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Communism (from
Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical,
philosophical Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. Some ...
, and economic ideology and current within the
socialist movement The history of socialism has its origins in the 1789 French Revolution and the changes which it brought, although it has precedents in earlier movements and ideas. ''The Communist Manifesto'' was written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in 1847-4 ...
whose goal is the establishment of a
communist society In Marxist thought, a communist society or the communist system is the type of society and economic system postulated to emerge from technological advances in the productive forces, representing the ultimate goal of the political ideology of co ...
, a socioeconomic order centered around common ownership of the
means of production The means of production is a term which describes land, labor and capital that can be used to produce products (such as goods or services); however, the term can also refer to anything that is used to produce products. It can also be used as an ...
, distribution, and exchange which allocates products to everyone in the society.: "One widespread distinction was that socialism socialised production only while communism socialised production and consumption." Communist society also involves the absence of private property, social classes, money, and the
state State may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * ''State Magazine'', a monthly magazine published by the U.S. Department of State * ''The State'' (newspaper), a daily newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina, United States * ''Our S ...
. Communists often seek a voluntary state of self-governance, but disagree on the means to this end. This reflects a distinction between a more libertarian approach of
communization Communization (or communisation in British English) mainly refers to a contemporary communist theory in which there is a mixing-up of insurrectionist anarchism, the communist ultra-left, post-autonomists, anti-political currents, groups like ...
,
revolutionary spontaneity Revolutionary spontaneity, also known as spontaneism, is a revolutionary socialist tendency that believes the social revolution can and should occur spontaneously from below by the working class itself, without the aid or guidance of a vanguar ...
, and
workers' self-management Workers' self-management, also referred to as labor management and organizational self-management, is a form of organizational management based on self-directed work processes on the part of an organization's workforce. Self-management is a def ...
, and a more
vanguardist Vanguardism in the context of Leninist revolutionary struggle, relates to a strategy whereby the most class-conscious and politically "advanced" sections of the proletariat or working class, described as the revolutionary vanguard, form organi ...
or communist party-driven approach through the development of a constitutional socialist state followed by the
withering away of the state Withering away of the state is a Marxist concept coined by Friedrich Engels referring to the idea that, with the realization of socialism, the state will eventually become obsolete and cease to exist as society will be able to govern itself without ...
. Variants of communism have been developed throughout history, including anarcho-communism and
Marxist schools of thought Marxism is a method of socioeconomic analysis that originates in the works of 19th century German philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Marxism analyzes and critiques the development of class society and especially of capitalism as well as ...
, among others. Communism includes a variety of
schools of thought A school of thought, or intellectual tradition, is the perspective of a group of people who share common characteristics of opinion or outlook of a philosophy, discipline, belief, social movement, economics, cultural movement, or art movement. ...
which broadly include Marxism, Leninism, and libertarian communism as well as the
political ideologies An ideology is a set of beliefs or philosophies attributed to a person or group of persons, especially those held for reasons that are not purely epistemic, in which "practical elements are as prominent as theoretical ones." Formerly applied prim ...
grouped around both. All of these different ideologies share the analysis that the current order of society stems from capitalism, its economic system and
mode of production In the Marxist theory of historical materialism, a mode of production (German: ''Produktionsweise'', "the way of producing") is a specific combination of the: * Productive forces: these include human labour power and means of production (tools, ...
, that in this system there are two major social classes, that the relationship between these two classes is exploitative, and that this situation can only ultimately be resolved through a social revolution. The two classes are the proletariat (the
working class The working class (or labouring class) comprises those engaged in manual-labour occupations or industrial work, who are remunerated via waged or salaried contracts. Working-class occupations (see also " Designation of workers by collar colo ...
), who make up the majority of the population within society and must sell their labor to survive, and the bourgeoisie (the capitalist class), a small minority that derives profit from employing the working class through private ownership of the means of production. According to this analysis, a
communist revolution A communist revolution is a proletarian revolution often, but not necessarily, inspired by the ideas of Marxism that aims to replace capitalism with communism. Depending on the type of government, socialism can be used as an intermediate stag ...
would put the working class in power and in turn, establish common ownership of property, which is the primary element in the transformation of society towards a communist mode of production. Communism in its modern form grew out of the socialist movement in 19th-century
Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...
, who blamed capitalism for the misery of urban factory workers. In the 20th century, several ostensibly Communist governments espousing Marxism–Leninism and its variants came into power, first in the
Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
with the Russian Revolution of 1917, and then in portions of Eastern Europe, Asia, and a few other regions after
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
. Along with
social democracy Social democracy is a political, social, and economic philosophy within socialism that supports political and economic democracy. As a policy regime, it is described by academics as advocating economic and social interventions to promote s ...
, communism became the dominant political tendency within the international
socialist movement The history of socialism has its origins in the 1789 French Revolution and the changes which it brought, although it has precedents in earlier movements and ideas. ''The Communist Manifesto'' was written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in 1847-4 ...
by the early 1920s. During most of the 20th century, around one-third of the world's population lived under Communist governments. These governments were characterized by
one-party rule A one-party state, single-party state, one-party system, or single-party system is a type of sovereign state in which only one political party has the right to form the government, usually based on the existing constitution. All other parties ...
and suppression of opposition and dissent. With the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, several previously Communist governments repudiated or abolished communism altogether. Afterwards, only a small number of Communist governments remained, which are China, Cuba, Laos, North Korea and Vietnam. While the emergence of the Soviet Union as the world's first nominally Communist state led to communism's widespread association with the Soviet economic model, several scholars posit that in practice the model functioned as a form of
state capitalism State capitalism is an economic system in which the state undertakes business and commercial (i.e. for-profit) economic activity and where the means of production are nationalized as state-owned enterprises (including the processes of capital ...
.; ; Public memory of 20th-century Communist states has been described as "a battleground" between the communist-sympathetic
political left Left-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy. Left-wing politics typically involve a concern for those in soci ...
and the anti-communist
political right Right-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that view certain social orders and hierarchies as inevitable, natural, normal, or desirable, typically supporting this position on the basis of natural law, economics, auth ...
. Many authors have written about excess deaths under Communist states and mortality rates, such as excess mortality in the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin.


Etymology and terminology

''Communism'' derives from the French , which developed out of the
Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
roots and the suffix ''isme''. Semantically, can be translated to "of or for the community", while ''isme'' is a suffix that indicates the abstraction into a state, condition, action, or
doctrine Doctrine (from la, doctrina, meaning "teaching, instruction") is a codification of beliefs or a body of teachings or instructions, taught principles or positions, as the essence of teachings in a given branch of knowledge or in a belief syste ...
. ''Communism'' may be interpreted as "the state of being of or for the community"; this semantic constitution has led to numerous usages of the word in its evolution. Prior to becoming associated with its more modern conception of an economic and political organization, it was initially used in designating various social situations. ''Communism'' came to be primarily associated with Marxism, most specifically embodied in ''
The Communist Manifesto ''The Communist Manifesto'', originally the ''Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (german: Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei), is a political pamphlet written by German philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Commissioned by the Commu ...
'', which proposed a particular type of communism. One of the first uses of the word in its modern sense is in a letter sent by Victor d'Hupay to Nicolas Restif de la Bretonne around 1785, in which d'Hupay describes himself as an ("communist author"). In 1793, Restif first used to describe a social order based on egalitarianism and the common ownership of property. Restif would go on to use the term frequently in his writing and was the first to describe communism as a form of government. John Goodwyn Barmby is credited with the first use of ''communism'' in English, around 1840.


Communism and socialism

Since the 1840s, ''communism'' has usually been distinguished from '' socialism''. The modern definition and usage of the latter would be settled by the 1860s, becoming predominant over alternative terms ''associationist'' ( Fourierism), '' co-operative'', and '' mutualist'', which had previously been used as synonyms; instead, ''communism'' fell out of use during this period. An early distinction between ''communism'' and ''socialism'' was that the latter aimed to only socialize
production Production may refer to: Economics and business * Production (economics) * Production, the act of manufacturing goods * Production, in the outline of industrial organization, the act of making products (goods and services) * Production as a stati ...
, whereas the former aimed to socialize both production and
consumption Consumption may refer to: *Resource consumption *Tuberculosis, an infectious disease, historically * Consumption (ecology), receipt of energy by consuming other organisms * Consumption (economics), the purchasing of newly produced goods for curren ...
(in the form of common access to
final good A final good or consumer good is a final product ready for sale that is used by the consumer to satisfy current wants or needs, unlike a intermediate good, which is used to produce other goods. A microwave oven or a bicycle is a final good, but ...
s). This distinction can be observed in Marx's communism, where the distribution of products is based on the principle of " to each according to his needs", in contrast to a socialist principle of "
to each according to his contribution "To each according to his contribution" is a principle of distribution considered to be one of the defining features of socialism. It refers to an arrangement whereby individual compensation is representative of one's contribution to the social pr ...
". Socialism has been described as a philosophy seeking distributive justice, and communism as a subset of socialism that prefers economic equality as its form of distributive justice. By 1888, Marxists employed ''socialism'' in place of ''communism'' which had come to be considered an old-fashioned synonym for the former. It was not until 1917, with the October Revolution, that ''socialism'' came to refer to a distinct stage between capitalism and communism, introduced by Vladimir Lenin as a means to defend the Bolshevik seizure of power against traditional Marxist criticism that Russia's productive forces were not sufficiently developed for
socialist revolution Revolutionary socialism is a political philosophy, doctrine, and tradition within socialism that stresses the idea that a social revolution is necessary to bring about structural changes in society. More specifically, it is the view that revoluti ...
.: "By 1888, the term 'socialism' was in general use among Marxists, who had dropped 'communism', now considered an old fashioned term meaning the same as 'socialism'. ... At the turn of the century, Marxists called themselves socialists. ... The definition of socialism and communism as successive stages was introduced into Marxist theory by Lenin in 1917 ..., the new distinction was helpful to Lenin in defending his party against the traditional Marxist criticism that Russia was too backward for a socialist revolution." A distinction between ''communist'' and ''socialist'' as descriptors of political ideologies arose in 1918 after the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party renamed itself to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, where ''Communist'' came to specifically refer to socialists who supported the politics and theories of Bolshevism, Leninism, and later in the 1920s those of Marxism–Leninism, although
Communist parties A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term ''communist party'' was popularized by the title of '' The Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. ...
continued to describe themselves as socialists dedicated to socialism. Both ''communism'' and ''socialism'' eventually accorded with the cultural attitude of adherents and opponents towards
religion Religion is usually defined as a social- cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatural, ...
. In European Christendom, ''communism'' was believed to be the atheist way of life. In Protestant England, ''communism'' was too phonetically similar to the Roman Catholic '' communion rite'', hence English atheists denoted themselves socialists. Friedrich Engels stated that in 1848, at the time when ''
The Communist Manifesto ''The Communist Manifesto'', originally the ''Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (german: Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei), is a political pamphlet written by German philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Commissioned by the Commu ...
'' was first published, socialism was respectable on the continent, while communism was not; the Owenites in England and the Fourierists in France were considered respectable socialists, while working-class movements that "proclaimed the necessity of total social change" denoted themselves ''communists''. This latter branch of socialism produced the communist work of
Étienne Cabet Étienne Cabet (; January 1, 1788 – November 9, 1856) was a French philosopher and utopian socialist who founded the Icarian movement. Cabet became the most popular socialist advocate of his day, with a special appeal to artisans who were bei ...
in France and Wilhelm Weitling in Germany. While liberal democrats looked to the Revolutions of 1848 as a democratic revolution which in the long run ensured liberty, equality, and fraternity, Marxists denounced 1848 as a betrayal of working-class ideals by a bourgeoisie indifferent to the legitimate demands of the proletariat. According to ''The Oxford Handbook of Karl Marx'', "Marx used many terms to refer to a post-capitalist society—positive humanism, socialism, Communism, realm of free individuality, free association of producers, etc. He used these terms completely interchangeably. The notion that 'socialism' and 'Communism' are distinct historical stages is alien to his work and only entered the lexicon of Marxism after his death." According to the '' Encyclopædia Britannica'', "Exactly how communism differs from socialism has long been a matter of debate, but the distinction rests largely on the communists' adherence to the revolutionary socialism of Karl Marx."


