Conditions for socialism?

Question

Historically, fascism and extreme right wing movements have become popular in response to certain conditions. These conditions include:\n\n - real or perceived economic instability at the national level\n - xenophobic / extreme nationalist rhetoric in response to real or perceived external threats\n - The fear of technological or industrial advancements\n - A large group of people feeling socially/politically disenfranchised\n - etc.\n\nI tend to view fascism as entirely negative, but for the purpose of this post, I'd like to keep it as close to neutral as possible. Given that the above stated are fairly accurate pre-conditions for a fascist government to come to power or at least gain traction, what pre-conditions would have to exist in a country for socialism to arise? I am not talking about totalitarianism wearing communist clothing; but, rather, an actual socialist or communist government. What would have to be happening nationally for a communist government to become a legitimate political possibility?\n

Answer 1

It's no accident that socialism as an option arose during the 19th century, height of the Industrial Revolution in Western Europe. The laissez-faire policy pursued by the existing governments led to extremes of wealth among a few and grinding poverty among a great many. The governments of the day faced a stark choice: either allow circumstances to continue as they were progressing and face the threat of unrest boiling over into violent revolution or abandon their laissez-faire policy and introduce social programs to alleviate the suffering of the masses, social programs that would be paid for by taxing the wealthy upper class.

In nations that had democratic or, at least, semi-democratic systems of government, Working Class and Middle Class voters quite naturally elected representatives who were sympathetic towards social programs designed to target the problems of ordinary people. Thus, socialist governments came about.

As far as the likelihood of a Communist government being established peacefully, this seems rather unlikely. Even the Working Class, never mind the Middle Class, would object to the elimination of private property. Moreover, the record of Communist governments up until today is far from encouraging (of course, one could argue that neither the Soviet Union, the People's Republic of China, Castro's Cuba, or any other 'Communist' nation has not been a truly communist).