Communism
{{sprotected2}}{{Articleissues |disputed=January 2008 |POV=January 2008 |citations missing=January 2008}}{{otheruses4|the form of society and political movement|information on communist organizations|Communist party|states ruled by communist parties|Communist states}}{{distinguish|communalism}}{{Communism sidebar |expanded=all}}
Communism is a
socioeconomic structure that promotes the establishment of an
egalitarian,
classless,
stateless society based on
common ownership of the
means of production and property in general.
(1)(2) The communist movement has attempted to produce a communist society by setting up
political parties, which in some cases have become
governments. These attempts have never produced a communist society, and have frequently led to
totalitarian states.Communism is usually considered to be a branch of
socialism, a broad group of social and political
ideologies, which draws on the various political and intellectual movements with origins in the work oftheorists of the
Industrial Revolution and the
French Revolution.
(3) Communism attempts to offer an alternative to the
problems believed to be inherent with
capitalist economies and the legacy of
imperialism and
nationalism. Communism states that the only way to solve these problems is for the working class, or
proletariat, to replace the wealthy
bourgeoisie, which is currently the ruling class, in order to establish a peaceful, free society, without classes, or government.
(4)(5)Marxist schools of communism
Self-identified communists hold a variety of views, including
Marxism-Leninism,
Trotskyism,
council communism,
Luxemburgism,
anarchist communism,
Christian communism, and various currents of
left communism. However, the offshoots of the
Marxist-Leninist interpretations of
Marxism are the most well-known of these and have been a driving force in
international relations during most of the 20th century.
(6)Marxism
Like other socialists, Marx and Engels sought an end to capitalism and the systems which they perceived to be responsible for the exploitation of workers. But whereas earlier socialists often favored longer-term social reform, Marx and Engels believed that popular revolution was all but inevitable, and the only path to the socialist state.
(7)According to the Marxist argument for communism, the main characteristic of human life in class society is
alienation; and communism is desirable because it entails the full realization of human freedom.
(8) Marx here follows
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel in conceiving freedom not merely as an absence of restraints but as action with content.
(9) According to Marx, Communism's outlook on freedom was based on an agent, obstacle, and goal. The agent is the common/working people; the obstacles are class divisions, economic inequalities, unequal life-chances, and false consciousness; and the goal is the fulfillment of human needs including satisfying work, and fair share of the product
(10).
(11) They believed that communism allowed people to do what they want, but also put humans in such conditions and such relations with one another that they would not wish to exploit, or have any need to. Whereas for Hegel the unfolding of this ethical life in history is mainly driven by the realm of ideas, for Marx, communism emerged from material forces, particularly the development of the
means of production.
(12)Marx's lasting vision was to add this vision to a theory of how society was moving in a law-governed way toward communism, and, with some tension, a political theory that explained why revolutionary activity was required to bring it about.
In the late 19th century, the terms "socialism" and "communism" were often used interchangeably. However, Marx and Engels argued that communism would not emerge from capitalism in a fully developed state, but would pass through a "first phase" in which most productive property was owned in common, but with some class differences remaining. The "first phase" would eventually evolve into a "higher phase" in which class differences were eliminated, and a state was no longer needed. Lenin frequently used the term "socialism" to refer to Marx and Engels' supposed "first phase" of communism and used the term "communism" interchangeably with Marx and Engels' "higher phase" of communism.
These later aspects, particularly as developed by Lenin, provided the underpinning for the mobilizing features of 20th century Communist parties. Later writers such as
Louis Althusser and
Nicos Poulantzas modified Marx's vision by allotting a central place to the state in the development of such societies, by arguing for a prolonged transition period of socialism prior to the attainment of full communism.{{Fact|date=April 2008}}
Marxism-Leninism
Marxism-Leninism is a version of socialism adopted by the Soviet Union and most Communist Parties across the world today. It shaped the Soviet Union and influenced Communist Parties worldwide. It was heralded as a possibility of building communism via a massive program of
industrialization and
collectivization. Historically, under the ideology of Marxism-Leninism the rapid development of industry, and above all the victory of the Soviet Union in the Second World War occurred alongside a third of the world being lead by Marxist-Leninist inspired parties. Despite the fall of the Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc countries, many communist Parties of the world today still lay claim to uphold the Marxist-Leninist banner. Marxism-Leninism expands on Marxists thoughts by bringing the theories to what Lenin and other Communists considered, the age of capitalist imperialism, and a renewed focus on party building, the development of a socialist state, and democratic centralism as an organizational principle.
