The word Communism tends to be often prejudicially quoted as a synonym of authoritarianism/totalitarianism based on a nation state government administration. The authoritarian characteristics of the orthodox Marxian doctrine often represents the socialism aspiring to evolve to communism eventually. Then, the word communism is often seen as the enemy of Liberalism promoting individuals' liberty and autonomic right. However, there is another form of communism defying the existence of one single state authority commanding economy, the means of resource distribution, and society (the interaction of individual citizens), which is compatible with Liberalism.
The United Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR) was the former suzerain nation of the socialist nations following the orthodox Marxist doctrine advocating for the socioeconomic evolution towards communism. The USSR no longer exists while there are still remaining remnants of the nations which still retain the Soviet style socialism. These remnants are controversial because many of them seem to have abandoned their original political principle. Furthermore, the main point of this essay is to affirm that the orthodox Marxism is not only the political philosophy supporting communism.
Some Asian socialist states ruled by a Communist/Marxian-socialist party seem to have diverted from the direction of their original communist ideal. They have actually adopted the intense capitalist practices while they self-proclaim to maintain their Marxist principle as their excuse to prop up their one-party dictatorship. Therefore, their characteristics are actually opposing to the communist ideal aspiring for the egalitarian socioeconomic state.
Cuba might be only one socialist nation maintaining the orthodox Marxian style communism in a legitimate way. It still keeps the state ownership based economy as well as the diverse distribution of resources securing their reasonable standard of living. At the same time, Cuban government implements the Soviet style autocratic paternalism to cohesively unify her individual citizens under the oppressive one-party authoritarianism suppressing individual liberty. This is the factor that the orthodox Marxism is not compatible with Liberalism.
By contrast, there is another form of communism called Anarch-Syndicalism which aspires to establish the egalitarian socio-economy without an autocratic paternalism such as the orthodox Marxian proletariat dictatorship. Its economy and political administration are run by cooperative unions of individuals which are spontaneously formed by individuals' voluntary cooperation without a cohesive force of any authoritarian organisation. Therefore, it relies on each autonomic individual citizen to manage their own political administration with their free will free from authoritarian oppressions.
This is a anarchist political philosophy defying the existence of nation state government, the cohesive institutionalised authoritarian organisation. This is a radical socialist political philosophy defying not only the oligarchy by the capitalist class elites manipulating socio-economy but also the monetary market economy demanding an intense conformity for all individual citizens as the means of production. This is a libertarian political philosophy promoting equal treatments to all individuals regardless of their gender, ethnic, and physical characteristic origins inside this mutualist community avoiding any stratified institutional administration.
Anarch-Syndicalism is perhaps only one anarchism having been practised in real through the history. The Second Spanish Republic centred in Catalonia in the early 20th century was the innovative state adopting the Anarch-Syndicalist system for economy as well as political administration. Even though it lost the Spanish civil war then, it can be said to be reasonably successful enough to maintain the state under such an administration sufficient enough to continue fighting back.
Their participatory economy, where various business decision-making processes of one firm are democratically managed by its trade union members, was successful enough to maintain the productivity required to fight against their opposing force. Because their profit was returned to each individual worker participating their production, the motivation of their daily business activities as well as their contribution to the entire commune was high enough to fight back against their opposing force. This can be compared to the direct democratic state of the ancient Athens where individual citizens were so proud of themselves as its non-expendable core-members of their state that they had such a strong voluntary spirit to keep fighting in a war.
In Japan, there were some politicians who were advocated to Anarch-Syndicalism before the World War 2 (WW2). Even though this policy was not put into practice in real, this political movement was influential to the various contemporary rebellious political factions against the contemporary Western capitalist imperialism. This influence is non-negligible for explaining the spiritualism of the contemporary status quo Touseiha administration during the WW2 despite their different political characteristics.
A former Japanese government bureaucrat Kunio Yanagida was inspired by an anarchist communist philosopher Kropotkin whereas he was a strong Japanese nationalist at the same time. Mr. Yanagida had a unique attitude towards the issue of the Japanese monarchy Tenno system. He attempted to restore the pre-modern traditional Tenno system linked to the original Shinto shamanism while criticising the current modern monarchism strongly tied up with the modern nation state and its modern state capitalism. His own plan was to establish an Anarch-Syndicalist state of Japan based on the decentralised pastoralist environment where all the autonomous individual habitants mutually cohabit together with their own free will.
The idea of Communism should not be monopolised by the orthodox Marxists; There is a variety of Communism which actually challenges against the orthodox Marxian style and is compatible with Liberalism. There have been various new political philosophical movements of challenging the combination of capitalism and modern nation state government. Michel Foucault was a remarkable philosopher accusing the oppressive characteristics of the entire modernity.
Foucault's philosophy is often criticised as an anachronistic because he seemed to romanticise the pre-modern feudalist society to a certain extend. Yet, his theory clarifies how the emerging modernity with its nation state and capitalism has deteriorated individuality of autonomous individuals by forcing the conformity to the ruling class interests and the entire monstrous mechanism of the modern nation state. His idea was to respect each unique characteristic of individuals not undermined by an institutionalised socioeconomic structure, and his policy is often introduced as the postmodern Anarch-Syndicalism.
In conclusion, Communism itself is not a bad idea as long as its form is compatible with Liberalism such as Anarch-Syndicalism. For the time being, capitalism with its monetary based market economy prevails as a popular socio-economy. Nevertheless, it is always worth off to brainstorm to evaluate any other future socio-economic alternative. Hence, Anarch-Syndicalism as a good form of Communism can be a good candidate.
