Introduction
Communism is a system of government whereby the state economy is in the hands of authoritarian party which hold power claiming to develop the society to a higher social level in which all products are equally shared by the people while Democracy is a type of government where all citizens have an equal say about the decision that affect their daily lives since citizens can participate equally either directly or via elected representatives to decide on matters of development, and creation of law (Lo & Valerio, 2014).
Politically, China has been a communist for decades. The country is under the single-party rule of the communist party. Every place, be it a city or province, has two types of leadership: Community party officials and local government functionaries. Whereas there is an overlap between the two types of leadership, the top government must always be answerable to the top party leader. The leadership structure is tailored towards capitalist ends. For instance, regional leaders are evaluated annually based on economic growth in their areas. That provides them with motivation to drive innovation through fostering a healthy competition among them (Zhong, 2014).
On the other hand, the emergence of political authoritarianism or what may be referred to as “managed democracy” in Russia is the object of tensed fascination in the West. The geopolitical facts of dependence on Russian oil and gas have ensured that western societies are carefully interested in the evolution of Russian government. This has involved the centralization of economic and political power, the castration of parliamentary politics and even the gagging of the media (Aslund, Guriev & Kuchins, 2010).
In most cases, it is perceived that democracy is more beneficial form of government than communism and that it succeeds in any nation. But in this case the converse is true. Why has democracy failed in Russia? What are the causes of this failure? On the other hand, communism has been doing well in China yet it has been perceived as an oppressive form of government.
Literature Review
The answer to this phenomenon is best answered through carrying out a comprehensive literature review by tabling the detailed reasons why there are success and failures in these two particular countries. Some of the reason for the failure of the democracy in Russia includes; various policies adopted by the country which does not allow democracy to be felt ,the kind of leaders who are in power and does not want people to enjoy their freedom and the willingness of the people to embrace democracy (Aslund, Guriev & Kuchins, 2010).
Again, there are various reasons why communism has succeeded China. According to Zhong (2014), the reasons are based on the leaders who are in power, the policies of the nation and even how the laws are implemented. And according to Anders Aslund, senior fellow, Peterson Institute for Economics and former research scholar; the failure of democracy in Russia and success of communism in China has been contributed by economic reforms applied in these countries. For instance, the answer to the problem in Russia is directly connected to the speed and ideas of economic and political reforms. He argues that by 1980s, the soviet system had been stagnant, and many Russian did not think that one day their society could have change.
When a new president got into power, he tried to reform Soviet system but he was forced to steer between the hardliners and the revolutionaries and later he failed. When Boris a member of the revolutionaries came to power, he introduced revolution, which resulted in a temporary breakdown in state capacity and institution (Aslund, Guriev & Kuchins, 2010).
At this stage, there was a narrow path of the policy maker to come up with reforms that could change the pillar of society. The window opportunity was seized by the president resulting in the economic realm but not political. The president’s team convened a plan of sizing Russian economy into private hands leading to the adoption of the conservative fiscal and monetary policy at the economic reform put by those policies made the economic growth possible.
Zhong (2014) argues that the failure was contributed by the new constitution enacted in the 1993 which gave the president excessive powers and this paved way for the authoritarian administration where no one could question the actions of the president, while in China the communist regime is successful because the government manages and involves elites in the decision making concerning their lives as citizens. The communist’s member who make the six percent of the country population is rewarded for being loyal to the party hence its success.
Lo & Valerio (2014), argues that democracy failed in Russia because of lack of idea on how to implement and built it. This is because the window opportunity when the democracy could be implemented was missed. They added that President Yeltsin should have discarded the old and unrepresentative parliament they had attempted the coup that delivered Russian democracy breakthrough. The president should have spear headed an election to help Russia get democracy and abandon totally the oppressive communism. Unfortunately, this did not occur as a conflict erupted between the president and the parliament. Since the parliament did not represent people hence, it cooperated with the president to deny people the democracy. When the parliament was dissolved, the president was over throne leading to a lot of bloodsheds, while Chinese knew how to implement and build the communism among people, For example, through paying attention on popularity attitude. The party carries out this through monitoring of rumors and anti-regime thoughts on the internet hence their success.
Communism is successful in China because the communists’ resilience is very intuitive resulting in the repression. The regime has used this repression in the past to suppress political dissent and trying as much as possible to deny people their rights and freedoms in the name of, social stability but in the recent the regime changed and it is giving people their freedom and their rights. This is justified by the fact that there are few political prisoners than in the time of Cultural Revolution. In contrary, Russia there is a lot of authoritarian by the government hence making democracy to fail (Chinese Abstracts).
According to the Policy Foundation, a non-governmental research organization, it suggests that the democracy failed in Russia because of a new constitution which was adopted in the referendum in 1993.The constitution was democratic, but it suffered from some alteration and amendment of very sensitive parts that contained how the democracy should be built('Russian First Referendum'). Again the constitution stated that the presidential power between the executive and the parliament were not clear hence bringing difficulties in the implementations of democracy in Russia as compared to China where there constitution is very clear about the presidential powers and the parliament.
Furthermore, the communists have been successful in China because of their capability to maintain popular legitimacy through social compact, with society. In the modern communism in China, social is compact, and performance are based on the performance of the economy. The government of China encourages her citizens to pursue increasing their wealth portfolio, and this contradicts the Russian democracy where the government and economy of the country (Zhong, 2014).