Stalinism
"Stalinism" refers to the brand of communist regime that dominated the
Soviet Union, and the countries within the Soviet sphere of influence, during the leadership of Joseph Stalin. The term usually defines the style of a government rather than an ideology. The ideology was "
Marxism-Leninism theory", reflecting that Stalin himself was not a theoretician, in contrast to
Marx and
Lenin, and prided himself on maintaining the legacy of Lenin as a founding father for the Soviet Union and the future Socialist world. Stalinism is an interpretation of their ideas, and a certain political regime claiming to apply those ideas in ways fitting the changing needs of society, as with the transition from "socialism at a snail's pace" in the mid-twenties to the rapid industrialization of the
Five-Year Plans.The main contributions of Stalin to communist theory were:
Trotskyism
Trotsky and his supporters organized into the
Left Opposition and their platform became known as
Trotskyism. Stalin eventually succeeded in gaining control of the Soviet regime and Trotskyist attempts to remove Stalin from power resulted in Trotsky's exile from the Soviet Union in 1929. During Trotsky's exile, world communism fractured into two distinct branches:
Marxism-Leninism and
Trotskyism.
(14)(15)(16)Maoism
Maoism is the Marxist-Leninist trend of Communism associated with
Mao Zedong and was mostly practiced within the
People's Republic of China. Khrushchev's reforms heightened ideological differences between the
People's Republic of China and the Soviet Union, which became increasingly apparent in the 1960s. As the
Sino-Soviet Split in the international Communist movement turned toward open hostility, China portrayed itself as a leader of the underdeveloped world against the two superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union.{{Fact|date=April 2008}}Parties and groups that supported the
Communist Party of China (CPC) in their criticism against the new Soviet leadership proclaimed themselves as 'anti-revisionist' and denounced the CPSU and the parties aligned with it as
revisionist "capitalist-roaders." The Sino-Soviet Split resulted in divisions amongst communist parties around the world. Notably, the
Party of Labour of Albania sided with the People's Republic of China. Effectively, the CPC under Mao's leadership became the rallying forces of a parallel international Communist tendency. The ideology of CPC, Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought (generally referred to as 'Maoism'), was adopted by many of these groups.{{Fact|date=April 2008}}
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This poster shows Mao Zedong as continuing the legacy set by former Communist leaders.(17)
After Mao's death and his replacement by
Deng Xiaoping, the international Maoist movement diverged. One sector accepted the new leadership in China; a second renounced the new leadership and reaffirmed their commitment to Mao's legacy; and a third renounced Maoism altogether and aligned with
Albania.{{Fact|date=April 2008}}
Hoxhaism
Another variant of
anti-revisionist Marxism-Leninism appeared after the
ideological row between the
Communist Party of China and the
Party of Labour of Albania in 1978. The Albanians rallied a new separate international tendency. This tendency would demarcate itself by a strict defense of the legacy of Joseph Stalin and fierce criticism of virtually all other Communist groupings as
revisionism. Critical of the United States, Soviet Union, and China,
Enver Hoxha declared the latter two to be
social-imperialist and condemned the
Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia by withdrawing from the
Warsaw Pact in response. Hoxha declared Albania to be the worlds only socialist state after 1978. The Albanians were able to win over a large share of the Maoists, mainly in
Latin America. In the 1960s, this was exhibited by the
Communist Party of Brazil in its fight against the pro-American
military government and the
Marxist-Leninist League of Tigray in its fight against the pro-Soviet
government led by
Mengistu Haile Mariam. This tendency has occasionally been labeled as 'Hoxhaism' after him.After the fall of the Communist government in Albania, the pro-Albanian parties are grouped around an
international conference and the publication 'Unity and Struggle'.
Eurocommunism
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Communists marching in France on May 1, 2007.
Since the early 1970s, the term
Eurocommunism was used to refer to moderate, reformist Communist parties in western Europe. These parties did not support the Soviet Union and denounced its inhumane policies. Such parties were politically active and electorally significant in
Italy (
PCI),
France (
PCF), and
Spain (
PCE).