Associated usage and communist states

In the United States, ''communism'' is widely used as a pejorative term, much like ''socialism'', mainly in reference to authoritarian socialism and Communist states. The emergence of the
Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
as the world's first nominally Communist state led to the term's widespread association with Marxism–Leninism and the
Soviet-type economic planning Soviet-type economic planning (STP) is the specific model of centralized planning employed by Marxist–Leninist socialist states modeled on the economy of the Soviet Union (USSR). The post-''perestroika'' analysis of the system of the Soviet ...
model. According to Rachel Walker, ''Marxism–Leninism'' is an empty term that depends on the approach and basis of ruling
Communist parties A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term ''communist party'' was popularized by the title of '' The Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. ...
, and is dynamic and open to re-definitions, being both fixed and not fixed in meaning. In his essay "Judging Nazism and Communism", Martin Malia defines a "generic Communism" category as any Communist
political party A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular country's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific ideological or p ...
movement led by intellectuals; this umbrella term allows grouping together such different regimes as radical Soviet industrialism and the Khmer Rouge's anti-urbanism. According to Alexander Dallin, the idea to group together different countries such as
Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bordere ...
and Hungary has no adequate explanation. While the term ''Communist state'' is used by Western historians, political scientists, and news media to refer to countries ruled by Communist parties, these states themselves did not describe themselves as communist or claim to have achieved communism: they referred to themselves as socialist states that are in the process of constructing communism. Terms used by Communist states include '' national-democratic'', '' people's democratic'', '' socialist-oriented'', and '' workers and peasants''' states.


History


Early communism

According to Richard Pipes, the idea of a classless,
egalitarian Egalitarianism (), or equalitarianism, is a school of thought within political philosophy that builds from the concept of social equality, prioritizing it for all people. Egalitarian doctrines are generally characterized by the idea that all hu ...
society first emerged in Ancient Greece; since the 20th century,
Ancient Rome In modern historiography, ancient Rome refers to Roman civilisation from the founding of the city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD. It encompasses the Roman Kingdom (753–509 BC ...
has also been discussed, among them thinkers such as Aristotle, Cicero, Demosthenes,
Plato Plato ( ; grc-gre, Πλάτων ; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was a Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. He founded the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institution ...
, and Tacitus, with Plato in particular being discussed as a possible communist or socialist theorist, or as the first author to give communism a serious consideration. The 5th-century Mazdak movement in Persia (modern-day Iran) has been described as ''communistic'' for challenging the enormous privileges of the noble classes and the
clergy Clergy are formal leaders within established religions. Their roles and functions vary in different religious traditions, but usually involve presiding over specific rituals and teaching their religion's doctrines and practices. Some of the ter ...
, criticizing the institution of private property, and striving to create an egalitarian society. At one time or another, various small communist communities existed, generally under the inspiration of
Religious text Religious texts, including scripture, are texts which various religions consider to be of central importance to their religious tradition. They differ from literature by being a compilation or discussion of beliefs, mythologies, ritual pr ...
. In the Medieval Christian Church, some
monastic Monasticism (from Ancient Greek , , from , , 'alone'), also referred to as monachism, or monkhood, is a religion, religious way of life in which one renounces world (theology), worldly pursuits to devote oneself fully to spiritual work. Monastic ...
communities and religious orders shared their land and their other property. As summarized by Janzen Rod and Max Stanton, the Hutterites believed in strict adherence to biblical principles, church discipline, and practiced a form of communism. The Hutterites "established in their communities a rigorous system of Ordnungen, which were codes of rules and regulations that governed all aspects of life and ensured a unified perspective. As an economic system, communism was attractive to many of the peasants who supported social revolution in sixteenth century central Europe." This link was highlighted in one of Karl Marx's early writings; Marx stated that " Christ is the intermediary unto whom man unburdens all his divinity, all his religious bonds, so the state is the mediator unto which he transfers all his Godlessness, all his human liberty."
Thomas Müntzer Thomas Müntzer ( – 27 May 1525) was a German preacher and theologian of the early Reformation whose opposition to both Martin Luther and the Roman Catholic Church led to his open defiance of late-feudal authority in central Germany. Müntzer w ...
led a large Anabaptist communist movement during the German Peasants' War, which Friedrich Engels analyzed in his 1850 work ''
The Peasant War in Germany ''The Peasant War in Germany'' (German: ''Der deutsche Bauernkrieg'') by Friedrich Engels is a short account of the early-16th-century uprisings known as the German Peasants' War (1524–1525). It was written by Engels in London during the sum ...
''. The Marxist communist ethos that aims for unity reflects the
Christian universalist Christian universalism is a school of Christian theology focused around the doctrine of universal reconciliation – the view that all human beings will ultimately be saved and restored to a right relationship with God. "Christian universalism" ...
teaching that humankind is one and that there is only one god who does not discriminate among people. Communist thought has also been traced back to the works of the 16th-century English writer
Thomas More Sir Thomas More (7 February 1478 – 6 July 1535), venerated in the Catholic Church as Saint Thomas More, was an English lawyer, judge, social philosopher, author, statesman, and noted Renaissance humanist. He also served Henry VIII as Lord ...
. In his 1516 treatise titled '' Utopia'', More portrayed a society based on common ownership of property, whose rulers administered it through the application of reason and
virtue Virtue ( la, virtus) is moral excellence. A virtue is a trait or quality that is deemed to be morally good and thus is valued as a foundation of principle and good moral being. In other words, it is a behavior that shows high moral standards ...
. Marxist communist theoretician Karl Kautsky, who popularized Marxist communism in Western Europe more than any other thinker apart from Engels, published ''Thomas More and His Utopia'', a work about More, whose ideas could be regarded as "the foregleam of Modern Socialism" according to Kautsky. During the October Revolution in Russia, Vladimir Lenin suggested that a monument be dedicated to More, alongside other important Western thinkers. In the 17th century, communist thought surfaced again in England, where a Puritan religious group known as the Diggers advocated the abolition of private ownership of land. In his 1895 ''Cromwell and Communism'', Eduard Bernstein stated that several groups during the English Civil War (especially the Diggers) espoused clear communistic, agrarian ideals and that Oliver Cromwell's attitude towards these groups was at best ambivalent and often hostile. Criticism of the idea of private property continued into the
Age of Enlightenment The Age of Enlightenment or the Enlightenment; german: Aufklärung, "Enlightenment"; it, L'Illuminismo, "Enlightenment"; pl, Oświecenie, "Enlightenment"; pt, Iluminismo, "Enlightenment"; es, La Ilustración, "Enlightenment" was an intel ...
of the 18th century through such thinkers as Gabriel Bonnot de Mably, Jean Meslier,
Étienne-Gabriel Morelly Étienne-Gabriel Morelly (; 1717–1778) was a French utopian thinker, philosopher and novelist. An otherwise "obscure tax official",Michael Sonenscher, ''Sans-Culottes: An Eighteenth-Century Emblem in the French Revolution'', Princeton Universit ...
, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau in France. During the upheaval of the
French Revolution The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in coup of 18 Brumaire, November 1799. Many of its ...
, communism emerged as a political doctrine under the auspices of François-Noël Babeuf, Nicolas Restif de la Bretonne, and Sylvain Maréchal, all of whom can be considered the progenitors of modern communism according to James H. Billington. In the early 19th century, various social reformers founded communities based on common ownership. Unlike many previous communist communities, they replaced the religious emphasis with a rational and philanthropic basis."Communism" (2006). ''Encyclopædia Britannica''. ''Encyclopædia Britannica Online''. Notable among them were Robert Owen, who founded
New Harmony, Indiana New Harmony is a historic town on the Wabash River in Harmony Township, Posey County, Indiana. It lies north of Mount Vernon, the county seat, and is part of the Evansville metropolitan area. The town's population was 789 at the 2010 census. ...
, in 1825, and Charles Fourier, whose followers organized other settlements in the United States, such as
Brook Farm Brook Farm, also called the Brook Farm Institute of Agriculture and EducationFelton, 124 or the Brook Farm Association for Industry and Education,Rose, 140 was a utopian experiment in communal living in the United States in the 1840s. It was fo ...
in 1841. In its modern form, communism grew out of the
socialist movement The history of socialism has its origins in the 1789 French Revolution and the changes which it brought, although it has precedents in earlier movements and ideas. ''The Communist Manifesto'' was written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in 1847-4 ...
in 19th-century Europe. As the Industrial Revolution advanced, socialist critics blamed capitalism for the misery of the proletariat—a new class of urban factory workers who labored under often-hazardous conditions. Foremost among these critics were Karl Marx and his associate Friedrich Engels. In 1848, Marx and Engels offered a new definition of communism and popularized the term in their famous pamphlet ''
The Communist Manifesto ''The Communist Manifesto'', originally the ''Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (german: Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei), is a political pamphlet written by German philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Commissioned by the Commu ...
''.


