UH 4000

Marxism: A History of Theory and Practice

Fall, 2014
MWF 1:25-2:20
Evan Osborne
Office Hours: MW 2:30-3:20 OBA

This is a course about Marxism/communism, the most consequential ideology of the

twentieth century. I am an economist by training, but as I have gotten older I have become
very interested in history, and especially the history of ideas. And so this course will be both an
introduction to Marxist economic thought and the history of political power exercised in the
name of that thought.

Learning Outcomes

At the end of the course, I hope that you will know what communism was about - what
did Marx and his acolytes think, what phenomena occurred during the process of implementing
communist governments, and why did it have the appeal it did.

In addition, this course, like all UH 400 courses, is an Integrated Writing course. The
expected outcomes, according to http://www.wright.edu/writing-across-the-
curriculum/requirements, are:

Wright State students will be able to produce writing that

⦁ Demonstrates their understanding of course content,

⦁ Is appropriate for the audience and purpose of a particular writing task,

⦁ Demonstrates the degree of mastery of disciplinary writing conventions appropriate to

the course (including documentation conventions), and

⦁ Shows competency in standard edited American English.

Assessment

There is one midterm exam, on Wednesday, Oct. 15. There will be a final exam held at
the scheduled time, on Monday, Dec. 8, 12:30-2:30. The exams are essay, and will cover
readings and lectures. In addition, there will be a term paper. In it, you are to select a country
that underwent communist rule. Describe how it became communist. Describe the theory of
communist leaders there about how to implement communism, what actually happened in the
country (not just political policies, but their effects). If applicable, describe the country's exit
from communism and post-communist fate, and speculate on why things turned out well or
not. ("Post-communist" means the Communist Party, if it still exists, no longer has a monopoly
on political power.) Basically, give me a thorough history lesson on the communist experience
in your country. Permissible countries are:

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 ⦁ Any of the republics that made up the Soviet Union and are now separate (11 in all)
⦁ China
⦁ Mongolia
⦁ North Korea
⦁ Poland
⦁ Romania
⦁ Hungary
⦁ Bulgaria
⦁ East Germany
⦁ Czechoslovakia (now two countries)
⦁ Yugoslavia (now 4 countries)
⦁ Albania
⦁ Vietnam
⦁ Laos
⦁ Cambodia
⦁ Cuba

The paper is due on the last day of class, Friday, December 5. It will be graded both on
evidence of mastery of course content and on the Integrated Writing criteria listed above. 75%
of the paper grade will be thoroughness and 25% proper use of English. You are free to turn in
as many rough drafts as you like, and if so all usage errors will be corrected.

The overall grade is calculated in one of two ways:

If the midterm score is higher than the final-exam score, the midterm is worth 20% of your
grade and the final 40%. If not, the midterm does not count and the final is worth 60%. The
term paper is worth 40% regardless.

Sequence (note: Readings with links can be accessed online¸ usually at many locations.
Readings without links can be accessed through Pilot.)

⦁ Communism’s Backdrop

⦁ The intellectual seeds: social “science," the Enlightenment and the state of
political economy when Karl Marx was writing.

Reading:
Maximilien Robespierre, “Principles of Political Morality,”
http://www.marxists.org/history/france/revolution/robespierre/1794/political-
morality.htm

⦁ The social context: the Industrial Revolution

Readings

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 Karl Marx, Capital, Ch. 15, Section 3
William Blake, “The New Jerusalem” (available free online)

II. Communism: the theory

Readings
Karl Marx, Capital, Chs. 26-33
Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto (Preface, Secs. 1-4),
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/

III. Communism in practice: the Soviet Union through Stalin

Readings:
Yinghong Cheng, Creating the New Man: From Enlightenment Ideals to Socialist
Reality (pp. 8-37)
Paul Johnson, Modern Times: The World from the Twenties to the Nineties (pp.
49-94, 261-276, 299-308)
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago (abridged version), Chs. 1-2

⦁ The Russian Revolutions

⦁ Stalin and Trotsky
⦁ Collectivization
⦁ Romantic Western sympathy
⦁ The Holodomor
⦁ The Great Terror and the Great Patriotic War

IV. Communism in practice: China

⦁ The Communist Party before and during World War II

⦁ The Revolution and the Party’s revenge on the “enemies of the people”
⦁ The Great Leap Forward and the great famine it brought

Reading
Jisheng Wang, Tombstone: The Great Chinese Famine 1958-1962, pp. 1-56,
68-86

⦁ The Cultural Revolution

Readings
Johnson, pp. 542-559
Howard French, "Hearts Still Scarred, Forty Years After China’s Upheaval,” The
New York Times, June 10, 2006

⦁ “Socialism With Chinese Characteristics”

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V. Communism in practice: Cold-War communism

⦁ The History: De-Stalinization, the Brezhnev Doctrine

Nikita Khruschev, “On the Cult of Personality” (excerpts),

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1956khrushchev-secret1.html

⦁ The Economics

⦁ Communist life and times

Readings
Interview about and excerpt from Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking (Anya
von Bremzen, New York: Crown, 2013)
Interview: http://www.npr.org/books/titles/223091720/mastering-the-art-of-
soviet-cooking-a-memoir-of-food-and-longing?tab=excerpt#excerpt

Book excerpt: http://www.npr.org/books/titles/223091720/mastering-the-art-

of-soviet-cooking-a-memoir-of-food-and-longing?tab=excerpt#excerpt

S. Kazalaraska, “Fashioning Fashion in Socialist Bulgaria,” Centre for Advanced

Study Sofia Working Paper Series, 6, 2014, 1-25.

⦁ The end of the Soviet empire

VI. Communism in practice: other catastrophes

⦁ Southeast Asia
⦁ North Korea
⦁ Cuba

VII. Post-communism

⦁ In Europe and Russia

⦁ In East Asia

VII. Communism and the Alternatives

⦁ Social Democracy
⦁ Post-communist communism
⦁ "Capitalism," the good society and the nature of man

Readings:
William Bernstein, The Birth of Plenty Introduction, Ch. 1
“Research Shows Just How Much People Hate a Winner,

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http://www.unisci.com/stories/20021/0213025.htm
“Socialists are Cheaters, Says New Study,”
http://reason.com/blog/2014/07/22/socialists-are-cheaters-says-new-study
Ronald Bailey, “Burn the Rich,” http://reason.com/archives/2002/06/19/burn-
the-rich
Deirdre McCloskey, Bourgeois Dignity (Chs. 1-3)