The evidence so far relates to communist state capacity in snapshots, taken at a single moment in time. But time itself is a dimension of state capacity. In addition to showing unusual capabilities, communist states have been capable for longer, both by comparison with other types of authoritarian regime, and also by comparison with some democracies.
When measured against the longstanding liberal democracies of northwestern Europe or North America, communist states might appear fragile or short lived. But this might be the wrong yardstick. Twenty years ago, the political scientist Barbara Geddes wrote:
Since at least the 1950s, many analyses of communist regimes have stressed their inherent dysfunctions and contradictions. When the regimes finally broke down, these dysfunctions were invoked as causes. Yet these political systems had lasted forty years in Eastern Europe and seventy in the Soviet Union.[108]
None of the communist states that remained has broken down since then. Today they include North Korea (founded in 1948), China (1949), Vietnam (1955), Cuba (1959), and Laos (1975). North Korea matched the seventy-four years of Soviet rule in 2022, and China should do so in 2023.
Multiple datasets show that single-party dictatorships are especially long-lived forms of authoritarian rule—among them, most prominently, communist states.[109] Single-party regimes are thought to be more durable than others (such as military and personal dictatorships) because they offer ways to institutionalize rent sharing, career advancement, and orderly succession, preventing intra-elite disputes from breaking out into violence.[110] At the same time not all single-party regimes are the same. Particularly long lived are “revolutionary autocracies” that have their origins in civil and foreign wars. As political scientist Jean Lachapelle and coauthors write:
Revolutionary elites’ efforts to radically transform the existing social and geopolitical order trigger intense domestic and international resistance, often resulting in civil or external war. These military conflicts pose an existential threat to new revolutionary regimes and in some cases, such as Afghanistan and Cambodia, they destroy them. But where regimes survive, violent conflict produces four important legacies: (1) a cohesive ruling elite, (2) a loyal military, (3) a powerful coercive apparatus, and (4) the destruction of rival organizations and alternative centers of power in society. These legacies help to inoculate revolutionary regimes against elite defection, military coups, and mass protest—three principal sources of authoritarian breakdown.[111]Regime longevity matters. It is not just a signal of political vitality. It is also a precondition of economic modernization. The longer a regime can persist without breaking down amid violence, the longer is the period in which the economy can grow without a setback. Communist countries were able to industrialize their economies and modernize their armies, not only because these were priorities, but because they were able to suppress political conflict for decades, giving their policies time to work.
The shared outlook of these countries’ rulers was a determination to rule indefinitely and to build economic and military power while doing so. Perhaps it can all end tomorrow. The title of Alexei Yurchak’s book about “the last Soviet generation” is a warning to communist rulers from history: Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More.[112] But so far, and for some of them, tomorrow has been put off.
To summarize: communist states under stable authoritarian rule have been the most formidable Leviathans of the last hundred years, perhaps of all time. They arose from top-down state building, carried out amid the ruin of interstate and civil wars. They mobilized economies against all the maxims of mainstream economics—lacking the rule of law, the protection of private property and contracts, or the enforcement of market competition. The durability and continuity of the surviving communist regimes assure the world that their plans for economic and military modernization remain deeply serious. If the economic outcomes have been dismal in some places and times, they have been striking in others. The global impact of China’s industries, exports, and military power is just the latest illustration.
Despite the capabilities and sustainability demonstrated by communist states, scholarly writing since the end of the Cold War has tended to downplay the communist experience of state building. The neglect is visible in the selection of regions and periods from which many studies of state capacity have drawn their data. Yet the communist experience shows a record of top-down state building far more capable and sustained than the consensus would allow.
Moreover, whether or not communism will be over one day, it is not over yet. Will China have time to become the first communist country to join the rich nations’ club? You, the reader, might be optimistic or skeptical.
As of now, we can’t be sure of the answer; only time will tell. Meanwhile, a better grasp of the strengths and weaknesses of communist state capacity does at least give us a chance at the question.
Communist states developed exceptional state capabilities. But how usable were the capabilities that they intended to deploy? To understand why this question comes next, think of the internet. The internet endows us with capabilities, such as instant access to global information and commerce, that would astonish a visitor from 1970. But every internet user has had the annoyance of being locked out of an account by a forgotten or misremembered password. Sometime the internet is just not very usable.
A feature of internet commerce is the “security/usability” tradeoff. An expert writes:
A colleague of mine used to quip “Got an access denied? Good, the security is working.” That means that security administration is fundamentally opposed to network administration—they are, in fact, conflicting goals. .. . Essentially, the tradeoff is between security and usability. The most secure system is one that is disconnected and locked into a safe.[113]
How does the security/usability tradeoff work? When internet security is light and the bar is low, predators crowd in and begin to feed on the unwary. User confidence collapses. The first password is an obvious advance. It boosts my confidence in the internet and increases my willingness to use it. Soon, all the legitimate account holders have a password. An arms race develops. Thieves become proficient at hacking passwords and stealing identities. More complex passwords, memorable information, and multifactor authentication make it more difficult for criminals to break through the security surrounding my account details by stealing my identity. But these precautions don’t just make it more difficult for criminals. They also make it more difficult for me to assert my identity in my own legitimate business. The price of making my assets more secure is that they are also made less usable.
This is the security/usability tradeoff. Too little security, and the system is laid waste by thieves. More security seems like a good idea, but it also makes the system harder to use. Too much security and the thieves are locked out, but so is legitimate business. Somewhere, there is the right amount of security—but where is it?
State secrecy appears to have a similar effect on state capacity. At very low levels, secrecy is productive: it keeps out opportunists and troublemakers. And this enhances capacity. Beyond a point, however, the costs of secrecy increase so much that they begin to detract from state capacity. When the price of more secrecy is that capacity declines, there is a secrecy/ capacity tradeoff.
109
Geddes, “What Do We Know about Democratization,” based on a dataset of 161 authoritarian regimes from 1946 to 1998; Frantz, Authoritarianism, 217, based on an expanded dataset of 280 authoritarian regimes from 1946 to 2010, described by Geddes, Wright, and Frantz, “Autocratic Breakdown and Regime Transitions.” See also Dimitrov, “Understanding Communist Collapse and Resilience,” 5, based on a dataset of “39 noncommunist single-party regimes ...,20 nondemocratic monarchies, and 15 communist regimes.”
111
Lachapelle et al., “Social Revolution and Authoritarian Durability,” 558; see also Smith, “Life of the Party”; Levitsky and Way, “Durable Authoritarianism.”