Revolutionary wave of 1917–1923

In 1917, the October Revolution in Russia set the conditions for the rise to state power of Vladimir Lenin's Bolsheviks, which was the first time any avowedly communist party reached that position. The revolution transferred power to the All-Russian Congress of Soviets in which the Bolsheviks had a majority. The event generated a great deal of practical and theoretical debate within the Marxist movement, as Marx stated that socialism and communism would be built upon foundations laid by the most advanced capitalist development; however,
Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...
was one country of the poorest countries in Europe with an enormous, largely illiterate peasantry, and a minority of industrial workers. Marx warned against attempts "to transform my historical sketch of the genesis of capitalism in Western Europe into a historico-philosophy theory of the imposed by fate upon every people, whatever the historic circumstances in which it finds itself", and stated that Russia might be able to skip the stage of bourgeois rule through the '' Obshchina''. The moderate
Mensheviks The Mensheviks (russian: меньшевики́, from меньшинство 'minority') were one of the three dominant factions in the Russian socialist movement, the others being the Bolsheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries. The factions em ...
(minority) opposed Lenin's Bolsheviks (majority) plan for
socialist revolution Revolutionary socialism is a political philosophy, doctrine, and tradition within socialism that stresses the idea that a social revolution is necessary to bring about structural changes in society. More specifically, it is the view that revoluti ...
before the capitalist mode of production was more fully developed. The Bolsheviks' successful rise to power was based upon the slogans such as "Peace, Bread, and Land", which tapped into the massive public desire for an end to Russian involvement in
World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
, the peasants' demand for land reform, and popular support for the soviets. By November 1917, the Russian Provisional Government had been widely discredited by its failure to withdraw from World War I, implement land reform, or convene the Russian Constituent Assembly to draft a constitution, leaving the soviets in '' de facto'' control of the country. The Bolsheviks moved to hand power to the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies in the October Revolution; after a few weeks of deliberation, the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries formed a coalition government with the Bolsheviks from November 1917 to July 1918, while the right-wing faction of the Socialist Revolutionary Party boycotted the soviets and denounced the October Revolution as an illegal coup. In the
1917 Russian Constituent Assembly election Elections to the Russian Constituent Assembly were held on 25 November 1917, although some districts had polling on alternate days, around two months after they were originally meant to occur, having been organized as a result of events in the Feb ...
, socialist parties totalled well over 70% of the vote. The Bolsheviks were clear winners in the urban centres, and took around two-thirds of the votes of soldiers on the Western Front, obtaining 23.3% of the vote; the Socialist Revolutionaries finished first on the strength of support from the country's rural peasantry, who were for the most part single issue voters, that issue being land reform, obtaining 37.6%, while the Ukrainian Socialist Bloc finished a distant third at 12.7%, and the Mensheviks obtained a disappointing fourth place at 3.0%. Most of the Socialist Revolutionary Party's seats went to the right-wing faction. Citing outdated voter-rolls, which did not acknowledge the party split, and the assembly's conflicts with the Congress of Soviets, the Bolshevik–Left Socialist-Revolutionaries government moved to dissolve the Constituent Assembly in January 1918. The Draft Decree on the Dissolution of the Constituent Assembly was issued by the Central Executive Committee of the Soviet Union, a committee dominated by Lenin, who had previously supported
multi-party In political science, a multi-party system is a political system in which multiple political parties across the political spectrum run for national elections, and all have the capacity to gain control of government offices, separately or in coa ...
free elections. After the Bolshevik defeat, Lenin started referring to the assembly as a "deceptive form of bourgeois-democratic parliamentarism." This would lead to the development of vanguardism in which an hierarchical party–elite controlled society, resulting in a split between anarchism and Marxism, and
Leninist Leninism is a political ideology developed by Russian Marxist revolutionary Vladimir Lenin that proposes the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat led by a revolutionary vanguard party as the political prelude to the establishm ...
communism assuming the dominant position for most of the 20th century, excluding rival socialist currents. Other communists and Marxists, especially
social democrats Social democracy is a political, social, and economic philosophy within socialism that supports political and economic democracy. As a policy regime, it is described by academics as advocating economic and social interventions to promote so ...
who favored the development of liberal democracy as a prerequisite to socialism, were critical of the Bolsheviks from the beginning due to Russia being seen as too backward for a
socialist revolution Revolutionary socialism is a political philosophy, doctrine, and tradition within socialism that stresses the idea that a social revolution is necessary to bring about structural changes in society. More specifically, it is the view that revoluti ...
.
Council communism Council communism is a current of communist thought that emerged in the 1920s. Inspired by the November Revolution, council communism was opposed to state socialism and advocated workers' councils and council democracy. Strong in Germany ...
and left-communism, inspired by the November Revolution in Germany and the
proletarian revolution A proletarian revolution or proletariat revolution is a social revolution in which the working class attempts to overthrow the bourgeoisie and change the previous political system. Proletarian revolutions are generally advocated by socialists, ...
ary wave, arose in response to developments in Russia and are critical of self-declared constitutionally socialist states. Some left-wing parties, such as the Socialist Party of Great Britain, boasted of having called the Bolsheviks, and by extension those Communist states which either followed or were inspired by the Soviet Bolshevik model of development, establishing
state capitalism State capitalism is an economic system in which the state undertakes business and commercial (i.e. for-profit) economic activity and where the means of production are nationalized as state-owned enterprises (including the processes of capital ...
in late 1917, as would be described during the 20th century by several academics, economists, and other scholars, or a
command economy A planned economy is a type of economic system where investment, production and the allocation of capital goods takes place according to economy-wide economic plans and production plans. A planned economy may use centralized, decentralized, p ...
. Before the Soviet path of development became known as ''socialism'', reminiscenting the two-stage theory, communists made no major distinction between the
socialist mode of production The socialist mode of production, sometimes referred to as the communist mode of production, or simply (Marxian) socialism or communism as Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels used the terms ''communism'' and ''socialism'' interchangeably, is a specif ...
and communism; it is consistent with, and helped to inform, early concepts of socialism in which the law of value no longer directs economic activity. Monetary relations in the form of
exchange-value In political economy and especially Marxian economics, exchange value (German: ''Tauschwert'') refers to one of the four major attributes of a commodity, i.e., an item or service produced for, and sold on the market, the other three attributes be ...
, profit, interest, and wage labor would not operate and apply to Marxist socialism. While
Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secretar ...
stated that the law of value would still apply to socialism and that the Soviet Union was ''socialist'' under this new definition, which was followed by other Communist leaders, many other communists maintain the original definition and state that Communist states never established socialism in this sense. Lenin described his policies as state capitalism but saw them as necessary for the development of socialism, which left-wing critics say was never established, while some Marxist–Leninists state that it was established only during the Stalin era and
Mao era Mao Zedong pronounced ; also romanised traditionally as Mao Tse-tung. (26 December 1893 – 9 September 1976), also known as Chairman Mao, was a Chinese communist revolutionary who was the founder of the People's Republic of China (PRC), ...
, and then became capitalist states ruled by '' revisionists''; others state that Maoist China was always state capitalist, and uphold People's Socialist Republic of Albania as the only socialist state after the Soviet Union under Stalin, who first stated to have achieved ''socialism'' with the 1936 Constitution of the Soviet Union.


Soviet Union

War communism War communism or military communism (russian: Военный коммунизм, ''Voyennyy kommunizm'') was the economic and political system that existed in Soviet Russia during the Russian Civil War from 1918 to 1921. According to Soviet histo ...
was the first system adopted by the Bolsheviks during the Russian Civil War as a result of the many challenges. Despite ''communism'' in the name, it had nothing to do with communism, with strict discipline for workers, strike actions forbidden, obligatory labor duty, and military-style control, and has been described as simple authoritarian control by the Bolsheviks to maintain power and control in the Soviet regions, rather than any coherent political ideology. The Soviet Union was established in 1922. Before the broad ban in 1921, there were several factions in the Communist party, more prominently among them the
Left Opposition The Left Opposition was a faction within the Russian Communist Party (b) from 1923 to 1927 headed ''de facto'' by Leon Trotsky. The Left Opposition formed as part of the power struggle within the party leadership that began with the Soviet fou ...
, the
Right Opposition The Right Opposition (, ''Pravaya oppozitsiya'') or Right Tendency (, ''Praviy uklon'') in the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) was a conditional label formulated by Joseph Stalin in fall of 1928 in regards the opposition against certain me ...
, and the Workers' Opposition, which debated on the path of development to follow. The Left and Workers' oppositions were more critical of the state-capitalist development and the Workers' in particular was critical of
bureaucratization The term bureaucracy () refers to a body of non-elected governing officials as well as to an administrative policy-making group. Historically, a bureaucracy was a government administration managed by departments staffed with non-elected offi ...
and development from above, while the Right Opposition was more supporting of state-capitalist development and advocated the
New Economic Policy The New Economic Policy (NEP) () was an economic policy of the Soviet Union proposed by Vladimir Lenin in 1921 as a temporary expedient. Lenin characterized the NEP in 1922 as an economic system that would include "a free market and capitalism, ...
. Following Lenin's democratic centralism, the Leninist 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 Party discipline is a system of political norms, rules and subsequent respective consequences for deviance that are designed to ensure the relative cohesion of members of the respective party group. In political parties specifically (often refe ...
. Trotskyism overtook the left communists as the main dissident communist current, while more libertarian communisms, dating back to the libertarian Marxist current of council communism, remained important dissident communisms outside the Soviet Union. Following Lenin's democratic centralism, the Leninist 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 Party discipline is a system of political norms, rules and subsequent respective consequences for deviance that are designed to ensure the relative cohesion of members of the respective party group. In political parties specifically (often refe ...
. The
Great Purge The Great Purge or the Great Terror (russian: Большой террор), also known as the Year of '37 (russian: 37-й год, translit=Tridtsat sedmoi god, label=none) and the Yezhovshchina ('period of Yezhov'), was Soviet General Secret ...
of 1936–1938 was
Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secretar ...
's attempt to destroy any possible opposition within the Communist Party. In the Moscow trials, many old Bolsheviks who had played prominent roles during the Russian Revolution or in Lenin's Soviet government afterwards, including Lev Kamenev, Grigory Zinoviev, Alexei Rykov, and Nikolai Bukharin, were accused, pleaded guilty of conspiracy against the Soviet Union, and were executed. The devastation of
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
resulted in a massive recovery program involving the rebuilding of industrial plants, housing and transportation as well as the demobilization and migration of millions of soldiers and civilians. In the midst of this turmoil during the winter of 1946–1947, the Soviet Union experienced the worst natural famine in the 20th century. There was no serious opposition to Stalin as the secret police continued to send possible suspects to the
gulag The Gulag, an acronym for , , "chief administration of the camps". The original name given to the system of camps controlled by the GPU was the Main Administration of Corrective Labor Camps (, )., name=, group= was the government agency in ...
. Relations with the United States and Britain went from friendly to hostile, as they denounced Stalin's political controls over eastern Europe and his
Berlin Blockade The Berlin Blockade (24 June 1948 – 12 May 1949) was one of the first major international crises of the Cold War. During the multinational occupation of post–World War II Germany, the Soviet Union blocked the Western Allies' railway, ro ...
. By 1947, the Cold War had begun. Stalin himself believed that capitalism was a hollow shell and would crumble under increased non-military pressure exerted through proxies in countries like Italy. However, he greatly underestimated the economic strength of the West and instead of triumph saw the West build up alliances that were designed to permanently stop or contain Soviet expansion. In early 1950, Stalin gave the go-ahead for North Korea's invasion of South Korea, expecting a short war. He was stunned when the Americans entered and defeated the North Koreans, putting them almost on the Soviet border. Stalin supported China's entry into the Korean War which drove the Americans back to the prewar boundaries, but which escalated tensions. The United States decided to mobilize its economy for a long contest with the Soviets, built the hydrogen bomb and strengthened the NATO alliance that covered Western Europe. According to Gorlizki and Khlevniuk (2004), Stalin's consistent and overriding goal after 1945 was to consolidate the nation's superpower status and in the face of his growing physical decrepitude to maintain his own hold on total power. Stalin created a leadership system that reflected historic czarist styles of paternalism and repression, yet was also quite modern. At the top, personal loyalty to Stalin counted for everything. However, Stalin also created powerful committees, elevated younger specialists and began major institutional innovations. In the teeth of persecution, Stalin's deputies cultivated informal norms and mutual understandings which provided the foundations for collective rule after his death. For most Westerners and anti-communist Russians, Stalin is viewed overwhelmingly negatively as a mass murderer; for significant numbers of Russians and Georgians, he is regarded as a great statesman and state-builder.


