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Power and authority are not necessarily synonymous. Force is not authority, and can even indicate weakness. The philosopher Max Weber observed that dominance is only legitimate when people recognize and accept authority. In some democracies, rulers have compensated the fading of legitimacy with higher doses of authoritarianism. The pandemic has exacerbated this distortion.

This is the conjuncture facing several experiments in governance that are imperfect, populist or downright dictatorial. Cuba, Venezuela, China, Russia, Vietnam, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Turkey all fit these labels to a greater or lesser extent.

In some of those cases, what's helped that big-stick-style authoritarianism survive is a setting where income distribution is at least consistent. China, fore example, breathed new life into its authoritarian system with the capitalist experiment begun by the late leader Deng Xiaoping. Its brand of modernization may have left the Chinese indifferent to the concept of communism, but not to the social mobility the system assures them.

Today, the People's Republic has the world's biggest middle class, with a per capita income that keeps growing. Vietnam has a broadly similar situation, while Saudi Arabia has spent big chunks of its oil fortune to bolster wages, pay subsidies and keep the peace.

Regimes without economic success can only rely on coercion.

Regimes without economic success can only rely on coercion, which has shown stark limitations. In Paraguay, the regime of General Alfredo Stroessner (1954-1989) fell with the end of the generous funds spent on the Itaip dam. With no more "sweeteners" for his cronies, Stroessner was sent packing when another soldier, Colonel Lino Oviedo, marched into the presidential office holding a hand grenade.

With North Africa during the Arab Spring, rising food prices pushed people onto the streets to challenge the authority of their rulers. Anyone who claims ideology can make up for such pedestrian needs as food and personal fulfillment should listen to speeches made by Cuba's Ral Castro when he took over the presidency from his late brother, Fidel. The revolutionary veteran who announced his retirement days ago, aged almost 90 years, admitted in the middle of the last decade that the communist island's "insignificant wages" had cut through its youth's "revolutionary conscience."

The Cuban case confirms you can do a lot with history, except negate its dynamics. A section of Cuba's gerontocracy seems to have understood that history is not static, and understands what it means to fall into an abyss. The younger of the Castros warned his peers in the nomenklatura that unless things changed in Cuba, the communist polity would fall.

When Venezuela stopped sending it money, Cuba sought out historic negotiations with the administration of President Barack Obama, to break decades of isolation and attract vital investments. This dtente, later dashed by Donald Trump's erratic geopolitics, is now back on the table.

Castro's retirement and the handover of powers to his political godson Miguel Daz-Canel point in that direction. Castro has also taken with him some old party hands opposed to any glasnost. One is Ramiro Valds, who designed Venezuela's repressive apparatus of recent years.

Ral Castro took over the presidency from his late brother, Fidel Photo: Ernesto Mastrascusa/EFE via ZUMA Press

Castro and Daz-Canel made similar sounds at the recent Eighth Party Congress. Both spoke in favor of normalized ties with the United States, like those it maintains with other states including Vietnam, whose capitalist economy and communist political control is a model that Castro wants Cuba to follow.

Vietnam's economy has grown in leaps since the 1980s, when it dropped its opposition to the free market. It even grew 2.9% in the pandemic year of 2020, when Cuba's economy shrank 11%. Interestingly, Castro has admitted that 50 years of U.S. blockades were not the only reason for Cuba's economic failures.

Today, Cuba's "Fatherland or Death" motto may well morph into "Open Up or Die," as a columnist in the Spanish paper El Pas recently observed. Like Venezuela, the island nation is suffering an aggravation of inflationary trends that is fueling discontent, protests and repression. In 2020, the price of clothes and foodstuffs doubled or even tripled, while services like electricity quadrupled. The decision last January to have a single exchange rate contributed to this inflation.

For now, Cuba must wait before the seeds it has thrown at the U.S. germinate. The administration of President Joe Biden won't do anything with Cuba until after congressional elections of 2022. It must boost its legislative power and cannot afford to lose Florida, as it did in last year's presidential elections.

