History of communism

Karl 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. but however in Western thought, the history of communism, an idea of a society based on common ownership of property, can be traced back to ancient times. Its modern form as a mass political movement, communism grew out of the workers' movement during the Industrial Revolution in 19th century Europe.

In the mid-19th century, the rise of communism as a political ideology was heralded by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, who developed the modern account of communism as the outcome of a revolutionary class struggle between the proletariat and bourgeoisie.

A Communist party first gained state power following the Russian Revolution in 1917. Following the revolution, Marxism-Leninism emerged as the leading banner of communism in world politics. A new form of Marxism-Leninism emerged in China known as Maoism stressing the role of the peasant class as the agents of revolution.

Early Communism

The idea of a classless, stateless society based on communal ownership of property and wealth stretches far back in Western thought long before The Communist Manifesto. Some have traced communist ideas back to ancient times, such as in Plato's The Republic; or (perhaps with more justification) to the early Christian Church, as described in the Acts of the Apostles (see Christian communism). Other attempts to establish communistic societies were made by the Essenes and by the Judean desert sect. The medieval Roman Catholic church tried to end war by promoting communes (see Medieval commune#Medieval christianity).

In the 16th century, the English writer St. Thomas More portrayed a society based on common ownership of property in his treatise Utopia,whose leaders administered it through the application of reason.

Several groupings in the English Civil War, but especially the Diggers (or True Levellers) espoused clear communistic but agrarian ideals. (Cromwell and the Grandees' attitude to these groups was at best ambivalent and often hostile – see Bernstein's classic book Cromwell and Communism).

Criticism of the idea of private property continued into the Enlightenment era of the 18th century, through such thinkers as the deeply religious Jean Jacques Rousseau. Raised a calvinist, Rousseau was influenced by the jansenist movement within the Roman Catholic church. The jansenist movement originated from the most orthodox Roman Catholic bishops, who tried to reform the Roman Catholic church in the 17th century to stop secularization and Protestantism. One of the main jansenist aims was democratizing to stop the aristocratic corruption at the top of the church hierarchy.¹ "Utopian socialist" writers such as Robert Owen are also sometimes regarded as communists.

Maximilien Robespierre and his reign of terror, aimed at exterminating the nobility and conservatives, was greatly admired among communists. Robespierre was in his turn a great admirer of Rousseau.¹

The Shakers of the 18th century practiced communalism as a sort of religious communism.

Some believe that early communist-like utopias also existed outside of Europe, in Native American society, and other pre-Colonialism societies in the Western Hemisphere. Almost every member of a tribe had his or her own contribution to society, and land and natural resources would often be shared peacefully among the tribe. Some such tribes in North America and South America still existed well into the twentieth century.

state of capitalism. He proposed that the next step in social evolution would be a return to communism, Karl Marx saw communism as the original state of mankind from which it arose, through classical society, and then feudalism, to its current but at a higher level than when mankind had originally practiced primitive communism.

In its contemporary form, the ideology of communism grew out of the workers' movement of 19th century Europe. As the Industrial Revolution advanced, socialist critics blamed capitalism for creating a class of poor, urban factory workers who toiled under harsh conditions, and for widening the gulf between rich and poor.

Marx, Engels, and The Communist Manifesto

The Communist Manifesto

Although Marx addressed many issues, he is most famous for his analysis of history in terms of class struggle, summed up in the famous line from the introduction to the Communist Manifesto: "The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggle".

The Communist Manifesto, also known as The Manifesto of the Communist Party, published on February 21, 1848 is one of the world's most historically influential political tracts. Commissioned by the Communist League and written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, it laid out the League's purposes and program. The Manifesto suggested a course of action for a proletarian revolution to overthrow capitalism and, eventually, to bring about a classless society.

The introduction begins with a call to arms:

A spectre is haunting Europe -- the spectre of communism. All the powers of old Europe have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this spectre: Pope and Tsar, Metternich and Guizot, French Radicals and German police-spies.

Where is the party in opposition that has not been decried as communistic by its opponents in power? Where is the opposition that has not hurled back the branding reproach of communism, against the more advanced opposition parties, as well as against its reactionary adversaries?