China

Mao Zedong and the Chinese Communist Party came to power in China in 1949 as the
Nationalists Nationalism is an idea and movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the state. As a movement, nationalism tends to promote the interests of a particular nation (as in a group of people), Smith, Anthony. ''Nationalism: The ...
headed by the Kuomintang fled to the island of Taiwan. In 1950–1953, China engaged in a large-scale, undeclared war with the United States, South Korea and United Nations forces in the Korean War. While ended in a military stalemate, it gave Mao the opportunity to identify and purge elements in China that seemed supportive of capitalism. At first, there was close cooperation with Stalin, who sent in technical experts to aid the industrialization process along the line of the Soviet model of the 1930s. After Stalin's death in 1953, relations with Moscow soured—Mao thought Stalin's successors had betrayed the Communist ideal. Mao charged that Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev was the leader of a "revisionist clique" which had turned against Marxism and Leninism was now setting the stage for the restoration of capitalism. The two nations were at sword's point by 1960. Both began forging alliances with communist supporters around the globe, thereby splitting the worldwide movement into two hostile camps. Rejecting the Soviet model of rapid urbanization, Mao Zedong and his top aide Deng Xiaoping launched the Great Leap Forward in 1957–1961 with the goal of industrializing China overnight, using the peasant villages as the base rather than large cities. Private ownership of land ended and the peasants worked in large collective farms that were now ordered to start up heavy industry operations, such as steel mills. Plants were built in remote locations, despite the lack of technical experts, managers, transportation or needed facilities. Industrialization failed, but the main result was a sharp unexpected decline in agricultural output, which led to mass famine and millions of deaths. The years of the Great Leap Forward in fact saw economic regression, with 1958 through 1961 being the only years between 1953 and 1983 in which China's economy saw negative growth. Political economist Dwight Perkins argues, "Enormous amounts of investment produced only modest increases in production or none at all. ..In short, the Great Leap was a very expensive disaster". Put in charge of rescuing the economy, Deng adopted pragmatic policies that the idealistic Mao disliked. For a while, Mao was in the shadows, but he returned to center stage and purged Deng and his allies in the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976). The Cultural Revolution was an upheaval that targeted intellectuals and party leaders from 1966 through 1976. Mao's goal was to purify communism by removing pro-capitalists and traditionalists by imposing Maoist orthodoxy within the Chinese Communist Party. The movement paralyzed China politically and weakened the country economically, culturally and intellectually for years. Millions of people were accused, humiliated, stripped of power and either imprisoned, killed or most often sent to work as farm laborers. Mao insisted that these he labelled revisionists be removed through violent class struggle. The two most prominent militants were Marshall
Lin Biao ) , serviceyears = 1925–1971 , branch = People's Liberation Army , rank = Marshal of the People's Republic of China Lieutenant general of the National Revolutionary Army, Republic of China , commands ...
of the army and Mao's wife
Jiang Qing Jiang Qing (19 March 191414 May 1991), also known as Madame Mao, was a Chinese communist revolutionary, actress, and major political figure during the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976). She was the fourth wife of Mao Zedong, the Chairman of ...
. China's youth responded to Mao's appeal by forming
Red Guard Red Guards () were a mass student-led paramilitary social movement mobilized and guided by Chairman Mao Zedong in 1966 through 1967, during the first phase of the Cultural Revolution, which he had instituted.Teiwes According to a Red Guard le ...
groups around the country. The movement spread into the military, urban workers and the Communist Party leadership itself. It resulted in widespread factional struggles in all walks of life. In the top leadership, it led to a mass purge of senior officials who were accused of taking a " capitalist road", most notably Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping. During the same period, Mao's
personality cult A cult of personality, or a cult of the leader, Mudde, Cas and Kaltwasser, Cristóbal Rovira (2017) ''Populism: A Very Short Introduction''. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 63. is the result of an effort which is made to create an id ...
grew to immense proportions. After Mao's death in 1976, the survivors were rehabilitated and many returned to power. Mao's government was responsible for vast numbers of deaths with estimates ranging from 40 to 80 million victims through starvation, persecution, prison labour, and mass executions. Mao has been praised for transforming China from a semi-colony to a leading world power, with greatly advanced literacy, women's rights, basic healthcare, primary education and life expectancy.


Cold War

Following its leading role in World War II saw the emergence of the Soviet Union as an industrialized superpower, with strong influence over Eastern Europe and parts of Asia. The European and
Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...
empires were shattered and communist parties played a leading role in many independence movements. Marxist–Leninist governments modeled on the Soviet Union took power with Soviet assistance in Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Poland, Hungary, and
Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Moldova to the east, and ...
. A Marxist–Leninist government was also created under Josip Broz Tito in
Yugoslavia Yugoslavia (; sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Jugoslavija, Југославија ; sl, Jugoslavija ; mk, Југославија ;; rup, Iugoslavia; hu, Jugoszlávia; rue, label=Pannonian Rusyn, Югославия, translit=Juhoslavija ...
, but Tito's independent policies led to the
Tito–Stalin split The Tito–Stalin split or the Yugoslav–Soviet split was the culmination of a conflict between the political leaderships of Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union, under Josip Broz Tito and Joseph Stalin, respectively, in the years following World W ...
and expulsion of Yugoslavia from the
Cominform The Information Bureau of the Communist and Workers' Parties (), commonly known as Cominform (), was a co-ordination body of Marxist-Leninist communist parties in Europe during the early Cold War that was formed in part as a replacement of the ...
in 1948, and Titoism was branded '' deviationist''. Albania also became an independent Marxist–Leninist state following the
Albanian–Soviet split The Albanian–Soviet split was the gradual deterioration of relations between the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and the People's Republic of Albania, which occurred in the 1956–1961 period as a result of Soviet leader Nikita Kh ...
in 1960, resulting from an ideological fallout between Enver Hoxha, a Stalinist, and the Soviet government of Nikita Khrushchev, who enacted a period of de-Stalinization and reapproached diplomatic relations with Yugoslavia. The Communist Party of China (CPC), led by Mao Zedong, established the People's Republic of China, which would follow its own ideological path of development following the
Sino-Soviet split The Sino-Soviet split was the breaking of political relations between the China, People's Republic of China and the Soviet Union caused by Doctrine, doctrinal divergences that arose from their different interpretations and practical applications ...
. Communism was seen as a rival of and a threat to Western capitalism for most of the 20th century. In Western Europe, communist parties were part of several post-war governments, and even when the Cold War forced many of those countries to remove them from government, such as in Italy, they remained part of the liberal-democratic process. There were also many developments in libertarian Marxism, especially during the 1960s with the New Left. By the 1960s and 1970s, many Western communist parties had criticized many of the actions of communist states, distanced from them, and developed a democratic road to socialism, which became known as
Eurocommunism Eurocommunism, also referred to as democratic communism or neocommunism, was a trend in the 1970s and 1980s within various Western European communist parties which said they had developed a theory and practice of social transformation more rel ...
. This development was criticized by more orthodox supporters of the Soviet Union as amounting to
social democracy Social democracy is a political, social, and economic philosophy within socialism that supports political and economic democracy. As a policy regime, it is described by academics as advocating economic and social interventions to promote s ...
.


Dissolution of the Soviet Union

With the fall of the Warsaw Pact after the Revolutions of 1989, which led to the fall of most of the former Eastern Bloc, the Soviet Union was dissolved on 26 December 1991. It was a result of the declaration number 142-Н of the Soviet of the Republics of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union. The declaration acknowledged the independence of the former
Soviet republics The Republics of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics or the Union Republics ( rus, Сою́зные Респу́блики, r=Soyúznye Respúbliki) were national-based administrative units of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics ( ...
and created the Commonwealth of Independent States, although five of the signatories ratified it much later or did not do it at all. On the previous day, Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev (the eighth and final
leader of the Soviet Union During its 69-year history, the Soviet Union usually had a ''de facto'' leader who would not necessarily be head of state but would lead while holding an office such as premier or general secretary. Under the 1977 Constitution, the chairman of ...
) resigned, declared his office extinct, and handed over its powers, including control of the
Cheget ''Cheget'' (russian: Чегет) is a "nuclear briefcase" (named after in Kabardino-Balkaria) and a part of the automatic system for the command and control of Russia's Strategic Nuclear Forces (SNF) named ''Kazbek'' (, named after Mount Kazbe ...
, to Russian president Boris Yeltsin. That evening at 7:32, the
Soviet flag The State Flag of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (), commonly known as the Soviet flag (), was the official state flag of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) from 1922 to 1991. The flag's design and symbolism are derived from ...
was lowered from the Kremlin for the last time and replaced with the pre-revolutionary
Russian flag The national flag of Russia (russian: Флаг России, Flag Rossii), also known as the ''State Flag of the Russian Federation'' (russian: Государственный флаг Российской Федерации, Gosudarstvenny fla ...
. Previously from August to December 1991, all the individual republics, including Russia itself, had seceded from the union. The week before the union's formal dissolution, eleven republics signed the Alma-Ata Protocol, formally establishing the Commonwealth of Independent States, and declaring that the Soviet Union had ceased to exist.


Post-Soviet communism

As of 2022, states controlled by Marxist–Leninist parties under a single-party system include the People's Republic of China, the
Republic of Cuba Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribbean ...
, the Lao People's Democratic Republic, and the
Socialist Republic of Vietnam Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making it ...
. Communist parties, or their descendant parties, remain politically important in several other countries. With the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the
Fall of Communism The Revolutions of 1989, also known as the Fall of Communism, was a revolutionary wave that resulted in the end of most communist states in the world. Sometimes this revolutionary wave is also called the Fall of Nations or the Autumn of Nat ...
, there was a split between those hardline Communists, sometimes referred to in the media as '' neo-Stalinists'', who remained committed to orthodox Marxism–Leninism, and those, such as The Left in Germany, who work within the liberal-democratic process for a democratic road to socialism, while other ruling Communist parties became closer to democratic socialist and social-democratic parties. Outside Communist states, reformed Communist parties have led or been part of left-leaning government or regional coalitions, including in the former Eastern Bloc. In Nepal, Communists (
CPN UML CPN may refer to: * Calpine Corporation, New York Stock Exchange symbol CPN * Canadian Perinatal Network * ''Carnivorous Plant Newsletter'' * Carpinteria (Amtrak station), California, Amtrak station code CPN * Caspian Airlines (Iran), ICAO airli ...
and
Nepal Communist Party The Nepal Communist Party, abbreviated NCP ( ne, नेपाल कम्युनिष्ट पार्टी, ) is a defunct communist party of Nepal. It was founded on 17 May 2018, from the unification of two leftist parties, Communist ...
) were part of the 1st Nepalese Constituent Assembly, which abolished the monarchy in 2008 and turned the country into a federal liberal-democratic republic, and have democratically shared power with other communists, Marxist–Leninists, and Maoists ( CPN Maoist), social democrats (
Nepali Congress The Nepali Congress ( ne, नेपाली कांग्रेस ; abbr. NC) is the largest social democratic political party in Nepal. As per the results of recent local election, ''Nepali Congress'' stands as the single largest party of ...
), and others as part of their People's Multiparty Democracy. China has reassessed many aspects of the Maoist legacy, and along with Laos, Vietnam, and to a lesser degree Cuba, has decentralized state control of the economy in order to stimulate growth. These reforms are described by scholars as progress, and by some left-wing critics as a regression to capitalism, or as
state capitalism State capitalism is an economic system in which the state undertakes business and commercial (i.e. for-profit) economic activity and where the means of production are nationalized as state-owned enterprises (including the processes of capital ...
, but the ruling parties describe it as a necessary adjustment to existing realities in the post-Soviet world in order to maximize industrial productive capacity. In these countries, the land is a universal public monopoly administered by the state, and so are natural resources and vital industries and services. The public sector is the dominant sector in these economies and the state plays a central role in coordinating economic development. Chinese economic reforms were started in 1978 under the leadership of Deng Xiaoping, and since then China has managed to bring down the poverty rate from 53% in the Mao era to just 6% in 2001.


Theory

Communist political thought and theory are diverse but share several core elements. The dominant forms of communism are based on Marxism or Leninism but non-Marxist versions of communism also exist, such as anarcho-communism and
Christian communism Christian communism is a theological view that the teachings of Jesus Christ compel Christians to support religious communism. Although there is no universal agreement on the exact dates when communistic ideas and practices in Christianity be ...
, which remain partly influenced by Marxist theories and libertarian and humanist Marxism in particular. Common elements include being theoretical rather than ideological, identifying political parties not by ideology but by class and economic interest, and identifying with the proletariat. According to communists, the proletariat can avoid mass unemployment only if capitalism is overthrown; in the short run, state-oriented communists favor state ownership of the
commanding heights of the economy In Marxian economics, the "commanding heights of the economy" are certain strategically important sectors of private industry. Some examples of industries considered to be part of the commanding heights include public utilities, natural resources, ...
as a means to defend the proletariat from capitalist pressure. Some communists are distinguished by other Marxists in seeing peasants and smallholders of property as possible allies in their goal of shortening the abolition of capitalism. For Leninist communism, such goals, including short-term proletarian interests to improve their political and material conditions, can only be achieved through vanguardism, an elitist form of socialism from above which relies on theoretical analysis to identify proletarian interests rather than consulting the proletarians themselves, as is advocated by libertarian communists. When they engage in elections, Leninist communists' main task is that of educating voters in what are deemed their true interests rather than in response to the expression of interest by voters themselves. When they have gained control of the state, Leninist communists' main task was preventing other political parties from deceiving the proletariat, such as by running their own independent candidates. This vanguardist approach comes from their commitments to democratic centralism in which communists can only be cadres, i.e. members of the party who are full-time professional revolutionaries, as was conceived by Vladimir Lenin.


