Socialism in the 21st century. (session 14)

Ideology, In the cold war sense of the term refers to a system of thought, which by claiming a monopoly of truth, refuses to tolerate opposing ideas and rival beliefs.

One of the most well known ideologies since the 18^th century is ‘socialism’ proposed by Karl Marx. It is interesting to to evaluate ‘socialism in the twenty-first century. As we see around us, socialism has lost its value and even the countries that seem to still be following it like North Korea, Cuba and some what China is a completely different form of socialism. Some argue, that the only reason why these types of nominal regimes are able to survive is because the communist parties have introduced market reforms.

The question that arises is why did socialism fail? Was it because it was a system which was not possible to follow realistically? Or was there a lack of the ‘right’ type of leadership. Up until lenin’s time, the movement was on the right track, but his premature death left the ideology in the hands of Stalins, whose implementation of the ideology was quite different. Over the years socialism has been defined in a number of different  ways, the Russians defined it differently, while the Chinese accused them of being revisionists and defined it differently.

So the point to wonder is did socialism decline, like the way it seems to have in the twenty-first century because of it being a failed ideology on its own or because there was ineffective leadership after Lenin?