Council Communism
Council Communism is a
far-left movement originating in
Germany and the
Netherlands in the 1920s. Its primary organization was the
Communist Workers Party of Germany (KAPD). Council communism continues today as a theoretical and activist position within both left-wing
Marxism and
libertarian socialism.The central argument of council communism, in contrast to those of
social democracy and
Leninist Communism, is that democratic
workers' councils arising in the factories and municipalities are the natural form of working class organisation and governmental power. This view is opposed to both the
reformist and the Leninist
ideologies, with their stress on, respectively,
parliaments and
institutional government (i.e., by applying social reforms), on the one hand, and
vanguard parties and participative
democratic centralism on the other).The core principle of council communism is that the
government and the
economy should be managed by
workers' councils composed of
delegates elected at workplaces and
recallable at any moment. As such, council communists oppose
state-run authoritarian "
State socialism"/"
State capitalism". They also oppose the idea of a "revolutionary party", since council communists believe that a revolution led by a party will necessarily produce a party dictatorship. Council communists support a
worker's democracy, which they want to produce through a federation of workers' councils. Council communism (and other types of "
anti-authoritarian and
Anti-leninist Marxism" such as
Autonomism) are often viewed as being similar to
Anarchism because they criticize Leninist ideologies for being authoritarian and reject the idea of a vanguard party.
Cambodian communism
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Pol Pot
Cambodian
Khmer Rouge developed an agrarian form of communism. One of Khmer Rouge mottos, in reference to the
New People, was: "To keep you is no benefit. To destroy you is no loss." The ideology of the Khmer Rouge evolved over time. In the early days, it was an orthodox communist party and looked to the Vietnamese Communists for guidance. It became more
Stalinist and
anti-intellectual when groups of students who had been studying in
France returned to Cambodia. The students, including future party leader Pol Pot, had been heavily influenced by the example of the
French Communist Party (PCF). After 1960, the Khmer Rouge developed its own unique political ideas. For example, contrary to most Marxist doctrine, the Khmer Rouge considered the farmers in the countryside to be the
proletariat and the true representatives of the
working class, a form of Maoism which brought them onto the PRC side of the
Sino-Soviet Split.The Khmer Rouge is remembered mainly for the deaths of an estimated 1.5 million people or 1/5 of the country's total population (estimates range from 850,000 to two million) under its regime, through
execution,
torture,
starvation and
forced labor. Following their leader
Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge imposed an extreme form of
social engineering on Cambodian society—a radical form of agrarian communism where the whole population had to work in
collective farms or forced labor projects. In terms of the number of people killed as a proportion of the population (est. 7.5 million people, as of 1975), it was one of the most lethal
regimes of the 20th century.
Juche
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Dear Leader Kim Jong-il
In 1992,
Juche replaced
Marxism-Leninism in the revised North Korean constitution as the official state ideology, this being a response to the
Sino-Soviet split. Juche was nonetheless defined as a creative application of Marxism-Leninism. Kim Il-sung also explained that Juche was not original to North Korea and that in formulating it he only laid stress on a programmatic orientation that is inherent to all Marxist-Leninist states.After the 1991 collapse of the
Soviet Union, North Korea’s greatest economic benefactor, all reference to Marxism-Leninism was dropped in the revised 1998 constitution. But Marxist-Leninist phraseology remains in occasional use, for example, socialism and communism. The establishment of the
Songun doctrine in the mid-1990s, however, has formally designated the
military, not the
proletariat or
working class, as the main revolutionary force in North Korea.According to Kim Jong-il's
On the Juche Idea, the application of Juche in state policy entails the following:
- The people must have independence (chajusong) in thought and politics, economic self-sufficiency, and self-reliance in defense.
- Policy must reflect the will and aspirations of the masses and employ them fully in revolution and construction.
- Methods of revolution and construction must be suitable to the situation of the country.
- The most important work of revolution and construction is molding people ideologically as communists and mobilizing them to constructive action.
Non-Marxist schools
The dominant forms of communism, such as
Leninism,
Trotskyism and
Luxemburgism, are based on
Marxism, but non-Marxist versions of communism (such as
Christian communism and
anarchist communism) also exist and are growing in importance since the
fall of the Soviet Union.
Anarcho-communism
Some of Marx's contemporaries espoused similar ideas, but differed in their views of how to reach to a classless society. Following the split between those associated with Marx and
Mikhail Bakunin at the
First International, the anarchists formed the
International Workers Association.