Marxist communism

Marxism is a method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand class relations and social conflict and a dialectical perspective to view
social transformation In sociology, social transformation is a somewhat ambiguous term that has two broad definitions. One definition of social transformation is the process by which an individual ''alters'' the socially ascribed social status of their parents into a ...
. It originates from the works of 19th-century German philosophers
Karl Marx Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...
and Friedrich Engels. As Marxism has developed over time into various branches and
schools of thought A school of thought, or intellectual tradition, is the perspective of a group of people who share common characteristics of opinion or outlook of a philosophy, discipline, belief, social movement, economics, cultural movement, or art movement. ...
, no single, definitive Marxist theory exists. Marxism considers itself to be the embodiment of
scientific socialism Scientific socialism is a term coined in 1840 by Pierre-Joseph Proudhon in his book '' What is Property?'' to mean a society ruled by a scientific government, i.e., one whose sovereignty rests upon reason, rather than sheer will: Thus, in a given ...
but does not model an ideal society based on the design of intellectuals, whereby communism is seen as a state of affairs to be established based on any intelligent design; rather, it is a non- idealist attempt at the understanding of material history and society, whereby communism is the expression of a real movement, with parameters that are derived from actual life. According to Marxist theory, class conflict arises in capitalist societies due to contradictions between the material interests of the oppressed and exploited proletariat—a class of wage laborers employed to produce goods and services—and the bourgeoisie—the ruling class that owns the
means of production The means of production is a term which describes land, labor and capital that can be used to produce products (such as goods or services); however, the term can also refer to anything that is used to produce products. It can also be used as an ...
and extracts its wealth through appropriation of the surplus product produced by the proletariat in the form of profit. This class struggle that is commonly expressed as the revolt of a society's productive forces against its relations of production, results in a period of short-term crises as the bourgeoisie struggle to manage the intensifying alienation of labor experienced by the proletariat, albeit with varying degrees of
class consciousness In Marxism, class consciousness is the set of beliefs that a person holds regarding their social class or economic rank in society, the structure of their class, and their class interests. According to Karl Marx, it is an awareness that is key to ...
. In periods of deep crisis, the resistance of the oppressed can culminate in a
proletarian revolution A proletarian revolution or proletariat revolution is a social revolution in which the working class attempts to overthrow the bourgeoisie and change the previous political system. Proletarian revolutions are generally advocated by socialists, ...
which, if victorious, leads to the establishment of the
socialist mode of production The socialist mode of production, sometimes referred to as the communist mode of production, or simply (Marxian) socialism or communism as Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels used the terms ''communism'' and ''socialism'' interchangeably, is a specif ...
based on social ownership of the means of production, "
To each according to his contribution "To each according to his contribution" is a principle of distribution considered to be one of the defining features of socialism. It refers to an arrangement whereby individual compensation is representative of one's contribution to the social pr ...
", and
production for use Production for use is a phrase referring to the principle of economic organization and production taken as a defining criterion for a socialist economy. It is held in contrast to production for profit. This criterion is used to distinguish commu ...
. As the productive forces continued to advance, the
communist society In Marxist thought, a communist society or the communist system is the type of society and economic system postulated to emerge from technological advances in the productive forces, representing the ultimate goal of the political ideology of co ...
, i.e. a classless, stateless, humane society based on common ownership, follows the maxim "
From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" (german: Jeder nach seinen Fähigkeiten, jedem nach seinen Bedürfnissen) is a slogan popularised by Karl Marx in his 1875 '' Critique of the Gotha Programme''. The principle ref ...
." While it originates from the works of Marx and Engels, Marxism has developed into many different branches and schools of thought, with the result that there is now no single definitive Marxist theory. Different Marxian schools place a greater emphasis on certain aspects of classical Marxism while rejecting or modifying other aspects. Many schools of thought have sought to combine Marxian concepts and non-Marxian concepts, which has then led to contradictory conclusions. There is a movement toward the recognition that historical materialism and dialectical materialism remains the fundamental aspect of all
Marxist schools of thought Marxism is a method of socioeconomic analysis that originates in the works of 19th century German philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Marxism analyzes and critiques the development of class society and especially of capitalism as well as ...
. Marxism–Leninism and its offshoots are the most well-known of these and have been a driving force in international relations during most of the 20th century. Classical Marxism is the economic, philosophical, and sociological theories expounded by Marx and Engels as contrasted with later developments in Marxism, especially Leninism and Marxism–Leninism. Orthodox Marxism is the body of Marxism thought that emerged after the death of Marx and which became the official philosophy of the socialist movement as represented in the Second International until World War I in 1914. Orthodox Marxism aims to simplify, codify, and systematize Marxist method and theory by clarifying the perceived ambiguities and contradictions of classical Marxism. The philosophy of orthodox Marxism includes the understanding that material development (advances in technology in the productive forces) is the primary agent of change in the structure of society and of human social relations and that social systems and their relations (e.g. feudalism, capitalism and so on) become contradictory and inefficient as the productive forces develop, which results in some form of social revolution arising in response to the mounting contradictions. This revolutionary change is the vehicle for fundamental society-wide changes and ultimately leads to the emergence of new economic systems. As a term, ''orthodox Marxism'' represents the methods of historical materialism and of dialectical materialism, and not the normative aspects inherent to classical Marxism, without implying dogmatic adherence to the results of Marx's investigations.


Marxist concepts


= Class conflict and historical materialism

= At the root of Marxism is historical materialism, the materialist conception of history which holds that the key characteristic of economic systems through history has been the
mode of production In the Marxist theory of historical materialism, a mode of production (German: ''Produktionsweise'', "the way of producing") is a specific combination of the: * Productive forces: these include human labour power and means of production (tools, ...
and that the change between modes of production has been triggered by class struggle. According to this analysis, the Industrial Revolution ushered the world into capitalism as a new mode of production. Before capitalism, certain
working class The working class (or labouring class) comprises those engaged in manual-labour occupations or industrial work, who are remunerated via waged or salaried contracts. Working-class occupations (see also " Designation of workers by collar colo ...
es had ownership of instruments used in production; however, because machinery was much more efficient, this property became worthless and the mass majority of workers could only survive by selling their labor to make use of someone else's machinery, and making someone else profit. Accordingly, capitalism divided the world between two major classes, namely that of the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. These classes are directly antagonistic as the latter possesses private ownership of the
means of production The means of production is a term which describes land, labor and capital that can be used to produce products (such as goods or services); however, the term can also refer to anything that is used to produce products. It can also be used as an ...
, earning profit via the surplus value generated by the proletariat, who have no ownership of the means of production and therefore no option but to sell its labor to the bourgeoisie. According to the materialist conception of history, it is through the furtherance of its own material interests that the rising bourgeoisie within feudalism captured power and abolished, of all relations of private property, only the feudal privilege, thereby taking the feudal ruling class out of existence. This was another key element behind the consolidation of capitalism as the new mode of production, the final expression of class and property relations that has led to a massive expansion of production. It is only in capitalism that private property in itself can be abolished. Similarly, the proletariat would capture political power, abolish bourgeois property through the common ownership of the means of production, therefore abolishing the bourgeoisie, ultimately abolishing the proletariat itself and ushering the world into communism as a new mode of production. In between capitalism and communism, there is the
dictatorship of the proletariat In Marxist philosophy, the dictatorship of the proletariat is a condition in which the proletariat holds state power. The dictatorship of the proletariat is the intermediate stage between a capitalist economy and a communist economy, whereby the ...
; it is the defeat of the bourgeois state but not yet of the capitalist mode of production, and at the same time the only element which places into the realm of possibility moving on from this mode of production. This ''dictatorship'', based on the Paris Commune's model, is to be the most democratic state where the whole of the public authority is elected and recallable under the basis of universal suffrage.


= Marxian economics

= Marxian economics and its proponents view capitalism as economically unsustainable and incapable of improving the living standards of the population due to its need to compensate for falling rates of profit by cutting employee's wages, social benefits and pursuing military aggression. The communist system would succeed capitalism as humanity's mode of production through workers' revolution. According to Marxian
crisis theory Crisis theory, concerning the causes and consequences of the tendency for the rate of profit to fall in a capitalist system, is associated with Marxian critique of political economy, and was further popularised through Marxist economics. Hi ...
, communism is not an inevitability but an economic necessity.


= Socialization versus nationalization

= An important concept in Marxism is
socialization In sociology, socialization or socialisation (see spelling differences) is the process of internalizing the norms and ideologies of society. Socialization encompasses both learning and teaching and is thus "the means by which social and cul ...
versus nationalization. Nationalization is state ownership of property whereas socialization is control and management of property by society. Marxism considers the latter as its goal and considers nationalization a tactical issue, as state ownership is still in the realm of the capitalist mode of production. In the words of Friedrich Engels, "the transformation ... into State-ownership does not do away with the capitalistic nature of the productive forces. ... State-ownership of the productive forces is not the solution of the conflict, but concealed within it are the technical conditions that form the elements of that solution."; "But, the transformation—either into joint-stock companies and trusts, or into State-ownership—does not do away with the capitalistic nature of the productive forces. In the joint-stock companies and trusts, this is obvious. And the modern State, again, is only the organization that bourgeois society takes on in order to support the external conditions of the capitalist mode of production against the encroachments as well of the workers as of individual capitalists. The modern state, no matter what its form, is essentially a capitalist machine—the state of the capitalists, the ideal personification of the total national capital. The more it proceeds to the taking over of productive forces, the more does it actually become the national capitalist, the more citizens does it exploit. The workers remain wage-workers—proletarians. The capitalist relation is not done away with. It is, rather, brought to a head. But, brought to a head, it topples over. State-ownership of the productive forces is not the solution of the conflict, but concealed within it are the technical conditions that form the elements of that solution." This has led some Marxist groups and tendencies to label states based on nationalization such as the Soviet Union as
state capitalist State capitalism is an economic system in which the state undertakes business and commercial (i.e. for-profit) economic activity and where the means of production are nationalized as state-owned enterprises (including the processes of capital ac ...
.


Leninist communism

Leninism is a political ideology developed by Russian Marxist revolutionary Vladimir Lenin that proposes the establishment of the
dictatorship of the proletariat In Marxist philosophy, the dictatorship of the proletariat is a condition in which the proletariat holds state power. The dictatorship of the proletariat is the intermediate stage between a capitalist economy and a communist economy, whereby the ...
led by a revolutionary vanguard party as the political prelude to the establishment of communism. The function of the Leninist vanguard party is to provide the working classes with the
political consciousness Following the work of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Karl Marx outlined the workings of a political consciousness. The politics of consciousness Consciousness typically refers to the idea of a being who is self-aware. It is a distinction often re ...
(education and organisation) and revolutionary leadership necessary to depose capitalism in the
Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...
(1721–1917). Leninist revolutionary leadership is based upon ''
The Communist Manifesto ''The Communist Manifesto'', originally the ''Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (german: Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei), is a political pamphlet written by German philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Commissioned by the Commu ...
'' (1848), identifying the communist party as "the most advanced and resolute section of the working class parties of every country; that section which pushes forward all others." As the vanguard party, the Bolsheviks viewed history through the theoretical framework of dialectical materialism, which sanctioned political commitment to the successful overthrow of capitalism, and then to instituting socialism; and, as the revolutionary national government, to realise the socio-economic transition by all means.