The program described in the Manifesto is termed socialism or communism. The policies included the abolition of land ownership and the right to inheritance, the progressive income tax, and the nationalization of means of production and transport. These policies, which would be implemented by a revolutionary government (the dictatorship of the proletariat), would (the authors believed) be a precursor to the stateless and classless society. "Communism" is also used to refer to the beliefs and practices of the Communist Party, including that of the Soviet Union which differed substantially from Marx and Engels' conception.

It is this concept of the transition from socialism to communism which many critics of the Manifesto, particularly during and after the Soviet era, have alighted upon. Anarchists, liberals, and conservatives all asked how an organization such as the revolutionary state could ever (as Marx put it elsewhere) "wither away". Both traditional understandings of the attraction of political power and more recent theories of organizational behavior suggest instead that a group given political power will tend to preserve its privilege rather than to permit it to wither away -- even if that privilege is given in the name of revolution and of the establishment of equality.

When, in the course of development, class distinctions have disappeared, and all production has been concentrated in the hands of a vast association of the whole nation, the public power will lose its political character. Political power, properly so called, is merely the organized power of one class for oppressing another. If the proletariat during its contest with the bourgeoisie is compelled, by the force of circumstances, to organize itself as a class; if, by means of a revolution, it makes itself the ruling class, and, as such, sweeps away by force the old conditions of production, then it will, along with these conditions, have swept away the conditions for the existence of class antagonisms and of classes generally, and will thereby have abolished its own supremacy as a class.

The famous last lines of The Manifesto

The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a communist revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win.

Working men of all countries, unite!

The October Revolution

Main article: October Revolution

File:Lenin4.jpg

Vladimir Lenin

The October Revolution of 1917 took place in Russia. Led by Vladimir Lenin, leader of the Bolshevik Party, it was the first large scale attempt to put Marxist ideas about a workers' state into practice. From the outset, the new government faced counter-revolutionaries, mainly from Social Revolutionaries and Mensheviks. Lenin and his party began to centralise control of Russia, but Lenin always assured the people that it was necessary for the transition from a capitalist economy to communism. Lenin anticipated that after the October Revolution, other countries in Europe would have similar revolutions, but the revolutions in Germany, Hungary and Finland were crushed. The governance of Lenin, during the last years of his life, occurred in the midst of civil war. The politice practice of the communists during this period has become known as War Communism. Before his death in 1924, Lenin wrote a last testament, with advice for his successor. Lenin wanted a co-operative leadership, but Stalin, who Lenin described as "too rude", gradually assumed control and centralised political power around his own persona.

Comintern

Main article: Comintern

In March 1919 the Communist International (abbreviated 'Comintern', commonly knows as the 'Third International') was founded. The leading force of the new international was the Russian Bolsheviks. Initially the following of the international was somewhat heterogeneous. Largely it consisted of leftist splinter-groups of the main European Social Democratic parties. Comintern set out to organize itself as a world party of socialist revolution. The national sections were instructed to reconstruct themselves along the Leninist principles. To maintain their membership, the section were imposed 21 conditions. Amongst these, the respective national section had to take the name 'Communist Party'.

The headquarters of Comintern were based in Moscow. The international set up an active work to build new sections around the world. Initially the international was primarily based in Europe, but gradually non-European sections were developed. After the Russian party, the main section was the Communist Party of Germany.

During the Comintern period, during which the modern communist movement took shape, there were intense conflicts over the leadership and the direction of the movement. After Lenin's death, Stalin began to purge his opponents. Roughly speaking, there were two major dissident groupings. The Left Opposition, led by Leon Trotsky and the Right Opposition, led by Bukharin. The divisions inside the Soviet party was reciprocsated by splits in various Comintern sections. Often splits were provoked by expulsions of real or perceived opponents of Stalin's leadership.

During the latter part of the 1920s the Comintern adopted a line which singled out the Social Democrats as 'Social Fascists'. The task of the Comintern sections was to combat the influence of the Social Democrats amongst the working class. Cooperation with the Social Democracy was categorically ruled out.

However, after the rise of Fascism in Europe, this policy was reversed. The 7th congress of the Comintern adopted the Popular Front line (which in some countries already had been in use). The communists were urged to build democratic alliances, including with Social Democrats and bourgeois parties, against Fascism. During the Second World War, communist parties took part in restistance activities against the Axis.