(18) Anarchists argued that capitalism and the state were inseparable and that one could not be abolished without the other.
Anarchist-communists such as
Peter Kropotkin theorized an immediate transition to one society with no classes.
Anarcho-syndicalism became one of the dominant forms of anarchist organization, arguing that labor unions, as opposed to Communist parties, are the organizations that can change society. Consequently, many anarchists have been in opposition to Marxist communism to this day.{{Fact|date=April 2008}}
Christian Communism
Christian Communism is a form of religious communism centered around Christianity. It is a theological and political theory based upon the view that the teachings of Jesus Christ urge Christians to support communism as the ideal social system. Christian communists trace the origins of their practice to teachings in the
New Testament, such as this one from
Acts of the Apostles at chapter 2 and verses 42, 44, and 45:
42 And they continued stedfastly in the apostles' doctrine and in fellowship [...] 44 And all that believed were together, and had all things in common; 45 And sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need. (King James Version)
Christian communism can be seen as a radical form of
Christian socialism. Also, due to the fact that many Christian communists have formed independent stateless communes in the past, there is also a link between Christian communism and
Christian anarchism. Christian communists may or may not agree with various parts of
Marxism.Christian communists also share some of the political goals of Marxists, for example replacing capitalism with
socialism, which should in turn be followed by
communism at a later point in the future. However, Christian communists sometimes disagree with Marxists (and particularly with
Leninists) on the way a socialist or communist society should be organized.
History
Early communism
{{see|Primitive communism|Religious communism}}Karl Heinrich Marx saw
primitive communism as the original,
hunter-gatherer state of humankind from which it arose. For Marx, only after humanity was capable of producing
surplus, did private property develop.{{Fact|date=April 2008}}In the history of Western thought, certain elements of the idea of a society based on common ownership of property can be traced back to ancient times .
(19)The fifth century
Mazdak movement in what is now
Iran has been described as "communistic" for challenging the enormous privileges of the noble classes and the clergy, criticizing the institution of private property and for striving for an egalitarian society.
(20)At one time or another, various small communist communities existed, generally under the inspiration of
Scripture.
(21) In the
medieval Christian church, for example, some
monastic communities and religious orders shared their land and other property. (See
religious communism and
Christian communism) These groups often believed that concern with
private property was a distraction from religious service to God and neighbor.
(22) argued that several groupings in the
English Civil War, especially the
Diggers espoused clear communistic, agrarian ideals, and that
Oliver Cromwell's attitude to these groups was at best ambivalent and often hostile.
(23)Criticism of the idea of private property continued into the
Age of Enlightenment of the 18th century, through such thinkers as
Jean Jacques Rousseau in France.
(24) François Noël Babeuf, in particular, espoused the goals of common ownership of land and total economic and political equality among citizens.
(25) Other socialists also believed that a Russian revolution could be the precursor of workers' revolutions in the West.The moderate
Mensheviks opposed Lenin's Bolshevik plan for socialist revolution before capitalism was more fully developed. The Bolsheviks' successful rise to power was based upon the slogans "peace, bread, and land" and "All power to the Soviets", slogans which tapped the massive public desire for an end to Russian involvement in the
First World War, the peasants' demand for
land reform, and popular support for the
Soviets.{{Fact|date=April 2008}}The usage of the terms "communism" and "socialism" shifted after 1917, when the Bolsheviks changed their name to the Communist Party and installed a
single party regime devoted to the implementation of socialist policies under
Leninism.{{Fact|date=April 2008}} The
Second International had dissolved in 1916 over national divisions, as the separate national parties that composed it did not maintain a unified front against the
war, instead generally supporting their respective nation's role. Lenin thus created the
Third International (Comintern) in 1919 and sent the
Twenty-one Conditions, which included
democratic centralism, to all European socialist parties willing to adhere. In France, for example, the majority of the
SFIO socialist party split in 1921 to form the
SFIC (French Section of the Communist International).{{Fact|date=April 2008}} Henceforth, the term "Communism" was applied to the objective of the parties founded under the umbrella of the Comintern. Their program called for the uniting of workers of the world for revolution, which would be followed by the establishment of a
dictatorship of the proletariat as well as the development of a socialist economy. Ultimately, if their program held, there would develop a harmonious classless society, with the
withering away of the state.{{Fact|date=April 2008}}During the
Russian Civil War (1918-1922), the Bolsheviks
nationalized all productive property and imposed a policy of
war communism, which put factories and railroads under strict government control, collected and rationed food, and introduced some bourgeois management of industry. After three years of war and the 1921
Kronstadt rebellion, Lenin declared the
New Economic Policy (NEP) in 1921, which was to give a "limited place for a limited time to capitalism." The NEP lasted until 1928, when
Joseph Stalin achieved party leadership, and the introduction of the first Five Year Plan spelled the end of it. Following the Russian Civil War, the Bolsheviks formed in 1922 the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), or
Soviet Union, from the former
Russian Empire.Following Lenin's democratic centralism, the Communist parties were organized on a hierarchical basis, with active cells of members as the broad base; they were made up only of elite
cadres approved by higher members of the party as being reliable and completely subject to
party discipline.