Marxism–Leninism

Marxism–Leninism is a political ideology developed by
Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secretar ...
. According to its proponents, it is based in Marxism and Leninism. It describes the specific political ideology which Stalin implemented in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and in a global scale in the Comintern. There is no definite agreement between historians of about whether Stalin actually followed the principles of Marx and Lenin. It also contains aspects which according to some are deviations from Marxism such as
socialism in one country Socialism in one country was a Soviet state policy to strengthen socialism within the country rather than socialism globally. Given the defeats of the 1917–1923 European communist revolutions, Joseph Stalin and Nikolai Bukharin encouraged th ...
. Marxism–Leninism was the official ideology of 20th-century
Communist parties A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term ''communist party'' was popularized by the title of '' The Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. ...
(including Trotskyist), and was developed after the death of Lenin; its three principles were dialectical materialism, the leading role of the Communist party through democratic centralism, and a planned economy with industrialization and agricultural collectivization. As a term, ''Marxism–Leninism'' is misleading because Marx and Lenin never sanctioned or supported the creation of an ''-ism'' after them, and is reveling because, being popularized after Lenin's death by Stalin, it contained those three doctrinal and institutionalized principles that became a model for later Soviet-type regimes; its global influence, having at its height covered at least one-third of the world's population, has made ''Marxist–Leninist'' a convenient label for the Communist bloc as a dynamic ideological order. During the Cold War, Marxism–Leninism was the ideology of the most clearly visible communist movement and is the most prominent ideology associated with communism.
Social fascism Social fascism (also socio-fascism) was a theory that was supported by the Communist International (Comintern) and affiliated communist parties in the early 1930s that held that social democracy was a variant of fascism because it stood in the way ...
was a theory supported by the Comintern and affiliated
communist parties A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term ''communist party'' was popularized by the title of '' The Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. ...
during the early 1930s which held that
social democracy Social democracy is a political, social, and economic philosophy within socialism that supports political and economic democracy. As a policy regime, it is described by academics as advocating economic and social interventions to promote s ...
was a variant of fascism because it stood in the way of a
dictatorship of the proletariat In Marxist philosophy, the dictatorship of the proletariat is a condition in which the proletariat holds state power. The dictatorship of the proletariat is the intermediate stage between a capitalist economy and a communist economy, whereby the ...
, in addition to a shared corporatist economic model. At the time, leaders of the Comintern such as Stalin and
Rajani Palme Dutt Rajani may refer to: *Rajani (name), people named Rajani * Rajani (actress) (born 1965), Indian film actress * ''Rajani'' (TV series), a 1980s Indian TV series * ''Rajani'' (film), a 2009 Indian Kannada romantic comedy * ''Rajani'', an 1877 novel ...
stated that capitalist society had entered the
Third Period The Third Period is an ideological concept adopted by the Communist International (Comintern) at its Sixth World Congress, held in Moscow in the summer of 1928. It set policy until reversed when the Nazis took over Germany in 1933. The Comint ...
in which a proletariat revolution was imminent but could be prevented by social democrats and other ''fascist'' forces. The term ''social fascist'' was used pejoratively to describe social-democratic parties, anti-Comintern and progressive socialist parties and dissenters within Comintern affiliates throughout the interwar period. The social fascism theory was advocated vociferously by the Communist Party of Germany which was largely controlled and funded by the Soviet leadership from 1928. Within Marxism–Leninism,
anti-revisionism Anti-revisionism is a position within Marxism–Leninism which emerged in the 1950s in opposition to the reforms of Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev. Where Khrushchev pursued an interpretation that differed from his predecessor Joseph Stalin, ...
is a position which emerged in the 1950s in opposition to the reforms and Khrushchev Thaw of Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev. Where Khrushchev pursued an interpretation that differed from Stalin, the anti-revisionists within the international communist movement remained dedicated to Stalin's ideological legacy and criticized the Soviet Union under Khrushchev and his successors as
state capitalist State capitalism is an economic system in which the state undertakes business and commercial (i.e. for-profit) economic activity and where the means of production are nationalized as state-owned enterprises (including the processes of capital ac ...
and social imperialist due to its hopes of achieving peace with the United States. The term ''Stalinism'' is also used to describe these positions but is often not used by its supporters who opine that Stalin practiced orthodox Marxism and Leninism. Because different political trends trace the historical roots of revisionism to different eras and leaders, there is significant disagreement today as to what constitutes anti-revisionism. Modern groups which describe themselves as anti-revisionist fall into several categories. Some uphold the works of Stalin and Mao Zedong and some the works of Stalin while rejecting Mao and universally tend to oppose Trotskyism. Others reject both Stalin and Mao, tracing their ideological roots back to Marx and Lenin. In addition, other groups uphold various less-well-known historical leaders such as Enver Hoxha, who also broke with Mao during the
Sino-Albanian split The Sino-Albanian split was the gradual worsening of relations between the People's Socialist Republic of Albania and the People's Republic of China in the period 1972–1978. Both countries had supported each other in the Soviet–Albanian and S ...
. ''Social imperialism'' was a term used by Mao to criticize the Soviet Union post-Stalin. Mao stated that the Soviet Union had itself become an imperialist power while maintaining a socialist ''façade''. Hoxha agreed with Mao in this analysis, before later using the expression to also condemn Mao's
Three Worlds Theory In the field of international relations, the Three Worlds Theory ( zh, s=三个世界的理论, p=Sān gè Shìjiè de Lǐlùn) by Mao Zedong proposed to the visiting Algerian President Houari Boumédiène in February 1974 that the internationa ...
.


= Stalinism

= Stalinism represents Stalin's style of governance as opposed to Marxism–Leninism, the socioeconomic system and political ideology implemented by Stalin in the Soviet Union and later adapted by other states based on the ideological Soviet model, such as
central planning A planned economy is a type of economic system where investment, production and the allocation of capital goods takes place according to economy-wide economic plans and production plans. A planned economy may use centralized, decentralized, pa ...
, nationalization, and one-party state, along with
public ownership State ownership, also called government ownership and public ownership, is the ownership of an industry, asset, or enterprise by the state or a public body representing a community, as opposed to an individual or private party. Public ownershi ...
of the
means of production The means of production is a term which describes land, labor and capital that can be used to produce products (such as goods or services); however, the term can also refer to anything that is used to produce products. It can also be used as an ...
, accelerated industrialization, pro-active development of society's productive forces (research and development), and nationalized natural resources. Marxism–Leninism remained after de-Stalinization whereas Stalinism did not. In the last letters before his death, Lenin warned against the danger of Stalin's personality and urged the Soviet government to replace him. Until the
death of Joseph Stalin Death is the irreversible cessation of all biological functions that sustain an organism. For organisms with a brain, death can also be defined as the irreversible cessation of functioning of the whole brain, including brainstem, and brain ...
in 1953, the Soviet Communist party referred to its own ideology as ''Marxism–Leninism–Stalinism''. Marxism–Leninism has been criticized by other communist and Marxist tendencies, which state that Marxist–Leninist states did not establish socialism but rather
state capitalism State capitalism is an economic system in which the state undertakes business and commercial (i.e. for-profit) economic activity and where the means of production are nationalized as state-owned enterprises (including the processes of capital ...
. According to Marxism, the dictatorship of the proletariat represents the rule of the majority (democracy) rather than of one party, to the extent that co-founder of Marxism Friedrich Engels described its "specific form" as the democratic republic. According to Engels, state property by itself is private property of capitalist nature unless the proletariat has control of political power, in which case it forms public property.; "The proletariat seizes the public power, and by means of this transforms the socialized means of production, slipping from the hands of the bourgeoisie, into public property. By this act, the proletariat frees the means of production from the character of capital they have thus far borne, and gives their socialized character complete freedom to work itself out." Whether the proletariat was actually in control of the Marxist–Leninist states is a matter of debate between Marxism–Leninism and other communist tendencies. To these tendencies, Marxism–Leninism is neither Marxism nor Leninism nor the union of both but rather an artificial term created to justify Stalin's ideological distortion, forced into the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Comintern. In the Soviet Union, this struggle against Marxism–Leninism was represented by Trotskyism, which describes itself as a Marxist and Leninist tendency.


= Trotskyism

= Trotskyism, developed by Leon Trotsky in opposition to Stalinism, is a Marxist and Leninist tendency that supports the theory of permanent revolution and
world revolution World revolution is the Marxist concept of overthrowing capitalism in all countries through the conscious revolutionary action of the organized working class. For theorists, these revolutions will not necessarily occur simultaneously, but whe ...
rather than the two-stage theory and Stalin's
socialism in one country Socialism in one country was a Soviet state policy to strengthen socialism within the country rather than socialism globally. Given the defeats of the 1917–1923 European communist revolutions, Joseph Stalin and Nikolai Bukharin encouraged th ...
. It supported proletarian internationalism and another communist revolution in the
Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
. Rather than representing the
dictatorship of the proletariat In Marxist philosophy, the dictatorship of the proletariat is a condition in which the proletariat holds state power. The dictatorship of the proletariat is the intermediate stage between a capitalist economy and a communist economy, whereby the ...
, Trotsky claimed that the Soviet Union had become a degenerated workers' state under the leadership of Stalin in which class relations had re-emerged in a new form. Trotsky's politics differed sharply from those of Stalin and Mao, most importantly in declaring the need for an international proletarian revolution—rather than socialism in one country—and support for a true dictatorship of the proletariat based on democratic principles. Struggling against Stalin for power in the Soviet Union, Trotsky and his supporters organized into the
Left Opposition The Left Opposition was a faction within the Russian Communist Party (b) from 1923 to 1927 headed ''de facto'' by Leon Trotsky. The Left Opposition formed as part of the power struggle within the party leadership that began with the Soviet fou ...
, the platform of which 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. While in exile, Trotsky continued his campaign against Stalin, founding in 1938 the
Fourth International The Fourth International (FI) is a revolutionary socialist international organization consisting of followers of Leon Trotsky, also known as Trotskyists, whose declared goal is the overthrowing of global capitalism and the establishment of ...
, a Trotskyist rival to the Comintern. In August 1940, Trotsky was assassinated in Mexico City on Stalin's orders. Trotskyist currents include orthodox Trotskyism, third camp,
Posadism The Fourth International Posadist is a Trotskyism, Trotskyist Political international, international. It was founded in 1962 by J. Posadas, who had been the leader of the Latin America Bureau of the Fourth International in the 1950s, and of the ...
, and Pabloism.


= Maoism

= Maoism is the theory derived from the teachings of the Chinese political leader Mao Zedong. Developed from the 1950s until the Deng Xiaoping
Chinese economic reform The Chinese economic reform or reform and opening-up (), known in the West as the opening of China, is the program of economic reforms termed " Socialism with Chinese characteristics" and " socialist market economy" in the People's Republic of ...
in the 1970s, it was widely applied as the guiding political and military ideology of the Communist Party of China and as the theory guiding revolutionary movements around the world. A key difference between Maoism and other forms of Marxism–Leninism is that peasants should be the bulwark of the revolutionary energy which is led by the working class. Three common Maoist values are revolutionary populism, being practical, and dialectics. The synthesis of Marxism–Leninism–Maoism, which builds upon the two individual theories as the Chinese adaption of Marxism–Leninism, did not occur during the life of Mao. After de-Stalinization, Marxism–Leninism was kept in the
Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
, while certain anti-revisionist tendencies such as
Hoxhaism Hoxhaism () is a variant of anti-revisionist Marxism–Leninism that developed in the late 1970s due to a split in the anti-revisionist movement, appearing after the ideological dispute between the Chinese Communist Party and the Party of Labo ...
and Maoism stated that such had deviated from its original concept. Different policies were applied in Albania and China which became more distanced from the Soviet Union. From the 1960s, groups who called themselves ''Maoists'', or those who upheld Maoism, were not unified around a common understanding of Maoism, instead having their own particular interpretations of the political, philosophical, economical and military works of Mao. Its adherents claim that as a unified, coherent higher stage of Marxism, it was not consolidated until the 1980s, first being formalized by the Peruvian communist party Shining Path in 1982. Through the experience of the people's war waged by the party, the Shining Path were able to posit Maoism as the newest development of Marxism.


