to a nirvana but

that it can help prevent a living hell. Democracy has many, many
problems. This insurance function of democracy of mitigating
against disasters is often forgotten or taken for granted, but it is
the single most important reason why democracy is superior to
every other political system so far invented by human beings.
Maybe one day there will be a better system than democracy, but
the Chinese political system, in Lis rendition, is not one of them.

From what I have read on Fukuyama concerning the End of History

I do believe that this is the end, at least in terms of a sustainable
political system. And of course like Yasheng Huang, democracy is
not perfect. There will be corruption and failed governments and
it is good that liberal democracy provides us with a tool out of it
through elections.

Still though the hypothesis that communism is dead remains

unfulfilled.