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A map of countries who declared themselves to be socialist states under the Marxist-Leninist or Maoist definition (in other words, "communist states") at some point in their history. The map uses present-day borders.
After
World War II, Communists consolidated power in
Eastern Europe, and in 1949, the
Communist Party of China (CPC) led by
Mao Zedong established the
People's Republic of China, which would later follow its own ideological path of Communist development.{{Fact|date=April 2008}}
Cuba,
North Korea,
Vietnam,
Laos,
Cambodia,
Angola, and
Mozambique were among the other countries in the
Third World that adopted or imposed a pro-Communist government at some point. Although never formally unified as a single political entity, by the early 1980s almost one-third of the world's population lived in
Communist states, including the former
Soviet Union and
People's Republic of China. By comparison, the
British Empire had ruled up to one-quarter of the world's population at its greatest extent.
(27)Communist states such as Soviet Union and China succeeded in becoming industrial and technological powers, challenging the capitalists' powers in the
arms race and
space race and military conflicts.
Cold War years
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USSR postage stamp depicting the communist state launching the first artificial satellite Sputnik 1.
By virtue of the Soviet Union's victory in the
Second World War in 1945, the
Soviet Army had occupied nations in both
Eastern Europe and
East Asia; as a result, communism as a movement spread to many new countries. This expansion of communism both in Europe and Asia gave rise to a few different branches of its own, such as
Maoism.{{Fact|date=April 2008}}Communism had been vastly strengthened by the winning of many new nations into the sphere of Soviet influence and strength in Eastern Europe. Governments modeled on Soviet Communism took power with Soviet assistance in
Bulgaria,
Czechoslovakia,
East Germany,
Poland,
Hungary and
Romania. A Communist government was also created under
Marshal Tito in
Yugoslavia, but Tito's independent policies led to the expulsion of
Yugoslavia from the
Cominform, which had replaced the
Comintern.
Titoism, a new branch in the world communist movement, was labeled
deviationist.
Albania also became an independent Communist nation after World War II.{{Fact|date=April 2008}}By 1950, the
Chinese Communists held all of
Mainland China, thus controlling the most populous nation in the world. Other areas where rising Communist strength provoked dissension and in some cases led to actual fighting through conventional and
guerrilla warfare include the
Korean War,
Laos, many nations of the
Middle East and
Africa, and notably succeeded in the case of the
Vietnam War against the military power of the United States and its allies. With varying degrees of success, Communists attempted to unite with
nationalist and
socialist forces against what they saw as
Western imperialism in these poor countries.
Fear of communism
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A 1947 comic book published by the Catechetical Guild Educational Society warning of the dangers of a Communist takeover.
With the exception of the Soviet Union's, China's and the
Italian resistance movement's involvement in
World War II, communism was seen as a rival, and a threat to western democracies and capitalism for most of the twentieth century.
(28) The fear of communism in the U.S. spurred aggressive investigations and the
red-baiting,
blacklisting, jailing and deportation of people suspected of following Communist or other left-wing ideology. Many famous actors and writers were put on a "blacklist" from 1950 to 1954, which meant they would not be hired and would be subject to public disdain.