Florida's Hispanic, anti-communist voters don't want anything to do with Cuba whatever the subtleties. If the Democrats stumble in mid-term polls there, it means Trump could return. That might be good news for China in its race to become the world's paramount power, but would not in any case halt changes on the island.

Cuba's ally and pupil Venezuela might open the oil sector to private investments.

Cuba's ally and pupil Venezuela is also shifting its positions, beginning with its economy. Last year, on the advice of the Russian Economy ministry, a state commission discussed opening the oil sector to private investments.

The government of President Nicols Maduro is preparing legislation to end the state's monopoly on oil through the firm PDVSA. And in January, the state began talking to concessionary firms on how to broaden participation in exploiting the country's pharaonic crude reserves. With output having dropped below 500,000 barrels a day, Venezuela needs investments that can match their scale to revive a crucial source of revenues.

While U.S. sanctions are an immediate obstacle, there are ways private firms could take over Venezuelan assets without falling afoul of laws. The U.S. forbids any business with PDVSA, the Venezuelan regime and its helpers. In theory, independent firms could take over businesses no longer controlled by PDVSA. Bloomberg is already reporting anti-sanctions lobbying by big oil and financial firms in the U.S., concerned about losing Venezuela to competitors.

Washington might initially allow U.S. firms to swap fuel for Venezuelan crude, which Trump blocked. This might be done before the midterm elections, using humanitarian pretexts.

Many in the northern hemisphere think a process of dtente opens a straight path to regime change in Venezuela, while parts of Venezuela's middle class are already banking on a gradual transformation. And if Cuba begins heading in another direction and loosens its grip, Venezuela's regime may also do what it must, to survive.

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Raul Castro's Exit, Biden's Arrival And The Future Of Venezuela - Worldcrunch

Polish Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski, scheduled to be beatified Sept. 12, was ready to seek agreements in a Christian spirit, but also firmly believed certain boundaries could not be crossed, said a leading theologian and political scientist.

Father Piotr Mazurkiewicz, former secretary-general of the Brussels-based Commission of the Bishops Conferences of the European Union, COMECE, told Catholic News Service April 27 the beatification would remind Catholics everywhere of the churchs challenges under communist rule in Eastern Europe.

In an age when its generally assumed any leadership role requires a compromise of conscience, he showed, like the English St. Thomas More, this wasnt so, the theologian said.

Beatification is a step toward sainthood, and Polands Catholic information agency, KAI, said 37 volumes on the cardinals sanctity had been amassed during his 1989-2001 diocesan process for canonization.

In October 2019, the Vatican Congregation for Saints Causes said the inexplicable recovery of a dying 19-year-old cancer patient from the Szczecin-Kamien Archdiocese in 1988 had been confirmed as a miracle attributed to Wyszynskis intercession. His beatification, originally scheduled for 2020, was postponed because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Mother Elisabeth Rosa Czacka, who founded the Franciscan Sister Servants of the Cross in 1918 and a pioneering center for blind children, will be beatified alongside Wyszynski. She died in Poland in 1961.

The late Catholic historian Andrzej Micewski told Catholic News Service in 2001 that Wyszynskis leadership had resulted in a victory that was not only political, but also had taught important lessons about securing church freedoms under hostile conditions.

Wyszynski criticized the communist state, but also compelled communist rulers to deal with him, in this way ensuring his church became Eastern Europes strongest, Micewski said.

Born in Zuzela, Poland, Aug. 3, 1901, Stefan Wyszynski was ordained at Wloclawek in 1924, later serving as a chaplain to Polands underground home army under wartime German occupation.

Pope Pius XII named him bishop of Lublin in 1946 and archbishop of Warsaw-Gniezno two years later. In 1950, despite Vatican misgivings, Wyszynski signed the first church accord with a communist government, which promised the church institutional protection in return for encouraging respect for state authorities.

