Communism

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Communism is a theory and system of social and political organization with roots in traditional culture, religious communism, in the West and Near East, especially in the history of Christianity and utopian socialism. Early or traditional communist practices include holding of land in common, cooperative living and working arrangements and equitable sharing of economic goods. Since the second half of the 19th century under the influence of the works of Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, and later Vladimir Lenin and others, the term communism (sometimes erroneously capitalized) has been used to denote a form of classless society based on common ownership of the means of production, described below in more detail, and political movements aimed at the achievement of this form of society.

Marxism-Leninism

File:Hammer sickle.png

The hammer and sickle from the Soviet flag has become known as the symbol of communism

Communism, or the theory of communism, is often used to describe revolutionary philosophies based on the theories espoused by Karl Marx. Often "communism" is used as a synonym in some Western schools of thought, in particular the Chicago school, for the Marxist-Leninist system practiced in the Soviet Union under Lenin and his successors, as well as its satellite states, although neither he nor any of his successors termed their societies "communist". (See below for an explanation of the difference between communism and Communism.)

Within Marxism, the largest trends were inspired by the writings and actions of Vladimir Lenin and, to a lesser degree, his subordinates, Josef Stalin and Leon Trotsky. Whilst the common denominator is Marxism, some branches of communism are nonetheless in conflict. Some of these branches are Leninism, Maoism, Stalinism and Trotskyism. Some other, lesser-known flavours are council communism, De Leonism, Juche and left communism.

Communism, or communist society, is the name of the social formation that, according to Marx, would be a classless society in which all property is owned by the community as a whole, and where all people enjoy equal social and economic status. Marx held that this type of society would not be possible without a qualitative advancement in the applied sciences and technology, also called the means of production, and can therefore be said to be a part of or a starting point of futurism.

Communism in its original meaning is a social theory and political movement for the direct and communal control of society towards the common benefits of all members (see also religious communism), and up until the middle of the 19th century was synonomous with socialism and anarchism.

Marxists believe that just as society has transformed from feudalism to capitalism, it will transform into socialism and eventually communism. However, the method by which this transformation occurs distinguishes communists from other socialists – including those that believe in Marxism – in that communists believe that this will be accomplished by revolutionary means.

According to Lenin, the first step of the long-term process of developing a communist society is a revolutionary seizure of political power; in Marxist terms, the domination of the bourgeoisie is to be replaced by the domination of the working class. In Marxist literature this political stage is called the "dictatorship of the proletariat". Lenin argued that the revolution would occur first in less developed nations, and would require a "vanguard of the proletariat" composed of a relatively small, tightly organized communist party of de-classed intellectuals and workers. Marx had theorized, however, that revolution would first occur in the heavily industrialised countries of the West, making no mention of a communist party or a vanguard.

A similar, libertarian vision of a communist society is promoted by anarcho-communism. It is like Marxian communism in that it is characterised by a gift economy and the abolition of wage slavery and money, but disagrees with Marx that a proletarian dictatorship of the Paris Commune variety would be needed immediately after the overthrow of the bourgeoisie. Instead, the libertarians and anarcho-communists argue that "full" socialism, or communism (also known as anarchy), will be possible and that any statist solutions would revert society to another form of hierarchy similar or identical to capitalism.

Communism, or communist system, as taught in some Western countries, i.e the Chicago school, may also indicate the various forms of the communist state characterised by state ownership of all means of production, with the professed aim of establishing a communist society; however, these states have referred to themselves as democratic socialist republics.

Early forms of communism

According to Engels and Marx, due in large part to the research of Lewis H Morgan, and to many anthropologists today, the earliest humans lived in a sort of communist society called primitive communism. What few possessions they had were shared, as was society's meagre productive output (mostly food). A few isolated peoples live under primitive communism to this day. In most of the world, however, class society eventually arose, and with it came private property.

Many early Western intellectuals advocated ideas similar to communism. In his 4th-century BCE work The Republic, the Greek philosopher Plato proposed the communal ownership of property by an intellectual ruling class, to put the welfare of the state above personal desire and moderate the greed of the producing classes. This proposed oligarchic society was not communist, for the property was owned by a ruling class, not by all of society.

A similar form of this Platonic kind of public ownership governed by a hierarchical elite was realized in the Middle Ages of European history, where the Catholic Church forbade the ownership of land or usury and the chain of command, from king on down to landlord, were technically considered just custodians of the land, ruling in the name of God as voiced through the pope, for the common good.

In 1534 John of Leyden turned the city of [[M%FCnster]] into a commune called "New Jerusalem" in expectation of the Second Coming of Christ and introduced polygamy (going partway towards Plato's ideal) before the city was taken by a Catholic army, leading to a massacre. Thomas More's 16th-century work Utopia depicted a society organised along communist lines.