The changed political scenario of the war clearly changed the working conditions of the communist parties. As a goodwill gesture towards his Western allies, Stalin dissolved the Comintern 1943.

Communism in Europe during the ComIntern period

The bulk of attendees at the first Comintern congress were from Europe. Largely, the new international had its roots in the leftwing opposition within the established European Social Democracy. In several cases, splits with the labour movement preceded the October Revolution. In the Netherlands the Social Democratic Party had been formed in 1909, as the leftist sectors broke away from the main SDAP. In Germany, the revolutionaries formed the Spartacist League in 1914. In Sweden the split had occurred in the spring of 1917, with the formation of the Social Democratic Left Party.

In other cases, the Communist Parties were born as groups left the Social Democracy after the October Revolution. In 1918 Finnish revolutionaries, in exile in Moscow following the defeat of the Reds in the Finnish Civil War, founded the Communist Party of Finland. On November 3 the same year, the Communist Party of Austria was founded. Austrian communists attempted to organize a Soviet republic, but the revolution did not spread outside the main industrial centres. Few weeks later the Communist Party of Hungary was founded. Under the leadership of Béla Kun, the Hungarian communists led a revolt and founded a Soviet republic. The republic was crushed by the intervention of the Romanian military.

In December 1918, the Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania and the leftwing of the Polish Socialist Party merged to form the Communist Workers Party of Poland. Another party formed in 1918 was the Communist Party of Lithuania.

All these groups joined Comintern at its foundation in 1919 and would become the Communist Parties of their respective countries. In a notable case, the main labour party of a European country joined Comintern. The Norwegian Labour Party (DNA) had been founded in 1887. The party, under the leadership of Martin Tranmæl, was one of the founding parties of Comintern. By 1920 it had excepted most of the 21 theses of Comintern. The adaptation to Comintern caused division, as the moderate elements formed the Social Democratic Labour Party of Norway in 1921. But in the end Tranmæl and Comintern would part ways. In 1923 the party was expelled from the international, and the Communist Party of Norway was formed by the Comintern loyalists. It should however be noted that DNA remained committed to revolutionary communism in principle a few years after its expulsion, and strived to maintain cordial relations with the international.

Soon after the foundation of the Comintern, socialist groups throughout Yugoslavia came together to form the Socialist Workers Party of Yugoslavia (communists).

In 1920, the Socialist Workers Party of Greece (SEKE) decided to join Comintern. The French Section of the Workers International (SFIO) was divided, as the revolutionary elements created the French Section of the Communist International. The communist were able to wrest a major party of the SFIO membership, as well as the party publication L'Humanité. The Communist Party of Great Britain, also formed in 1920, did however not surge through any division in the Labour Party but through the merger of smaller leftwing groups.

On May 16, the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia was founded. In September the same year, the Communist Party of Belgium was founded.

In January 1921, Amedeo Bordiga and Antonio Gramsci led the comunsti puri section of the Italian Socialist Party to form the Italian Communist Party. On March 6, 1921, the Portuguese Communist Party was founded. The PCP had a somewhat different background than other European communist parties, having developed out of the Anarcho-Syndicalist movement rather than the Social Democracy. On November 14, 1921 the Communist Party of Spain was founded, through the fusion of the Spanish Communist Party (which developed out of the Socialist Youth) and the Spanish Communist Workers Party (formed by the pro-Comintern faction of PSOE).

However, by the end of the 1920s the Comintern was faced with various problems. The revolutionary upsurge on the European continent was over. Communist parties were established in most countries, but in most cases the communists did not play the leading role in the labour movement. Divisions shattered the Comintern, as groups considered as disloyal to the Comintern leadership were expelled. In 1929, Bukharin was purged and subsequently purges were carried out in the Comintern sections. On December 28 the oppositional tendencies within the Communist Party of Germany had constituted a separate party, the Communist Party Opposition. In 1929 the major part of the Communist Party of Sweden, including most of the party leadership and all parliamentarians, were expelled. The expellees formed a parallel communist party, that developed into the Socialist Party. The following year, the Catalan-Balear Communist Federation broke away from the Communist Party of Spain. In France, the purged elements took part in the formation of the Party of Proletarian Unity.

