Why does communism lead to dictatorship

While Marx never saw communism in action in his lifetime, Vladimir Lenin led the October Revolution in Russia in , overthrowing imperial rule and establishing the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Communism then spread to China and on to Cuba, Vietnam and Korea. The original, higher vision of communism, as outlined by Marx and Engels, was never implemented. But a series of leaders and dictators from the Soviet Union to China to Cuba would label their governments as communist.

Many of these leaders, including Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong, were brutal in their rule, overseeing the mass murder of millions of their own citizens. They also came to represent one side of the Cold War with the United States.

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Any interactives on this page can only be played while you are visiting our website. You cannot download interactives. A government is a system of order for a nation, state, or another political unit. A government is responsible for creating and enforcing the rules of a society, defense, foreign affairs, the economy, and public services. While the responsibilities of all governments are similar, those duties are executed in different ways depending on the form of government.

Some of the different types of government include a direct democracy, a representative democracy, socialism, communism, a monarchy, an oligarchy, and an autocracy. Help your students understand the different forms of government with these classroom resources. Industrialization ushered much of the world into the modern era, revamping patterns of human settlement, labor, and family life. Socialism is a political and economic system wherein property and resources are owned in common or by the state.

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