Again, another problem that causes the democracy to fail in Russia as argued by Caspersen, (2013), were the small group of KGC officers who were busy taking control of states and its corporation. They gave inefficient giant state enterprises to buy successful private companies. These companies are rationalized, and they are not voluntary. This resulted into a harmful economy even in the short run, while in China the government was more focusing on improving the controls of state owned companies to benefit the local people hence its success.
According to Caspersen, (2013) the democracy failed in Russia because of lack of idea on how to implement is incorrect. This is because Russia is one of the countries that have got well educated citizen and varied resources that could help them make the implementation of the democracy successful. Again he added that Russia did not utilize the chance when they could have received full democracy, however, he added that there are still opportunities to ensure that they get the required democracy.
On the other hand, the fact that the china government is luring people so as to gain popularity is not a permanent way of giving people freedom. Zhong (2014) argues that China may not see meaningful political changes in the future even with the new administration. This because there are a number of Chinese citizens who cannot reach the higher income and have experienced reduction in social status.
Analysis
Secondly, is the focus on the economic policies and reform on how they affect the popularity of the regime. In the research, it is established that the economic policies affect how the regime will be implemented in a particular country. For instance, the in Russia economic policies and reform made democracy not to be implanted. This is because the policies were given much consideration and power which could not let people realize the benefits of that form of government. In China, the economic policies paved way for the spread and popularization of the communism since people were allowed to increase their wealth creation hence increasing peoples’ economic status (Zhong, 2014).
In addition, there is also a focus on the impact of human resource and wealth of the state in the promotion of the regime in the country. It is established that when there are learned people in country and there also enough resources to help in gearing the implementation of the regime, it will be so easy for such a form of government administration to be adopted. For example, Russia could not implement democracy properly because of lack of human resource and proper ideas that could help ensure that proper democracy is found in the country.
There is also a focus on the effects of the constitution on the regime. It can be argued that bad constitution can lead to a misleading and bad regime where citizens are oppressed and have no decision to make about their lives. This is observed in the case of the of Russia where the constitution gave out too much power to the president and therefore paving way for the authoritarian regime where none could not question the actions of the government while in China this constitution lead to the adoption of the communism where the government involved the elites in the decision making in matters pertaining to the government (Zhong, 2014).
Again, rate of adoption in people also determines how first, and willing people will adopt the regime. Young people have a high willingness of adopting a regime faster than old people who tend to be conservative to their way. They become rigid and hard to change hence when they are in power it will be very difficult for the nation to change. For example, Russian was being lead by an old man by the time democracy was introduced. He did not show a lot of interest in giving people their freedom d and instead continued with the old method of oppressing people through authoritarian, dictatorial leadership. While China, the leaders have been relatively young hence they embraced the new policies to improve communism from oppressive to the one accepted and celebrated by people.
It can be established that people who are close to the president make very difficult for the new regime to be implemented properly. This is seen in Russian government where those who were in cabinets and parliament members failed to campaign for the implementation of democracy in Russia. Instead, they were engaging in corruption.
Key
1stQtr: GOVERNMENT EFFECTS
2ndQtr: CONSTITUTION EFFECTS
3rdQtr: POLICIES EFFECT
4thQtr: LACK OF IDEAS
Conclusion
The government can also influence the people negatively by implementing some reforms that make it difficult for the regime to succeed. For example in Russia, the government adopted policy that could not make the democracy dominate the country. It came up with policies where the president controlled everything.
The second factor that has a lot of influence on the regime success or failure is the constitutions of that country. When constitution is flexible and able to accommodate changes that might come with the new regime then that particular constitution is good it is good in that it will regulate the actions taken by the government which can hinder the development of such forms of government administrative structures. It will be able to limit the powers of the president that are going against the regime. An example is the Russian government where the constitution gave the president excessive power to control everything in the country without any objection from the citizen.
Worse still the success or failure of the regime is greatly influenced by the availability of proper ideas and human resource that have good knowledge of the regime. In Russia, there was the lack of proper ideas on how a democracy could be implemented in their country. This problem led to the failure of the democracy in Russia. The aim of human resource management is to ensure that the information needed to lay the basic foundation of the regime is there for the success of that particular form of government administration. Again this factor determines the success or failure of the regime in that the human resource will be able to influence and educate people on the main objectives of the regime. Its importance to the common man in the ground and its general importance to the society as a whole hence introducing the new system of government.
Another factor that was found to be very fundamental in the determination of success or failure of a system of a government is the policies laid down to be follow when implementing any type of regime.
In this research, the findings are general and can be applied to any type of government system.
Works Cited
Aslund, Anders. The Last Shall Be The First. Washington, DC: Peterson Institute for International Economics, 2010 Print.
Lo Prete, Marco Valerio. 'Is Viktor Orbán Right That Liberal Democracy Has Failed? Is Italy Exhibit. New Perspectives Quarterly 31.4 (2014): 23-28.
Aslund, Anders, S. M Guriev, and Andrew Kuchins. Russia After The Global Economic Crisis. Washington, DC: Peterson Institute for International Economics, 2010. Print.
Zhong, Yang. 'Do Chinese People Trust Their Local Government, And Why?'. Problems of Post-Communism 61.3 (2014): 31-44.
Caspersen, Nina. 'Democracy, Nationalism And (Lack Of) Sovereignty: The Complex Dynamics Of Democratisation In Unrecognised States†'. Nations and Nationalism 17.2 (2011): 337-356.
'Chinese Abstracts'. Chinese Journal of Applied Linguistics 36.1 (2013).
