Communism is the vision of a social and economic system based on common ownership of the means of production, a society where everyone ‘pitches in’ for the common good and doesn’t compete against each other. The Communist vision is characterised by a theoretical absence of social division, scarcity, oppression, nationalism, money, religion, government or even countries – a world where individuals voluntarily contribute all that they can while taking only what they need. Attempts to develop Communism from an ideal to a practical reality significantly influenced the history of the 20th century and produced intense ideological rivalry between the Communist states in the so-called Eastern bloc and the Capitalist states of the Western world.
It can (and has) been argued that Communism is actually humanity’s natural state, for example that the earliest known hunter-gatherers lived as Communists. Countless theories and movements through the ages – from the Greek philosopher Plato’s work The Republic, to the teachings of Jesus Christ, to Medieval Christian monasteries, to Thomas More’s 16th Century work Utopia (portraying common ownership of property), to the ideals of equality fought for in the French Revolution – can all easily be portrayed as ‘Communist’ at heart.
It was in the wake of the French Revolution that the first concepts of ‘Socialism’ gained traction in the 19th Century – reformers in Europe pushed for the redistribution of wealth and means of production as a political ideal; some even founded their own small communities based on common ownership principles.
Inspired by these ‘Socialist’ movements, the German philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels became that period’s foremost critics of the established economic system of Capitalism (where the means of production are privately owned, and with the specific aim of generating money) during the rapid expanse of the Industrial Revolution.
The specific term ‘Communism’ was popularised by Marx and Engels in the 1848 Communist Manifesto pamphlet. In Marx’s view, Communism would be be the end-point of human social evolution – starting with the overthrow of Capitalism, followed by a transitional period of Socialism as a ‘new order’ where the traditionally repressed working class gained power and established public collective ownership and management of society’s institutions. With this common ownership of means of production, goods and services would (in theory) then become consumed on a social basis according to need alone – with free access for the individual. Socialism would then lead to a third and final ‘perfect’ stage of Communism, where the distinction between social classes would no longer be possible and the concept of the State – which Marx saw as an instrument of class dictatorship – no longer existed.
Marx’s theory was developed and put into practice by the Russian politician and revolutionary Vladimir Lenin who believed a ‘vanguard’ (advance) party was needed to stimulate revolution against the ruling classes and secure political power for the working classes. Lenin’s Bolshevik Party seized power from the wealthy Russian rulers in the 1917 Russian Revolution, with massive popular support, renaming itself the Communist Party and imposing a single-party state to immediately implement Socialist policies.
Lenin sent a rallying cry to similar-minded European Socialists, calling on the workers of the world to unite in revolution to establish a classless, stateless Socialist economy around the world. There was, of course, intense resistance in Russia from the ruling classes, not to mention huge practical difficulties in establishing even an ‘interim’ Socialist state en route to full Communism.
Russia collapsed into Civil War. The Communists eventually won and established the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) in place of the old Russian Empire. Lenin began to make some practical concessions back to the bourgeoisie (ruling class) establishment, but when Joseph Stalin took control of the Russian Communist Party in 1928 any potential moderate tone was lost. Stalin proved to be a brutal, inwards-looking dictator who killed many of his critics and opponents. Stalin’s rival Leon Trotsky, who remained focused on embedding Communism not just in Russia but internationally was exiled and eventually assassinated on Stalin’s orders.
Despite these unfortunate developments in Russia, the vision of Communism as a noble goal for humanity to aspire to had taken hold elsewhere, and the Marxist-Leninist model provided the revolutionary framework for every aspiring Communist movement in the 20th Century that was to follow. After World War 2, the Communist Party of China rose to power. Soviet-style Socialist governments were set up in Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Yugoslavia and Albania. Cuba, North Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Angola and Mozambique all followed. By the 1980s, one third of the world’s population were living under Socialist or Communist regimes.
We’ve already read in this blog about the ideological ‘Cold War’ between east and west, Communism and Capitalism, which dominated the late 20th Century. The capitalist west saw Communism – or at least the violent, oppressive way it was being established and enforced in practice – as a dangerous threat to global freedom.
In Russia, Stalin’s nationalistic totalitarian policies were maintained by a series of Russian leaders until Mikhail Gorbachev became leader of the USSR in 1985 and relaxed central control in an attempt to reform the failing Soviet economy. In reality, the Communist experiment was failing. Poland, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary had all but abandoned Communist rule by 1990. The USSR itself finally collapsed in 1991.
The Marxist ideal of a stateless society where money, social division and oppression are no longer factors seems further away today than ever before. Today, Communism is used as a broad term to refer to the policies of Communist States, i.e., the ones that were, or are still, governed by Communist parties, regardless of the diversity of economic models over which they may preside, for example North Korea, Vietnam, Cuba and China – where the current economic system is a mixed “socialist market economy”.
The term ‘Communism’ wrongly came to refer to any Socialist movement or political regime associated with the Marxist-Leninist ideal of eventually achieving Communism. None of the systems that any of these revolutionary movements created were ever fully developed into the Communist end point of Marx’s original vision. In the end, Communism was an idealistic dream, tarnished by violence, that was never achieved.
To learn more about the country of China, jump to Chapter 42: China – content to follow
To learn more about the different types of economic systems, turn to Chapter 43: Economics – content to follow
To learn more about the country of Russia, turn to Chapter 44: Russia – content to follow
To learn more about the idea of a Stateless Society, turn to Chapter 45: Stateless Society – content to follow