Eurocommunism

Eurocommunism was a revisionist trend in the 1970s and 1980s within various Western European communist parties, claiming to develop a theory and practice of
social transformation In sociology, social transformation is a somewhat ambiguous term that has two broad definitions. One definition of social transformation is the process by which an individual ''alters'' the socially ascribed social status of their parents into a ...
more relevant to their region. Especially prominent in France, Italy, and
Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , i ...
, communists of this nature sought to undermine the influence of the
Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
and its Communist party during the Cold War.
Enrico Berlinguer Enrico Berlinguer (; 25 May 1922 – 11 June 1984) was an Italian politician, considered the most popular leader of the Italian Communist Party (PCI), which he led as the national secretary from 1972 until his death during a tense period in Ital ...
, general secretary of the Italian Communist Party, was widely considered the father of Eurocommunism.


Libertarian Marxist communism

Libertarian Marxism is a broad range of economic and political philosophies that emphasize the
anti-authoritarian Anti-authoritarianism is opposition to authoritarianism, which is defined as "a form of social organisation characterised by submission to authority", "favoring complete obedience or subjection to authority as opposed to individual freedom" an ...
aspects of Marxism. Early currents of libertarian Marxism, known as
left communism Left communism, or the communist left, is a position held by the left wing of communism, which criticises the political ideas and practices espoused by Marxist–Leninists and social democrats. Left communists assert positions which they reg ...
, emerged in opposition to Marxism–Leninism and its derivatives such as Stalinism, Trotskyism, and Maoism. Libertarian Marxism is also critical of
reformist Reformism is a political doctrine advocating the reform of an existing system or institution instead of its abolition and replacement. Within the socialist movement, reformism is the view that gradual changes through existing institutions can ...
positions such as those held by
social democrats Social democracy is a political, social, and economic philosophy within socialism that supports political and economic democracy. As a policy regime, it is described by academics as advocating economic and social interventions to promote so ...
. Libertarian Marxist currents often draw from Marx and Engels' later works, specifically the ''
Grundrisse The ''Grundrisse der Kritik der Politischen Ökonomie'' (''Foundations of a Critique of Political Economy'') is an unfinished manuscript by the German philosopher Karl Marx. The series of seven notebooks was rough-drafted by Marx, chiefly for ...
'' and '' The Civil War in France'', emphasizing the Marxist belief in the ability of the
working class The working class (or labouring class) comprises those engaged in manual-labour occupations or industrial work, who are remunerated via waged or salaried contracts. Working-class occupations (see also " Designation of workers by collar colo ...
to forge its own destiny without the need for a revolutionary party or
state State may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * ''State Magazine'', a monthly magazine published by the U.S. Department of State * ''The State'' (newspaper), a daily newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina, United States * ''Our S ...
to mediate or aid its liberation. Along with anarchism, libertarian Marxism is one of the main derivatives of libertarian socialism. Aside from left communism, libertarian Marxism includes such currents as autonomism,
communization Communization (or communisation in British English) mainly refers to a contemporary communist theory in which there is a mixing-up of insurrectionist anarchism, the communist ultra-left, post-autonomists, anti-political currents, groups like ...
,
council communism Council communism is a current of communist thought that emerged in the 1920s. Inspired by the November Revolution, council communism was opposed to state socialism and advocated workers' councils and council democracy. Strong in Germany ...
,
De Leonism De Leonism, also known as Marxism-De Leonism, is a Marxist tendency developed by Curaçaoan-American trade union organizer and Marxist theoretician Daniel De Leon. De Leon was an early leader of the first American socialist political party, t ...
, the Johnson–Forest Tendency,
Lettrism Lettrism is a French avant-garde movement, established in Paris in the mid-1940s by Romanian immigrant Isidore Isou. In a body of work totaling hundreds of volumes, Isou and the Lettrists have applied their theories to all areas of art and culture ...
, Luxemburgism Situationism,
Socialisme ou Barbarie Socialisme ou Barbarie () was a French-based radical libertarian socialist group of the post-World War II period whose name comes from a phrase which was misattributed to Friedrich Engels by Rosa Luxemburg in the '' Junius Pamphlet'', but which pr ...
, Solidarity, the
World Socialist Movement The World Socialist Movement (WSM) is an international organisation of socialist parties created in 1904 with the founding of the Socialist Party of Great Britain (SPGB). The member parties share a common classical Marxist worldview and an adh ...
, workerism as well as parts of
Freudo-Marxism Freudo-Marxism is a loose designation for philosophical perspectives informed by both the Marxist philosophy of Karl Marx and the psychoanalytic theory of Sigmund Freud. It has a rich history within continental philosophy, beginning in the 19 ...
and the New Left. Moreover, libertarian Marxism has often had a strong influence on both post-left and social anarchists. Notable theorists of libertarian Marxism have included
Antonie Pannekoek Antonie “Anton” Pannekoek (; 2 January 1873 – 28 April 1960) was a Dutch astronomer, philosopher, Marxist theorist, and socialist revolutionary. He was one of the main theorists of council communism (Dutch: ''radencommunisme''). Biograph ...
,
Raya Dunayevskaya Raya Dunayevskaya (born Raya Shpigel, ; May 1, 1910 - June 9, 1987), later Rae Spiegel, also known by the pseudonym Freddie Forest, was the American founder of the philosophy of Marxist humanism in the United States. At one time Leon Trotsky's s ...
,
Cornelius Castoriadis Cornelius Castoriadis ( el, Κορνήλιος Καστοριάδης; 11 March 1922 – 26 December 1997) was a Greek-FrenchMemos 2014, p. 18: "he was ... granted full French citizenship in 1970." philosopher, social critic, economist, ps ...
, Maurice Brinton, Daniel Guérin, and
Yanis Varoufakis Ioannis "Yanis" Varoufakis ( el, Ιωάννης Γεωργίου "Γιάνης" Βαρουφάκης, Ioánnis Georgíou "Giánis" Varoufákis, ; born 24 March 1961) is a Greek economist and politician. A former academic, he served as the Gree ...
, the latter of whom claims that Marx himself was a libertarian Marxist.


Council communism

Council communism is a movement originating in Germany and the Netherlands in the 1920s, whose primary organization was the Communist Workers Party of Germany. It continues today as a theoretical and activist position within both libertarian Marxism and libertarian socialism. The core principle of council communism is that the government and the economy should be managed by workers' councils, which are composed of delegates elected at workplaces and recallable at any moment. Council communists oppose the perceived authoritarian and undemocratic nature of
central planning A planned economy is a type of economic system where investment, production and the allocation of capital goods takes place according to economy-wide economic plans and production plans. A planned economy may use centralized, decentralized, pa ...
and of
state socialism State socialism is a political and economic ideology within the socialist movement that advocates state ownership of the means of production. This is intended either as a temporary measure, or as a characteristic of socialism in the transition ...
, labelled
state capitalism State capitalism is an economic system in which the state undertakes business and commercial (i.e. for-profit) economic activity and where the means of production are nationalized as state-owned enterprises (including the processes of capital ...
, and the idea of a revolutionary party, since council communists believe that a revolution led by a party would necessarily produce a party dictatorship. Council communists support a workers' democracy, produced through a federation of workers' councils. In contrast to those of
social democracy Social democracy is a political, social, and economic philosophy within socialism that supports political and economic democracy. As a policy regime, it is described by academics as advocating economic and social interventions to promote s ...
and
Leninist Leninism is a political ideology developed by Russian Marxist revolutionary Vladimir Lenin that proposes the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat led by a revolutionary vanguard party as the political prelude to the establishm ...
communism, the central argument of council communism is that democratic workers' councils arising in the factories and municipalities are the natural form of working-class organization and governmental power. This view is opposed to both the
reformist Reformism is a political doctrine advocating the reform of an existing system or institution instead of its abolition and replacement. Within the socialist movement, reformism is the view that gradual changes through existing institutions can ...
and the Leninist communist ideologies, which respectively stress parliamentary and
institutional Institutions are humanly devised structures of rules and norms that shape and constrain individual behavior. All definitions of institutions generally entail that there is a level of persistence and continuity. Laws, rules, social conventions a ...
government by applying social reforms on the one hand, and vanguard parties and participative democratic centralism on the other.


Left communism

Left communism is the range of communist viewpoints held by the communist left, which criticizes the political ideas and practices espoused, particularly following the series of revolutions that brought World War to an end by Bolsheviks and
social democrats Social democracy is a political, social, and economic philosophy within socialism that supports political and economic democracy. As a policy regime, it is described by academics as advocating economic and social interventions to promote so ...
. Left communists assert positions which they regard as more authentically Marxist and
proletarian The proletariat (; ) is the social class of wage-earners, those members of a society whose only possession of significant economic value is their labour power (their capacity to work). A member of such a class is a proletarian. Marxist philoso ...
than the views of Marxism–Leninism espoused by the
Communist International The Communist International (Comintern), also known as the Third International, was a Soviet-controlled international organization founded in 1919 that advocated world communism. The Comintern resolved at its Second Congress to "struggle by ...
after its first congress (March 1919) and during its second congress (July–August 1920). Left communists represent a range of political movements distinct from Marxist–Leninists, whom they largely view as merely the left-wing of capital, from anarcho-communists, some of whom they consider to be
internationalist socialists Proletarian internationalism, sometimes referred to as international socialism, is the perception of all communist revolutions as being part of a single global class struggle rather than separate localized events. It is based on the theory that ...
, and from various other revolutionary socialist tendencies, such as De Leonists, whom they tend to see as being internationalist socialists only in limited instances.
Bordigism Amadeo Bordiga (13 June 1889 – 25 July 1970) was an Italian Marxist theorist, revolutionary socialist, founder of the Communist Party of Italy (PCI), member of the Communist International (Comintern) and later a leading figure of the Internat ...
is a Leninist left-communist current named after
Amadeo Bordiga Amadeo Bordiga (13 June 1889 – 25 July 1970) was an Italian Marxist theorist, revolutionary socialist, founder of the Communist Party of Italy (PCI), member of the Communist International (Comintern) and later a leading figure of the Interna ...
, who has been described as being "more Leninist than Lenin", and considered himself to be a Leninist.


