By Promod Puri (682 words)
Leftists, Socialists, or Communists belong to the same ideologue community in their political and social thinking, commitment and behaviour.
But lately their concepts and approaches have faced diminishing acceptance worldwide in terms of popularity and power.
The patches that are left, like in Cuba or Venezuela, are the oppressed nations run by autocratic rulers where socialist idealism is seldom practised. Instead, it is a showcase exported for diehard Leftists globally who blindly see the fake glory by denying the realities as Western media hogwash.
People are suffering from an acute shortage of necessities of life, along with a total loss of freedom to protest and express. In the present dire situation, they are desperate to leave their homelands to the countries that are labelled enemies of the Socialist regimes.
For example, between 2021 and 2024, nearly 850,000 Cubans sought refuge in the United States, depleting Cuba’s population by 8 percent. In 2022 and 2023, a record number of Cubans, 425,000, left the Caribbean Island and arrived in the US.
These Leftist nations, proud to call themselves “the last bastion of communism,” generate a lack of trust in socialist doctrines and, thus, the contributing factor in its diminishing subsistence worldwide.
In the rest of the world, where communism once played a significant role in political affairs, its popularity and participation have dropped substantially. In some cases, it has merely a symbolic presence in public affairs or academic discourses.
The pale pages of the political Left are quite visible in democratic countries like Britain, Italy, France, the USA, the Philippines, and India.
Moreover, the left-leaning parties face an uphill task of keeping their feet firmly on political soil at election time. The defeat of the Democratic Party by the Trump-led Republicans indicates the lack of trust in the Leftist agenda. In Canada, the socialist-based New Democratic Party has been struck below 20 percent of the popular vote for years.
Whatever popularity the Leftists enjoy is mainly confined to more informed and well-read urban areas, while the countryside is rife with the Rightists’ following. This political polarization is marked by blue and red in the US, while in Canada, the colours are orange, red, and blue.
The question is, what is wrong with the escalating decline in Leftist influence that no longer appeals to the masses, who are overwhelmingly turning to the Right?
In fact, there is nothing wrong with Socialist principles. It is the leaders’ non-execution of these ordeals that has caused people to have serious doubts about their honesty and sincerity. That triggers the downfall of socialism’s credibility in addressing the basic needs of the masses. The greed for power turns socialist crusaders into dictators, despite being inspiring revolutionaries, when they begin their political careers.
Fidel Castro is an example. After capturing power, he ruled Cuba for over 50 years and then passed his autocratic rule to his brother, Ralph Castro.
Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe provides yet another cautionary tale—his decades-long rule, under the guise of revolutionary leadership, ended only with his death in 2019, leaving behind a legacy of economic ruin and political instability.
The fading of Socialism as a political and governing force would be dire for the world’s poor and middle class. With its morally and ethically sound principles, socialism seeks a socially and economically classless society, social justice for the working class and poor, and the availability of essential services like education, healthcare, public transportation, etc.
The steady takeover by Rightist or Conservative politics will generate xenophobic and anti-minority sentiments among the majority population, rigidly believing the nation’s authenticity lies in its monolithic society of one religion, culture, and language. And the poor can only benefit from the trickle-down economy.
The spur in Far-Right extremist ideas and militancy poses a grave threat to pluralist liberal democracies. The danger comes when these ideas become mainstream and permeate political functioning, as is fast happening in India.
Socialism, the saviour of humanism, must be recovered by honest and dedicated leadership from the power-addicted revolutionaries and the jingle of promised but unfilled slogans.
Promod Puri.com 
It’s rather easy to slag off Cuba. How many years has Cuba been subject to a terrible US Blockade?Cuba’s reliance on USSR for gas or oil and when that collapsed, reduced food production in Cuba. Virtually no access for Cuba to sell anything to various western markets– and they don’t have the hard currency to buy much from us. Yet the best educated, best doctored, most literate population probably in the Americas. Cuba’s exported doctors and dentists to countries that need them. Now the uncertainty we see under capitalism — the relentless increase and inflation of consumer prices and services — mean we Can. are not living all that well. Yet we dare to make fun of Cuba. What they’ve withstood for 65 years — by comparison what did we Can. have to withstand?
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Thanks for your comments; I appreciate them. Now, let me tell you I love Cuba, its people and its culture. I’ve been to Cuba, but that does not make me an expert in its affairs. And I’m not making “fun of Cuba.”
I agree that Cuba has the best-educated population, and it exports doctors. Cuba desperately needs foreign currency, especially the US $. For that reason, doctors and other professionals are sent to different countries for remittances, one of the few ways to earn foreign money other than rum and cigars. Cuba has very restricted rules for getting out of the country. Only professionals get the permit to leave Cuba, with the condition that they must send a major part of their earnings back to Cuba; out of that, the govt. takes its cut, and the rest goes to the family who’re not allowed to go along.
The US blockade has been there for over half a century, as well as the soviet aid stopped decades ago. Can’t Cuba work out to establish its economy without them? Cuba is a paradise with its powdery-white beaches. The tourism industry only recently opened up under private ownership, and it became another big source of foreign money earning. But because of the Covid, it got a devastating blow.
Now let me talk about freedom under Cuba’s autocratic rule. Castro ruled the nation from the day he captured power by people- supported revolution. And continued electing and re-electing himself till almost his death. Than he passed on the power to his brother Ralph Castro. Is that not an autocratic rule?
Moreover, typical of authoritarian and Communist regimes, freedom of speech and expression has been curtailed. Since the early 60s, a generation has been fed on leftist ideologies. A mindset attitude has been created with the egoistic attitude that its political ideology is better than capitalism.
Besides food, shelter, and healthcare, there are other earnest urges basic to human nature. As the world has become much smaller thru the Internet, these urges seek the same opportunities as naturally available to free societies. The call to express, explore, google, communicate, travel, educate, learn and earn are the aspirations that are denied, limited or switched on or off in restricted political societies like Cuba
For the love of socialism, I have the right to protect it from its degeneration caused by authoritarian rulers, as in Cuba or Zimbabwe.
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