(29)After the collapse of the Soviet Union
In 1985,
Mikhail Gorbachev became leader of the Soviet Union and relaxed central control, in accordance with reform policies of
glasnost (openness) and
perestroika (restructuring). The Soviet Union did not intervene as
Poland,
East Germany,
Czechoslovakia,
Bulgaria,
Romania, and
Hungary all abandoned Communist rule by 1990. In 1991, the Soviet Union itself dissolved.By the beginning of the 21st century, states controlled by Communist parties under a single-party system include the
People's Republic of China,
Cuba,
Laos,
North Korea, and
Vietnam. Communist parties, or their descendant parties, remain politically important in many countries. President
Vladimir Voronin of
Moldova is a member of the
Party of Communists of the Republic of Moldova, and President
Dimitris Christofias of
Cyprus is a member of the
Progressive Party of Working People, but the countries are not run under single-party rule. In
South Africa, the
Communist Party is a partner in the
ANC-led government. In
India, communists lead the governments of three
states, with a combined population of more than 115 million. In
Nepal, communists hold a majority in the
parliament.
(30)The People's Republic of China has reassessed many aspects of the Maoist legacy; and the People's Republic of China, Laos, Vietnam, and, to a far lesser degree, Cuba have reduced state control of the economy in order to stimulate growth. The People's Republic of China runs
Special Economic Zones dedicated to market-oriented enterprise, free from central government control. Several other communist states have also attempted to implement market-based reforms, including Vietnam. Officially, the leadership of the People's Republic of China refers to its policies as "
Socialism with Chinese characteristics".{{Fact|date=April 2008}}
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A tableau in a communist rally in Kerala, India, of a young farmer and worker.
Theories within Marxism as to why communism in Eastern Europe was not achieved after socialist revolutions pointed to such elements as the pressure of external capitalist states, the relative backwardness of the societies in which the revolutions occurred, and the emergence of a bureaucratic stratum or class that arrested or diverted the transition press in its own interests. (Scott and Marshall, 2005) Marxist critics of the Soviet Union, most notably Trotsky, referred to the Soviet system, along with other Communist states, as "
degenerated" or "
deformed workers' states", arguing that the Soviet system fell far short of Marx's communist ideal and he claimed the
working class was politically dispossessed. The ruling stratum of the Soviet Union was held to be a bureaucratic
caste, but not a new ruling class, despite their political control. They called for a
political revolution in the USSR and defended the country against capitalist restoration.{{Fact|date=April 2008}} Others, like
Tony Cliff, advocated the theory of
state capitalism, which asserts that the bureaucratic elite acted as a surrogate capitalist class in the heavily centralized and repressive political apparatus.{{Fact|date=April 2008}} Anarchists who adhere to
Participatory economics claim that the Soviet Union became dominated by powerful intellectual elites who in a capitalist system coronate the proletariat’s labor on behalf of the bourgeoisie.Non-Marxists, in contrast, have often applied the term to any society ruled by a Communist Party and to any party aspiring to create a society similar to such existing nation-states. In the social sciences, societies ruled by Communist Parties are distinct for their single party control and their socialist economic bases. While
anticommunists applied the concept of "
totalitarianism" to these societies, many social scientists identified possibilities for independent political activity within them, and stressed their continued evolution up to the point of the dissolution of the Soviet Union and its allies in Eastern Europe during the late 1980s and early 1990s.
(31)(32)Today, Marxist revolutionaries are conducting armed insurgencies in
India,
Philippines,
Peru,
Bangladesh,
Iran,
Turkey, and
Colombia.
Criticism of communism
A diverse array of writers and political activists have published criticism of communism, such as:
- Soviet bloc dissidents Lech Wałęsa, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Václav Havel;
- Social theorists Hannah Arendt, Raymond Aron, Ralf Dahrendorf, Seymour Martin Lipset, and Karl Wittfogel;
- Economists Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek, and Milton Friedman;
- Historians and social scientists Robert Conquest, Stéphane Courtois, Richard Pipes, and R. J. Rummel;
- Anti-Stalinist leftists Ignazio Silone, George Orwell, Saul Alinsky, Richard Wright, Arthur Koestler, and Bernard-Henri Levy;
- Russian-born novelist and philosopher Ayn Rand
- Philosophers Leszek Kołakowski and Karl Popper.