The deal was swiftly violated by the communist side, and Wyszynski was arrested with hundreds of priests in September 1953. He was held until October 1956, when a new communist leader, Wladyslaw Gomulka, sought his help in calming industrial unrest.

When he was arrested, he didnt know what awaited him although it turned out to be three years detention, it could just as easily have been a show trial and death sentence, Mazurkiewicz told CNS.

When we read his detailed notes today, its striking how the communist rulers also treated Cardinal Wyszynski as an authority and felt morally inferior beside him, as they tried to present their own perspectives and interests, he said.

Having reached a new deal with Gomulka to allow freer church appointments, some religious teaching and 10 Catholic seats in Polands State Assembly, Cardinal Wyszynski headed the Archdiocese of Warsaw-Gniezno until his death May 28, 1981.

Among his proteges was the future St. John Paul II. When then-Father Karol Wojtyla was appointed auxiliary bishop of Krakow in 1958, the cardinal presented him to a group of priests, saying Habemus papam (We have a pope).

Mazurkiewicz told CNS Wyszynskis beatification would be a form of penance against recent church scandals by recalling good and saintly aspects of Christian life. He also said the cardinals role in rebuilding ties Polish with Germany, through a reconciliatory letter to German bishops during the 1962-65 Second Vatican Council, had been important for post-war Europe.

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Theologian: Polish cardinals beatification reminder of tests of communism - Crux Now

Cuban-born businessman Maximo Alvarez, joined "Fox & Friends"on Friday, to discuss the Democrats' socialist policies, and warnedthe U.S. may head towards "communism" under the Biden presidency.

BIDEN'S 100 DAYS IN OFFICE: IS AMERICA BACK OPEN? COVID OUTBREAK CHECK, STATUS OF SCHOOLS, MASK GUIDELINES

MAXIMO ALVAREZ:It's very sad, but ever since the election, right after January the 20th, you've seen what's happened in this country with the signature of our new president, and it seems to me that everything that we're experiencing today,I never thought I would experience again, but it's happening too rapidly.

...

I heard it before, and the false empty promises. I thought I would never hear them again. The social injustice. The propaganda about diversity, equity, and inclusion, and they keep repeating over and over again the same things to the point that just like any pathological liar, will believe their own lies. They always tell you about things that are not true. They repeated enough.

...

I learned as a young kid, my dad said it many times, if you lose this country, you have no place to go.

CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE FULL INTERVIEW

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Cuban refugee worries US headed toward communism: If you lose this country, you have no place to go - Fox News

Thousands of monuments in the Czech Republic fell into ruin during the five decades of Communist rule. Many of them were left abandoned, deteriorating beyond repair, while others were simply razed to the ground.

Although the devastation of historical monuments was mapped quite thoroughly in the past, comprehensive research focusing on Communist-era heritage conservation was never carried out.

Historians from the Academy of Sciences and other institutions, including the Institute for the Study of the Totalitarian Regimes, have now started to examine the topic in greater detail. The first step in their research was a conference, which took place in Prague this week.

Kristina Uhlkov from the Academys Institute of Art History, one of the co-organizers of the conference, says the devastation of historical monuments was a result of several factors. One of the main ones was the nationalization of private-owned property shortly after the end of the Second World War:

Uherice chateau|Photo: Podzemnik, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0 Unported

The state wanted to look after the monuments, at least to some extent. But the task was too much to handle, especially for a centrally managed economy.

Only in Bohemia, there were over a thousand castles and chateaux, mostly private-owned, and suddenly, within just five years, they were taken over by the state, which was supposed to look after them.

Another problem was that there were not enough skilled people to look after the monuments, says Professor Milena Hauserov, who teaches heritage conservation at Czech Technical Universitys Faculty of Architecture:

Shortly after the war, even before the 1950s, the regime started to promote industrialization of the construction sector. As a result, private artisans started to be eliminated.

