Young Writers Society

Hey everoyone! This is my public speech about communism! I just thought I post it and see what you guys think!

After you read, please comment!

Communism

Imagine not being able to live your own life, imagine it all being controlled by a higher power. Imagine having a baby that you cannot even keep because you already have the limit you are allowed to have. For the Fourteen billion, five hundred seventy-seven million, three hundred sixteen thousand and seventy-eight people that make up China, North Korea, Cuba, Vietnam and Laos, it is their reality.

The people that rule these countries could be described as five of the most powerful people in the world. Hua Guofeng of China, Kim Jong-il of North Korea, Fidel Castro of Cuba, Nguyne Minh Triet of Vietnam and Choummaly Sayasone of Laos.

Good morning students and teachers, I am here today to open up a closed world, the world of Communism. Not many people know the facts about this world that over fourteen billion people live in, but I am here to tell you some of those facts.

Communism is a political way of thinking, an idea of how society should work and be organized. In the Manifesto of Communism, it states that there should be no social classes or states: the well to do class or the poor class would not exist; that everyone would be treated the same. The government of a particular country would make sure that everyone had what he or she needed, until all of the citizens understood how to share the right way. This is known as “true communism”. Eventually, once true communism ruled the land, there would be no need for any government since all of the people would share and get along by working together in small groups of “workers councils” run by volunteers. Now, isn’t that a nice idea? Although this sounds quite nice when Karl Marx wrote the Communistic Manifesto in 1848, we have seen all too many times that communism fails miserable; but some countries have not quite figured that part out yet.

Before I get into to all the technicalities, I would like to present you with the idea of a “communist family”. Let’s use the Smurf’s for an example; many people saw them to be a communist’s family, as they were one big happy family! Normally when you see a family on TV or in a movie, everything about them seems to be very communal and everyone is polite. So in a communist’s family, everyone is sharing and chipping in on the household chores. The parents also do their role of supporting the family, with no exploitations. The dad is not off sleeping with his secretary and the mother is not off on George Street partying every single night. Also, possessions in a communist’s family are not important. The Jones’s would not have a chance against a communist’s family.

Now that you all sort of understand how communism was suppose to work, I’m going to tell you how it works. The Soviet Union was the very first to try communism in 1917, under Vladimir Lenin control. But the country never became communist in the way Marx described it. When the dictatorship fell in 1991, many people who did not support communism said, “the example of the Soviet Union and other communist countries proves that communism is dangerous and doesn’t work, no matter who tries it.” But people wanted communism. They wanted it because the ideology was absolutely amazing and so appealing on paper, no one could resist. Living in a world where the doctor was paid the same amount, as the trash collector would be incredible. I would love to live in a world like this, and I am sure many others would, if this was the true case of communism. Marx did not know that this idea would lead to bloody terrorism, deadly purges, forced labor, fatal deportations, show trails and genocide. But, for a reason not many people can understand, during the 20th century, there were many communist countries.

Some people argue that communism is only bad when it falls into the wrong hands. That “evil” communism is the government taking advantage of the title; but then on the other side, people say communism can never work, seeing it’s been tried in every continent in all kinds of culture and societies, and it still does not seem to be working.

As most of the world can already see, the practice is flawed. 20 million dead Russians would agree. But the question many people ask is “what makes it so bad?” The idea written on the paper of communism, completely brilliant, but when practices it always end up in disaster. Why? Could it be the greedy politicians who use communism as an excuse to have everything they want? Or is it the people who are greedy and cannot adjust to life with rules? People ask those kinds of questions often. And in my opinion, the “rules” they are referring too is our rights. The right to have as many babies as you want is taken advantage off here in Canada. And other rights like freedom of speech and freedom of the press, they are all taken advantage of.

A final thing I would like to talk about in a communistic country is their leader. Millions of people have died in cold blood from communism. We all have heard about Tiananmen Square in China and back in the 1929, Joseph Stalin of Russian was responsible for the deaths of over 20 million Russians. And yet, they could not be touched. Stalin was considered one of the most powerful and murderous dictators in history. They let him rule a party? This man came up with the idea of some people being “enemies of the people”, which resulted in the execution of thousands and the exile of millions to the slave labor camps. And from reading Forbidden City in the 9th grade, most of us are well aware of what the Chinese government did to its people. Thanks to communism, we may never know how many people were killed in China, but people say that about two thousand citizens died that day.

To reflect back, Karl Marx theory on communism was extremely convincing too many people. And many people might not like our democratic or capitalist’s society, but that does not mean communism is so much better. Sure, our system can by flawed, but our government is not killing us in cold blood. In order to make communism work, you need politicians that are empty of greed, and you need the whole country to believe in it and be willing to do this. There are not many greedless politicians out there, and there is no way you could get a whole country to believe one thing. So in my opinion, communism will never work.

To me, communism is a choice of rights. You can choose to be treated as an equal to everyone, supposing communism will work the way it was meant to. Or, you could have freedom of speech, media and all of the rights we have here in Canada. If you do consider the idea of communism, make sure you add the millions of people that have died in cold blood at the hands of communism when you do so.

Thank you!