The ideas evolved during the Enlightenment, exerting varying amounts of influence on the philosophes. The greatest influences were on Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the abbé de Mably, Morelly (whose thoughts extensively influenced the French Revolution, in particular the Jacobins) and other revolutionary egalitarian clubs embodied in persons like Jean Paul Marat.

Many 19th-century idealists, disgusted by the ongoing oppression and decadence created by the Industrial Revolution, broke away from society to form short-lived communal "utopias". An example was Robert Owen's New Harmony community in Indiana. People who believe that communism can be so implemented are called utopian socialists by Marxists. Today, a small number of people, primarily from the industrialized regions, have, like the Owenites, opted to "drop out" of the existing society, preferring to live on communes. This saw its zenith during the counter-culture phenomenon of the 1960s and 70s in the West, and such people have been characterized as new bohemians or hippies.

The ideas of Marx and Engels

The ideas of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, epitomized by their Communist Manifesto, transformed communism into a revolutionary movement. In contrast to what they said were the idealist and utopian ideas of Owen and Saint-Simon, Marx and Engels claimed that modern communism could not occur in isolated communities but could only emerge globally. According to the Manifesto, all history can be explained in terms of class struggles: in each society, a small ruling class owns or controls the means of production; the rest, who constitute the vast majority of people, own and control little or nothing.

During the current stage, capitalism, the dominant bourgeoisie (capitalists who controlled the means of production) exploited and oppressed the proletariat (industrial workers). Karl Marx in his work Das Kapital (see Labour theory of value for more) explains in detail how capitalists buy labour-power from workers, obtaining then the right to sell the productive result of labour at a profit; this, Marx argued, creates class stratification and an unjust, unsustainable distribution of wealth. Marx claimed to have resolved that it was only a matter of time before the working classes of the world, realizing their common goals, would unite to overthrow the capitalists and redistribute the wealth. He felt the establishment of communism would be the inevitable outcome of a historical process.

Atheism, a logical consequence of dialectical materialism, has been the official stance of most socialist countries. Ironically, the logical consequence of Hegelian criticism may be that Marxism, and anything else short of nihilistic egoism, is also religious mysticism, as argued by Marx's fellow neo-Hegelian, Max Stirner.

Leninism versus Democratic Socialism

According to Marx, the laws of class struggle would drive capitalism to evolve into socialism and then, eventually, to communism. However, in the early twentieth century, it seemed that capitalist society was as strong as ever, and the revolution that Marx predicted was nowhere yet to be found. As to how this fact should be interpreted led to a split among Marx's followers.

Some eventually concluded that a socialist society could be created without revolution and could be brought about through the process of reforming existing state institutions. This ideology became known as democratic socialism (not to be confused with social democracy) and formed the basis on which a number of political parties were founded, including the Social Democratic Party of Germany and the British Labour Party.

According to Lenin, however, Marx underestimated the power of capitalist imperialism and therefore a revolutionary seizure of the political power on behalf of the proletariat was needed to overthrow the capitalist system, so as to advance humanity towards communism.

The actual difference is the revolutionary character of the process. Communists consider revolution as a necessary step, while reformist socialists do not. These two currents of Marxism distinguished their respective methodologies after the second worker's international. During the rest of the 20th century, according to communist critics, reformist socialists did little beyond trying to mitigate the socially harmful effects of capitalism without making any real progress towards a classless society. On the other hand, according to reformists, the dictatorship of the proletariat was nothing else than dictatorship under the control of a communist party and remains in a state of near totalitarian dictatorship, or has transitioned into some form of parlimentary democracy or capitalism.

The future of communism

As of 2004, the world's five communist states are the People's Republic of China, Vietnam, North Korea, Cuba, and Laos. The experiences of these five states have starkly diverged, especially since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. On the one hand, Cuba and North Korea were hit hard by the collapse of Soviet and East Bloc economic assistance, trade and military support. On the other hand, the world's other three remaining communist states (all in East Asia) were far less dependent on Soviet subsidies (and in China's case, not at all, given the Sino-Soviet Split) at the time of the collapse of the Soviet bloc.

Following the lead of China under Deng Xiaoping, Vietnam and Laos have moved away from Soviet-style centralized planning in favour of market socialism. The ruling communist parties of China, Vietnam, and Laos argue that a planned economy is not synonymous to socialism, thus maintaining their rationale for Communist Party rule. For the past two decades, China and Vietnam have been sustaining among the highest rates of economic growth in the world.

In the early 21st century, some thinkers have seen the prospect of communism emerging from a different direction. Economic and technological development have always been seen as the primary prerequisite to building communism (e.g. Stalin's industrialization of the Soviet Union). In the final decade of the Soviet Union's existence, however, a number of scholars developed theories describing how communism would develop if it gradually turned nature itself into the means of production.