Communist Party of Iceland was formed in 1930, but communists had been politically active there since the early 1920s.

The expansion of Fascism poses a grave challenge to the communist movement. In 1926 the Italian Communist Party had been banned by Mussolini. After Hitler's takeover of power in Germany, the Communist Party of Germany was banned. When the international convened its 7th congress in 1935, it decided to revert its former policy of rejection of cooperation with Social Democrats. By the initiative of the communist parties Popular Fronts were created in various countries. The Popular Front won elections in France and Spain. In France the communists did not, however, many any ministers of their own.

As the Spanish Civil War broke out, the communist parties mobilized support for the Spanish Republic. A 40 000 strong military contingent, the International Brigades, was formed with the active support from Comintern.

During the Second World War, communists mobilized resistance activities in territories occupied by the Axis. Communist-led guerrilla units, partisans, were active in Italy, France, Greece, Yugoslavia and Albania. In other places, communists organized sabotage activities.

Communism in Latin America during the Comintern period

The first Latin American communist party was the Mexican Communist Party. It had been founded as the Socialist Workers Party in 1911, but changed name to the communist party in 1919. The Indian revolutionary M.N. Roy was instrumental in linking the Mexican party with the Comintern. Likewise the Socialist Workers Party of Chile, founded in 1912, changed its name to the Communist Party and joined the Comintern in 1922.

The Communist Party of Argentina was founded in 1918.

The Communist Party of Guatemala was founded in 1922.

On March 22, 1921 the Brazilian Communist Party was founded through the merger of various local groups.

In Ecuador, the Socialist Party was founded in 1925. It would develop into the Communist Party of Ecuador.

In 1928 José Carlos Mariátegui founded the Socialist Party of Peru, which two years later would become the Communist Party.

The Communist Party of Costa Rica was founded in 1931.

The Puerto Rican Communist Party was founded in 1934.

Notably, the development of the communist movement in Latin America differed than that of Europe, as several communist parties developed out of the Anarcho-Syndicalist tradition rather than the Social Democracy.

Communism in Africa during the Comintern period

The only section of the Comintern in sub-Saharan Africa was the Communist Party of South Africa. The party was formed in 1921, through the merger of various local communist and socialist groups. CPSA gained prominence during the armed Rand Rebellion by white mineworkers in 1922. The dominance of the white minority of the party troubled the Comintern, which obligied the CPSA to adopt a 'Native Republic' thesis, implied that South Africa belonged to its original Black population. After the adoption by Comintern of the Popular Front line, the party began cooperation with the African National Congress.

The French Communist Party did have a cell in Senegal, led by Roger Roche. The group did not expand at all amongst the African population and was disbanded. It did however participate in forming the Senegalese Popular Front committee.

Communism in Oceania during the Comintern period

The New Zealand Marxian Association was formed in 1918. In March 1921, the group behind it came to together to form the Communist Party of New Zealand. The party initiated work amonsgt trade unions, but remained a minor force in New Zealand politics.

The Communist Party of Australia was founded in Sydney on October 30, 1920 by a group of socialists inspired by reports of the Russian Revolution. Among the founders of the party were a prominent Sydney trade unionist, Jock Garden, Adela Pankhurst (daughter of the British suffragist Emmeline Pankhurst) and most of the then illegal Australian section of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). The IWW soon broke its relations the Communist Party, over disagreements with the direction of the Soviet Union and Bolshevism. In its early years, mainly through Garden's efforts, the party achieved some influence in the trade union movement in New South Wales, but by the mid 1920s the party had dwindled. The party was rebuilt by Jack Kavanagh and Esmonde Higgins. However, as the worldwide campaign of purges of the national Comintern sections party leadership was expelled by the international. A new grouping took over the leadership. After the adoption of the Popular Front line, the party started experience some growth through its trade union work. It did however not achieve any electoral success.

Post-war era

Following the end of the Second World War, the world communist movement faced a new scenario. Its centralized organizational body, the Comintern, had been dissolved and the respective sections were now independent entities. Cominform, the Communist Information Bureau, was founded as a substitute of the disbanded international.

