The Death of CommunismThe United States' longest and bloodiest war was the Vietnam War, fought from 1959 to 1975. (Communist Manifesto 1) In this war, 57,685 Americans were killed, and their there were over 2 million Vietnamese deaths. (Communist Manifesto 3) One of the main causes of the war was a commonly held American belief called the Domino Theory. This theory stated that if the United States allowed a country to fall to communism, those around it would fall, and then those around it would eventually take over the entire world. However, the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 allows us to approach communism in a new light. The Communist Manifesto has three sections. The first is an outline of the history of the bourgeoisie and the proletariat and an explanation of how the bourgeois will be able to defeat them. The second section shows the framework of communist goals and their long-term plan to abolish private property. The last section criticizes other socialist attempts of the time, calling for all workers to unite under communism. The bourgeois that Marx speaks of in the manifesto is simply the capitalist of the time. The proletariat are the workers of the world, people who, according to Marx, have "[become] an appendage of the machine." (Marx 3). Marx speaks of their horrible fate by saying "they are enslaved by the machine every day and every hour, by the observer and, above all, by the individual bourgeois industrialist himself." (Marx 3). Marx documents the phases of the struggle of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie: "first the struggle is led by individual workers, then by the workers of a factory, then the workers of a trade, in a locality, against the bourgeoisie which directly exploits them." (Marx 4) Marx tells it like this... halfway through the paper ......and the Vietnam War rages on. The bloodshed and military advance stopped decades ago, but the real battle lies in creating a Vietnam that can emerge from poverty. The war was more successful in pushing the country deeper into communism than in pulling it out. But the result is a foregone conclusion: an ideology that no longer fits the times will not hold. Ask Mother Russia. Works Cited "Communist Manifesto", Microsoft EncyclopediaÆ EncartaÆ 96. (c) 1993-1995 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. (c) Funk & Wagnalls Corporation. All rights reserved.Karl Marx and Frederick Engels. "The Communist Manifesto". http: //leftside.uwc.ac.za/Archives/1848-CM/cm.html (June 25, 1997).“Vietnam War,” MicrosoftÆ EncartaÆ 96 Encyclopedia. (c) 1993-1995 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. (c) Funk & Wagnalls Corporation. All rights reserved.