Reviving old debates from the Cold War is a practice that is generally frowned upon. Most people preempt any possible argument by throwing out the standard line that communism is dead. It didn’t work.  America won! While at the most superficial level this may in some ways be true, it is necessary that the common American mindset concerning communism (amongst other things) bear closer examination.

Speaking from personal experience, I have been in many classes where discussions on social equality, the universal provision of equal rights, etc., have inevitably degenerated into the conclusion that, while it is desirable that everyone be treated equally, it is ultimately impossible to affect that sort of wide-reaching change because communism didn’t work.

The Soviet Union is almost always used as the premier example of this failure in implementation of equality. I (personally) call this argument the “reductio ad communism” (pardon my lack of knowledge of Latin) and is very similar to an association fallacy. This sort of reasoning reflects a very poor application of logic, argumentation and ultimately, contextual knowledge.

Let’s first examine the logical side. The person making this argument will, in general, claim that complete equality is a fundamental tenet of communism. It is then pointed out that communism failed in the Soviet Union; hence by association complete equality will also fail.

The relationship between equality and communism doesn’t necessarily require that equality be a failure by association (much like my friendship with person A, who is friends with person B, doesn’t necessarily necessitate my being friends with person B).

Next, this is poor argumentation in that it allows the person to make the argument to cop out of making any substantial claim. The argument is treated as the definitive final statement in any debate, since it seems foolhardy to argue in favor of communism. Anyone who attempts to argue around the statement that communism failed is generally met with the wrath of the ghost of Joe McCarthy (along with some disapproving looks).

Ultimately, and possibly most important to me, is the lack of contextual knowledge. American students today seem unable to connect the fact that Joe Stalin and the Soviet Union are related. In fact, it might come as a shock to some people that Stalin once ruled the Soviet Union. Point being, the Soviet Union is clearly not an example of pure communism. To say that communism failed in the past is incorrect because we can’t really point to an example of pure communism, much less a failure of communism.

The bigger lesson to be learned from this exercise is that context is important. Drawing overly broad conclusions based on the Powerpoint slide headings that your high school’s part time history teacher/football coach put together in five minutes is not good academic practice. It is better to spend time actually understanding the issues being discussed than to make vague, unsubstantiated claims that don’t further a discussion. Keep this in mind next time you engage in a debate, it might just help you and everyone learn something new.

Garrett Fontentot can be reached at [email protected]