This vision, not unlike the vision of the modern nanotechnology proponents, is slowly coming to fruition. While the majority of Western economists and politicians follow Francis Fukuyama in the belief that capitalism will endure forever, or simply do not have any theories spanning beyond it, some paint a vision not unlike the one described by Marx. In a particularly well-publicized example, Marshall Brain, a renowned web entrepreneur, described in his book Manna [1] a world built with the help of robotics that fits the classic definition of communism perfectly. Thus, though they shy away from the word "communism" itself (because of its negative connotations), some authors today actually describe how communism will be built in the 21st century.

Language and the adjective communist

Much confusion (often seemingly deliberate) surrounds the words "communism" and "socialism". Although called communist in the West, the USSR actually described itself as socialist (as the name implies). Parties that describe themselves as communist have a goal of eventually realizing a communist society. Therefore, the adjective communist applies to three things: individuals who are members of communist parties or who desire a communist society in the future, political parties which have a goal of reaching communism, and a theoretical future society where there is no government, only communism.

Many nations in the 20th century were run by such communist parties, who identified themselves as true communists, and claimed to govern themselves according to Marxist principles or variations on them. (See Soviet Empire for list). Such states have become known as communist states in the West. Marxists dispute this usage, reserving the term communism only for the final evolutionary stage of society (see socialism).

According to the 1996 third edition of Fowler's Modern English Usage, communism is written with a lowercase "c" except when it refers to a political party of that name, a member of that party, or a government led by such a party, in which case it is written as "Communism" with an uppercase "C".

Theory and practice

Main article: Communist state: Theory and practice.

Economical development

According to Marx and his followers, economic development is a major engine in human society. It changes its form solely to allow more efficient production. Marx believed that communism should replace capitalism not because it is more human and better society, but primarily because he considered it economically more efficient. Economically, however, communist states, including some that were very rich before communism (e.g., Czechoslovakia), were unable to follow the rate of development of capitalist states.

However, some communist countries did succeed in reaching comparable, or even higher, technological levels than capitalist ones. For example, the Soviet space program was able to far exceed that of the United States in the early years of the space race. The US was only able to respond adequately by moving the development of space technology from private ownership to state ownership.

Non-hierarchal society

Justified, non-hierarchical society and the equal distribution of work and goods is one of the primary goals of communism. Such a society would run in accord with Marx's principle "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs". However, in all societies that have been described in the West as communist (where a communist party was the sole party in power), some kind of social hierarchy was established. Such unequal distribution was usually explained with the need for a phase of socialism (during which the rule of distribution is "from each according to his ability, to each according to his work") that would prepare society for the transition to communism.

De-alienation

An arguably even more important goal of communism is called de-alienation. As Marx explains in his work Economico-Philosophical Manuscripts, the division between the work force and capitalists causes alienation between these two groups. The workers are, according to Marx, rented to the capitalist, who is led solely by a search for profit, with little regard for the needs of these labourers. Such an alienated individual is unable to live a completely realized human life.

De-alienation is the freedom of the human creativity from the "superhuman" laws of capital and profit; communism intended not only to search for a human economical equality, but a realization of individual human potential in a better world; the so called "empire of freedom". However, the majority of Marxists agree that little was done toward the realization of this goal, as it had a much lower priority than the other goals of communism. The legitimacy of communism as a political force had by far the highest priority. All actions were evaluated according to their ability to increase the legitimacy of communism (for example, the treatment of athletes in the Soviet Union and East Germany).

Despite propaganda, in the great majority of communist countries, capital still existed, only owned by the state. Anything that could produce a profit – and was not in contradiction with political legitimacy – was acceptable.

Arguments on the nature of communist societies are unresolved and face reinterpretation with each new political conflict. In recent years, the negative elements of communism are often emphasized and the positive ones downplayed in Western society (particularly in the United States of America); sometimes legitimately and other times unfairly. Reasons for this may root not only from problems in communist concepts per se, but also as a reflection of those very capitalist societies. In many post-communist countries, communism is frequently seen more favourably as "theoretically better", but "problematic in practice". Support for that claim can be found in research conducted through public opinion, and in the fact that many, if not the majority, of successful politicians in post-communist countries are in fact ex-communists (e.g. Vladimir Putin, Franjo Tuđman, Ivica Račan).

For a general discussion of the practical consequences of communist rule, and an exposition of the formal and semi-formal mechanisms of the government and constitutional workings in communist countries, see communist state.

Critiques

The notion of communism is a matter of heated controversy. On the one hand, its goal is an ideal, conflict-free society. On the other hand, the theory and practices of achieving this society usually involved significant violence, and governments that pledged their adherence to communism have been accused of the deaths of millions of their own population.

External links

Online resources for original Marxist literature

Communist Parties

Communist parties are too numerous and diverse to list here. See List of Communist parties.

Other

Che-Lives - a Web site dedicated to Che Guevara, featuring the Internet's largest leftist, and particularly communist, forum.

minnan:Kiōng-sán-chú-gī