Many professions, that were common until then, ceased to exist. All the capacity went into construction of prefabricated buildings and many bricklayers no longer even knew what a brick was.

The neglected monuments reflected negatively on the Communist regime. Since the authorities had no means or will to preserve them, they were ordered to be torn down, says Mrs Hauserov:

There was a strong tendency to destroy the dilapidated monuments. Thats why so many abandoned churches and castles were blown up, so that they wouldnt be seen. Many of them could have been saved and could have served some purpose. But the feeling of failure played a significant role.

Mrs Hauserov points out that ideology also played a significant role on monument preservation during Communism. For instance, greater care was given to the preservation of Hussite monuments. Historic sites from the Baroque period were often neglected, since they presented what the Communist regime regarded as a dark era in the countrys history.

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Communist-era heritage conservation focus of new research - Radio Prague

WATCH:How To Use The Terms "Socialism" vs. "Communism" Previous Next What is socialism?

Socialismhas three main meanings:

1. a theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole.

2. procedure or practice in accordance with this theory.

3. (in Marxist theory) the stage following capitalism in the transition of a society to communism, characterized by the imperfect implementation of collectivist principles.

Socialism is a social theory makes sense. It theorizes that a collective cooperation of citizens will make all governmental institutions public. For example, no one will receive a healthcare bill when going to the doctor because they, and everyone else, have paid a hefty amount in government taxes. Thats where the collective cooperation comes in.

Communism, on the other hand, is a branch of socialism. Its similar in that its still founded on the idea of collective cooperation, but differs in that communists believe that cooperation should be run by a totalitarian government made up of one and only one government.

Russia gave communism a bad name when it reigned as the USSR. It was here that thousands who were seen as threats to the stateartists, authors, intellectuals, even those who practiced religionwere sent to be slaughtered or exiled uh, yikes. I guess you could call it socialism gone bad.

Although the USSR fell way back when, Russia is still very communist culturally, though economically theyre a capitalistic system. Countries like the Peoples Republic of China are certainly more communist than Russia, where all things are nationalized up to the point that citizens cant even make full use of the internet due to the governments fear of free thought.

So, although communism is a form of socialism its definitely the rotten egg of the two.

Democracy is a form of government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised directly by them or by their elected agents under a free electoral system. The Greek demokratia is derived from demos, common people, and kratos, strength.

Basically, in a democracy, the head of state is usually a president, and the supreme power rests in the body of citizens entitled to vote (which is then exercised by representatives chosen directly or indirectly by them).Capitalismis part of democracies (not communist or socialist countries). The community as a whole does not own all of the property and wealth in a democracy.

Our modern ideas of socialism and communism tend to come from what Karl Marx outlined inThe Communist Manifestoand what was later implemented in Russia by Vladimir Lenin and his followers (theBolsheviks). Marxs manifesto called for a complete overhaul of capitalist systems of the time. It advocated for the working class(theproletariat) to uprise against the aristocracy and other elites (thebourgeoisie), followed by the implementation of a new society where everyone was equal. That sounds great on paper, but the way it played out in Russia was a bloody revolution (including the arrest and execution of Czar Nicholas II and his family). In the 1920s, Joseph Stalin took over, and he established a completely totalitarian regime. Stalins government was marked by widespread famine, poverty, and death.

Modern-day Russia is neither socialist, nor communist. That ended in 1991. However, today, North Korea self-identifies as socialist, and it operates in a very similar way to Stalins USSR. China went through a Communist revolution not long after Russia did, and today they self-identify as socialist with Chinese characteristics.

Its not all doom and gloom, though. Many Nordic countries operate associal democracies. This means they blend a lot of socialist policies (like providing state healthcare, social security, and workers compensation) with certain capitalist features (like private property and the democratic process).

To read more about other government words, take a look at our slideshow!

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Socialism vs Communism: Do you know the difference ...