The foreign relations of the Soviet Union had changed considerably. From being an international pariah, the Soviet Union was now credited with having defeated Germany. There was no longer any apparent risk of direct Western military action against the Soviet Union. Informally, the Western states aknowledged the dominance of the Soviet Union in its neighbouring countries whilst the Soviet Union did not actively encourage adventurism in the capitalist countries.

The victory over Fascism contributed to a global surge of popularity of communist parties, especially in Europe. In several countries communists achieved electoral progress. Emboldened by the potential of achieving influence through parliamentarian work as well as new Soviet policies of Peaceful co-existence, the political line of the communist movement changed.

Notable for the immediate post-war era was the formation of international organizations linked to the communist movement, like the World Federation of Trade Union, World Federation of Democratic Youth, etc..

Communism in Eastern Europe during the post-war era

By the end of the Second World War, a robust Soviet military presence covered much of Eastern Europe, to ensure dictatorship of the proletariat, and for the security of the USSR including East Germany, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Romania and Poland.

Governments were formed by communist partisans with the help of the Soviet Union. The role communists played in the defeat of fascism gained them the sympathy of their citizens. In some cases fusions between the communist parties and other parties were carried out, like in the cases of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany, the Hungarian Workers' Party, the Romanian Workers' Party and the Polish United Workers' Party.

In Yugoslavia and Albania, the communist partisans had liberated their countries without Soviet military aid, causing them to be largely independent of the will of the CPSU.

The new communist-ruled republics were People's Democracies, which is an intermediary phase in the progress towards buidling socialism. Non-communist parties were either banned or co-opted (in East Germany non-communist parties were allowed to exist.)

Communism Today

After the fall of the Communist states in the Eastern Bloc, the world communist movement was arguably weakened. However, the political movement of communism survived the fall of the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc. Of the five remaining communist states, China, Vietnam, and Laos have moved toward market economies but without major privatization of the state sector; see Socialism with Chinese characteristics and doi moi for more details. Cuba has recently emerged from the crisis sparked by the fall of the Soviet Union given the growth in its volume of trade with its new allies Venezuela and China; see the article Special Period for more on Cuba's crisis and re-emergence. North Korea, with its ideology of Juche, has had less success in coping with the collapse of the Soviet bloc than its counterparts, although there are no signs thus far of the North Korean government being particularly unstable.

Meanwhile, the communist movement in the capitalist world is slowly emerging from the deep crisis of the 1990s and is drawing increasing support. In Moldova, the local communist party won the 2001 and 2005 parliamentary elections, although this self-proclaimed communist party has not particularly done anything radically different from the capitalist government that preceded it. India's Communist Party is a key coalition partner of the ruling Congress Party and retains its control over the state of West Bengal, and there are many other significant communist parties in that country as well. In Ukraine and Russia, the communists came second in the 2002 and 2003 elections, respectively. In the Czech Republic, the Communist Party came third in the 2002 elections, and so did the Communist Party of Portugal in 2005. In Venezuela, the Communist Party is closely aligned with the government under Hugo Chávez.

Communist guerrillas are actively fighting the governments of the Philippines, Colombia and Peru, and, until recently, in Nepal. There is also a strong communist opposition to the Islamic Republic of Iran led by Worker-Communist Party of Iran and its offshoot, the Worker-Communist Party of Iran-Hekmatist. Both groups claim that they continue the path of Mansoor Hekmat, famous Iranian communist and founder of the worker-communist parties of Iran and Iraq. Despite being sidelined after the Iranian Revolution of 1979, these parties are still trying to overthrow the leadership of the country.

See also

• Cold War
• History of the Soviet Union
• Mao Zedong

Notes

1. Daniel Roche, La France des Lumières (Paris 1993).

References

• Michael Lynch, Reaction and Revolution: Russia 1894-1924, Hodder Murray, 2005, ISBN 0-340-88589-0
• Robert Harvey, A Short History of Communism, Thomas Dunne Books, 2004, ISBN 0-312-32909-1
• Richard Pipes, Communism: A History, Modern Library, 2001, ISBN 0-8129-6864-6