Part of this criticism is on the policies adopted by one-party states ruled by Communist parties (known as "
Communist states"). Critics are specially focused on their economic performance compared to market based economies. Their
human rights records are thought to be responsible for the flight of refugees from communist states, and allegations of responsibility for famines, purges and warfare resulting in deaths far in excess of previous empires, capitalist or Axis regimes.Some writers, such as Courtois, argue that the actions of Communist states were the inevitable (though sometimes unintentional) result of Marxist principles;
(33) thus, these authors present the events occurring in those countries, particularly under Stalin and Mao, as an argument against Marxism itself. Some critics were former Marxists, such as Wittfogel , who applied Marx's concept of "
Oriental despotism" to Communist states such as the
Soviet Union(34), and Silone, Wright, Koestler (among other writers) who contributed essays to the book
The God that Failed (the title refers not to the Christian God but to Marxism)
(35)There have also been more direct
criticisms of Marxism, such as criticisms of the
labor theory of value or
Marx's predictions. Nevertheless, Communist parties outside of the
Warsaw Pact, such as the Communist parties in Western Europe, Asia, Latin America, and Africa, differed greatly. Some free market economists, principally those of the Austrian School, including
Ludwig Von Mises, argue that communism and fascism share essential characteristics, and that the latter is a form of
socialist dictatorship similar to that of the
Soviet Union.
(36)Economic criticisms of communal and/or government property are described under
criticisms of socialism.
Capitalization of "Communism"
The
capitalized term "Communism" is often used to refer to the political and economic
regimes under
Communist parties that claimed to embody the dictatorship of the
proletariat.
See also
{{col-begin}}{{col-break}}
- Organizations and people
{{col-break}}
- Schools of communism
{{col-end}}
References
Notes
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[BOOK, Morris, William, William Morris, News from nowhere,weblink English, January 2008, ]
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[ENCYCLOPEDIA, Colton, Timothy J., Communism,weblink Microsoft® Encarta® Online Encyclopedia, 2007, ]
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["Socialism." Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia. Columbia University Press. 03 Feb. 2008.weblink>.]
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Terminology
In the schema of historical materialism, communism is the idea of a free society with no division or alienation, where mankind is free from oppression and scarcity. A communist society would have no governments, countries, or class divisions. Socialism is the intermediate system between capitalism and communism, when the government is in the process of changing the means of ownership from privatism, to collective ownership.["socialism." The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004. 20 Apr. 2008. weblink>.]
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["marxism." Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). Random House, Inc. 20 Apr. 2008. weblink>.]
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[ENCYCLOPEDIA, Communism,weblink The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th, 2007, ]
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[ENCYCLOPEDIA, Colton, Timothy J., Communism,weblink Microsoft® Encarta® Online Encyclopedia, 2007, ]
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[Stephen Whitefield. "Communism." The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics. Ed. Iain McLean and Alistair McMillan. Oxford University Press, 2003.]
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[McLean and McMillan, 2003.]
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[Ball and Dagger 118]
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[Terence Ball and Richard Dagger. "Political Ideologies and the Democratic Ideal." Pearson Education, Inc.:2006.]
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"In communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, herdsman or critic."[Karl Marx, (1845). The German Ideology, Marx-Engels Institute, Moscow. ISBN 978-1-57392-258-6. Sources available at The German Ideology at www.marxists.org.]
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["Marxism and the National Question"]
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[On Trotskyism]
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[Swedish FRP on anti-Marxist-Leninist dogmas of Trotskyism]
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[What's Your Line?]
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[This poster has been jokingly referred to as "The History of Shaving" [http://www.iisg.nl/~landsberger/if.html Stefan Landsberger's Chinese Propaganda Poster Pages-Ideological Foundations]
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[Marshall, Peter. "Demanding the Impossible — A History of Anarchism" p. 9. Fontana Press, London, 1993 ISBN 978-0-00-686245-1]
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[Historical Background for Spartacus]
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[The Cambridge History of Iran Volume 3, The Seleucid, Parthian and Sasanian Period, edited by Ehsan Yarshater, Parts 1 and 2, p1019, Cambridge University Press (1983)]
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["Communism." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2006. Encyclopædia Britannica Online.]
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[Eduard Bernstein: Cromwell and Communism (1895)]
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[Eduard Bernstein, (1895). Kommunistische und demokratisch-sozialistische Strömungen während der englischen Revolution, J.H.W. Dietz, Stuttgart. {{OCLC|36367345}} Sources available at Eduard Bernstein: Cromwell and Communism (1895) at www.marxists.org.]
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[ "Communism" A Dictionary of Sociology. John Scott and Gordon Marshall. Oxford University Press 2005. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press.]
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Growth of modern communism
In the late 19th century, Russian Marxism developed a distinct character. The first major figure of Russian Marxism was Georgi Plekhanov. Underlying the work of Plekhanov was the assumption that Russia, less urbanized and industrialized than Western Europe, had many years to go before society would be ready for proletarian revolution to occur, and a transitional period of a bourgeois democratic regime would be required to replace Tsarism with a socialist and later communist society. (EB)In Russia, the 1917 October Revolution was the first time any party with an avowedly Marxist orientation, in this case the Bolshevik Party, seized state power. The assumption of state power by the Bolsheviks generated a great deal of practical and theoretical debate within the Marxist movement. Marx predicted that socialism and communism would be built upon foundations laid by the most advanced capitalist development. Russia, however, was one of the poorest countries in Europe with an enormous, largely illiterate peasantry and a minority of industrial workers. Marx had explicitly stated that Russia might be able to skip the stage of bourgeoisie capitalism.[Marc Edelman, "Late Marx and the Russian road: Marx and the 'Peripheries of Capitalism'" - book reviews. Monthly Review, Dec., 1984. Late Marx and the Russian road: Marx and the "Peripheries of Capitalism." - book reviews | Monthly Review | Find Articles at BNET at www.findarticles.com.]
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[Norman Davies. "Communism" The Oxford Companion to World War II. Ed. I. C. B. Dear and M. R. D. Foot. Oxford University Press, 2001.]
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[NEWS, Hildreth, Jeremy, The British Empire's Lessons for Our own,weblink The Wall Street Journal, 2005-06-14, ]
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[BOOK, Without Precedent, Adams, John G., 1983, W. W. Norton & Company, New York, N.Y., 0-393-01616-1]
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[THE HOLLYWOOD BLACKLIST ]| FIRST=DAN | PUBLISHER=UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS PRESS, 1992, |
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[Nepal's election | The Maoists triumph | Economist.com]
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[JOURNAL, H. Gordon Skilling, April 1966, Interest Groups and Communist Politics, World Politics, 18, 3, 435–451, 10.2307/2009764, �UNIQ3ab34e171166e61b-HTMLCommentStrip7c7dfbc41ccbeb7000000002]
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[BOOK, J. Arch Getty, 1985, Origins of the Great Purges: The Soviet Communist Party Reconsidered: 1933-1938, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-0-521-33570-6, ]
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[Nicolas Werth, Karel Bartošek, Jean-Louis Panne, Jean-Louis Margolin, Andrzej Paczkowski, Stéphane Courtois, (Black Book of Communism|The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression), Harvard University Press, 1999, hardcover, 858 pages, ISBN 978-0-674-07608-2]
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[Wittfogel, Karl Oriental Despotism, Vintage, 1981]
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[ Crossman, Richard, ed., The God That Failed. Harper & Bros, 1949]
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[Ludwig von Mises, Mises, Socialism, Appendix and Epilogue: Library of Economics and Liberty at www.econlib.org (Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis), Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, Inc.. 1981]
Further reading
- Reason in Revolt: Marxism and Modern Science By Alan Woods and Ted Grant
- Forman, James D., "Communism from Marx's Manifesto to 20th century Reality", New York, Watts. 1972. ISBN 978-0-531-02571-0
- Books on Communism, Socialism and Trotskyism
- Furet, Francois, Furet, Deborah Kan (Translator), "The Passing of an Illusion: The Idea of Communism in the Twentieth Century", University of Chicago Press, 2000, ISBN 978-0-226-27341-9
- Daniels, Robert Vincent, "A Documentary History of Communism and the World: From Revolution to Collapse", University Press of New England, 1994, ISBN 978-0-87451-678-4
- Marx, Karl and Friedrich Engels, "Communist Manifesto", (Mass Market Paperback - REPRINT), Signet Classics, 1998, ISBN 978-0-451-52710-3
- Dirlik, Arif, "Origins of Chinese Communism", Oxford University Press, 1989, ISBN 978-0-19-505454-5
- Beer, Max, "The General History of Socialism and Social Struggles Volumes 1 & 2", New York, Russel and Russel, Inc. 1957
- Adami, Stefano, 'Communism', in Encyclopedia of Italian Literary Studies, ed. Gaetana Marrone - P.Puppa, Routledge, New York- London, 2006
External links{{wiktionarypar|communism}}
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