Other types of communism


Anarcho-communism

Anarcho-communism is a libertarian theory of anarchism and communism which advocates the abolition of the
state State may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * ''State Magazine'', a monthly magazine published by the U.S. Department of State * ''The State'' (newspaper), a daily newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina, United States * ''Our S ...
, private property and capitalism in favor of common ownership of the
means of production The means of production is a term which describes land, labor and capital that can be used to produce products (such as goods or services); however, the term can also refer to anything that is used to produce products. It can also be used as an ...
; direct democracy; and a horizontal network of voluntary associations and workers' councils with production and consumption based on the guiding principle "
From each according to his ability, to each according to his need "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" (german: Jeder nach seinen Fähigkeiten, jedem nach seinen Bedürfnissen) is a slogan popularised by Karl Marx in his 1875 '' Critique of the Gotha Programme''. The principle ref ...
"; anarcho-communism differs from Marxism in that it rejects its view about the need for a
state socialism State socialism is a political and economic ideology within the socialist movement that advocates state ownership of the means of production. This is intended either as a temporary measure, or as a characteristic of socialism in the transition ...
phase prior to establishing communism. Peter Kropotkin, the main theorist of anarcho-communism, stated that a revolutionary society should "transform itself immediately into a communist society", that it should go immediately into what Marx had regarded as the "more advanced, completed, phase of communism". In this way, it tries to avoid the reappearance of class divisions and the need for a state to be in control. Some forms of anarcho-communism such as insurrectionary anarchism are
egoist Egoism is a philosophy concerned with the role of the self, or , as the motivation and goal of one's own action. Different theories of egoism encompass a range of disparate ideas and can generally be categorized into descriptive or normativ ...
and strongly influenced by radical individualism, believing that anarchist communism does not require a communitarian nature at all. Most anarcho-communists view anarchist communism as a way of reconciling the opposition between the individual and society. During the Russian Civil War, anarchists such as Nestor Makhno worked through the Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine to create and defend anarcho-communism in Ukraine from 1919 before being conquered by the Bolsheviks in 1921. In 1929, anarcho-communism was achieved in Korea by the Korean Anarchist Federation in Manchuria (KAFM) and the Korean Anarcho-Communist Federation (KACF), with help from anarchist general and independence activist Kim Chwa-chin, lasting until 1931, when
Imperial Japan The also known as the Japanese Empire or Imperial Japan, was a historical nation-state and great power that existed from the Meiji Restoration in 1868 until the enactment of the post-World War II 1947 constitution and subsequent forma ...
assassinated Kim and invaded from the south while the
Chinese Nationalists The Kuomintang (KMT), also referred to as the Guomindang (GMD), the Nationalist Party of China (NPC) or the Chinese Nationalist Party (CNP), is a major political party in the Republic of China, initially on the Chinese mainland and in Taiw ...
invaded from the north, resulting in the creation of Manchukuo, a puppet state of the
Empire of Japan The also known as the Japanese Empire or Imperial Japan, was a historical nation-state and great power that existed from the Meiji Restoration in 1868 until the enactment of the post-World War II Constitution of Japan, 1947 constitu ...
. Through the efforts and influence of the
Spanish anarchists Anarchism in Spain has historically gained some support and influence, especially before Francisco Franco's victory in the Spanish Civil War of 1936–1939, when it played an active political role and is considered the end of the golden age of cl ...
during the Spanish Revolution within the Spanish Civil War, starting in 1936 anarcho-communism existed in most of Aragon, parts of the Levante, and Andalusia, and in the
stronghold A fortification is a military construction or building designed for the defense of territories in warfare, and is also used to establish rule in a region during peacetime. The term is derived from Latin ''fortis'' ("strong") and ''facere' ...
of Revolutionary Catalonia, before being brutally crushed.


Christian communism

Christian communism is a theological and political theory based upon the view that the teachings of Jesus Christ compel Christians to support
religious communism Religious communism is a form of communism that incorporates religious principles. Scholars have used the term to describe a variety of social or religious movements throughout history that have favored the common ownership of property. Overview ...
as the ideal
social system In sociology, a social system is the patterned network of relationships constituting a coherent whole that exist between individuals, groups, and institutions. It is the formal structure of role and status that can form in a small, stable group. A ...
. Although there is no universal agreement on the exact dates when communistic ideas and practices in Christianity began, many Christian communists state that evidence from the Bible suggests that the first Christians, including the apostles, established their own small communist society in the years following Jesus' death and resurrection. Many advocates of Christian communism state that it was taught by Jesus and practiced by the apostles themselves, an argument that some historians agree with. Christian communism enjoys some support in Russia. Russian musician
Yegor Letov Igor Fedorovich "Yegor" Letov (russian: link=no, И́горь Фёдорович "Его́р" Ле́тов, ; 10 September 1964 – 19 February 2008) was a Russian poet, musician, singer-songwriter, audio engineer and conceptual artist, best know ...
was an outspoken Christian communist and in a 1995 interview was quoted as saying: "Communism is the Kingdom of God on Earth."


Analysis


Reception

Emily Morris from University College London wrote that because
Karl Marx Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...
's writings have inspired many movements, including the
Russian Revolution of 1917 The Russian Revolution was a period of political and social revolution that took place in the former Russian Empire which began during the First World War. This period saw Russia abolish its monarchy and adopt a socialist form of government ...
, communism is "commonly confused with the political and economic system that developed in the Soviet Union" after the revolution. Historian Andrzej Paczkowski summarized communism as "an ideology that seemed clearly the opposite, that was based on the secular desire of humanity to achieve equality and social justice, and that promised a great leap forward into freedom." Anti-communism developed as soon as communism became a conscious political movement in the 19th century, and anti-communist mass killings have been reported against alleged communists, or their alleged supporters which were committed by anti-communists and political organizations or governments which opposed communism. The communist movement has faced opposition since it was founded and the opposition to it has often been organized and violent. Many of these anti-communist mass killing campaigns, primarily during the Cold War, were supported by the United States and its
Western Bloc The Western Bloc, also known as the Free Bloc, the Capitalist Bloc, the American Bloc, and the NATO Bloc, was a coalition of countries that were officially allied with the United States during the Cold War of 1947–1991. It was spearheaded by ...
allies, including those who were formally part of the Non-Aligned Movement, such as the
Indonesian mass killings of 1965–66 The Indonesian mass killings of 1965–66, also known as the Indonesian genocide, Indonesian Communist Purge, or Indonesian politicide ( id, Pembunuhan Massal Indonesia & Pembersihan G.30.S/PKI), were large-scale killings and civil unrest pr ...
and
Operation Condor Operation Condor ( es, link=no, Operación Cóndor, also known as ''Plan Cóndor''; pt, Operação Condor) was a United States–backed campaign of political repression and state terror involving intelligence operations and assassination of op ...
in South America.


Excess mortality under communist states

Many authors have written about excess deaths under Communist states and mortality rates, such as excess mortality in the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin. Some authors posit that there is a Communist death toll, whose death estimates vary widely, depending on the definitions of the deaths that are included in them, ranging from lows of 10–20 million to highs over 100 million. The higher estimates have been criticized by several scholars as ideologically motivated and inflated; they are also criticized for being inaccurate due to incomplete data, inflated by counting any excess death, making an unwarranted link to communism, and the grouping and body-counting itself. Higher estimates account for actions that Communist governments committed against civilians, including executions, man-made famines, and deaths that occurred during, or resulted from, imprisonment, and forced deportations and labor. Higher estimates are criticized for being based on sparse and incomplete data when significant errors are inevitable, skewed to higher possible values, and victims of civil wars, the Holodomor and other famines, and war-related events should not be included. Others have argued that, while certain estimates may not be accurate, "quibbling about numbers is unseemly. What matters is that many, many people were killed by communist regimes." There is no consensus among genocide scholars and scholars of Communism about whether some or all the events constituted a genocide. There is also no consensus on a common terminology, and the events have been variously referred to as ''excess mortality'' or ''mass deaths''; other terms used to define some of such killings include ''
classicide Classicide is a concept proposed by sociologist Michael Mann to describe the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of a social class through persecution and violence. Although it was first used by physician and anti-communist ...
'', '' crimes against humanity'', '' democide'', '' genocide'', ''
politicide Political cleansing of population is eliminating categories of people in specific areas for political reasons. The means may vary from forced migration to genocide. Politicide Politicide is the deliberate physical destruction or elimination o ...
'', '' holocaust'', and '' repression''. Scholars state that most Communist states did not engage in mass killings; some in particular, such as Benjamin Valentino, propose the category of Communist mass killing, alongside colonial, counter-guerrilla, and ethnic mass killing, as a subtype of dispossessive mass killing to distinguish it from coercive mass killing. While some scholars do not consider ideology or regime-type as an important factor that explains mass killings, others, such as John Gray,
Daniel Goldhagen Daniel Jonah Goldhagen (born June 30, 1959) is an American author, and former associate professor of government and social studies at Harvard University. Goldhagen reached international attention and broad criticism as the author of two controver ...
, and Richard Pipes consider the ideology of communism to be a significant causative factor in mass killings. Some authors have connected killings in
Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secretar ...
's Soviet Union, Mao Zedong's China, and Pol Pot's Cambodia on the basis that Stalin influenced Mao, who influenced Pol Pot; in all cases, killings were carried out as part of a policy of an unbalanced modernization process of rapid industrialization. Other authors allege that genocide was dictated in otherwise forgotten works of
Karl Marx Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...
. According to Dovid Katz and other historians, a historical revisionist view of the double genocide theory, equating mass deaths under Communist states with the Holocaust, is popular in
Eastern European Eastern Europe is a subregion of the European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic connotations. The vast majority of the region is covered by Russia, whi ...
countries and the Baltic states, and their approaches of history have been incorporated in the
European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been de ...
agenda, among them the Prague Declaration in June 2008 and the European Day of Remembrance for Victims of Stalinism and Nazism, which was proclaimed by the European Parliament in August 2008 and endorsed by the OSCE in Europe in July 2009. Among many scholars in Western Europe, the comparison of the two regimes and equivalence of their crimes has been and still is widely rejected. Many commentators on the political right point to the mass killings under communist regimes, claiming them as an indictment of communism. Opponents of this view, including those on the political left, argue that these killings were aberrations caused by specific authoritarian regimes, and not caused by communism itself, and point to mass deaths in wars and famines that they claim were caused by colonialism, capitalism and anti-communism as a counterpoint to those killings.


Memory and legacy

Criticism of communism can be divided into two broad categories, namely that which concerns itself with the practical aspects of 20th-century Communist states and that which concerns itself with communist principles and theory. Public memory of 20th-century Communist states has been described as "a battleground." between the political left and political right. Critics of communism on the political right point to the excess deaths under Communist states as an indictment of communism as an ideology. Defenders of communism on the political left claim that the deaths were caused by specific authoritarian regimes and not communism as an ideology, while also pointing to mass deaths in wars that they claim were caused by capitalism and anti-communism as a counterpoint to the deaths under Communist states.
Memory studies Memory studies is an academic field studying the use of memory Memory is the faculty of the mind by which data or information is encoded, stored, and retrieved when needed. It is the retention of information over time for the purpose of ...
have been done on how the events are memorized. According to Kristen R. Ghodsee and Scott Sehon, on the political left, there are "those with some sympathy for socialist ideals and the popular opinion of hundreds of millions of Russian and east European citizens nostalgic for their state socialist pasts.", while on the political right, there are "the committed anti-totalitarians, both east and west, insisting that all experiments with Marxism will always and inevitably end with the gulag." The " victims of Communism" concept, has become accepted scholarship, as part of the double genocide theory, in Eastern Europe and among anti-communists in general; it is rejected by some Western European and other scholars, especially when it is used to equate Communism and Nazism, which is seen by scholars as a long-discredited perspective. The narrative posits that famines and mass deaths by Communist states can be attributed to a single cause and that communism, as "the deadliest ideology in history", or in the words of
Jonathan Rauch Jonathan Charles Rauch (; born April 26, 1960) is an American author, journalist, and activist. After graduating from Yale University, Rauch worked at the ''Winston-Salem Journal'' in North Carolina, for ''National Journal'', and later for ''The ...
as "the deadliest fantasy in human history", represents the greatest threat to humanity. Proponents posit an alleged link between communism, left-wing politics, and socialism with genocide, mass killing, and totalitarianism, with authors such as George Watson advocating a common history stretching from Marx to Adolf Hitler. Some right-wing authors allege that Marx was responsible for Nazism and the Holocaust. Authors such as
Stéphane Courtois Stéphane Courtois (born 25 November 1947) is a French historian and university professor, a director of research at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), professor at the Catholic Institute of Higher Studies (ICES) in La Ro ...
propose a theory of equivalence between class and racial genocide. It is supported by the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, with 100 million being the most common estimate used from ''
The Black Book of Communism ''The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression'' is a 1997 book by Stéphane Courtois, Andrzej Paczkowski, Nicolas Werth, Jean-Louis Margolin, and several other European academics documenting a history of political repression by co ...
'' despite some of the authors of the book distancing themselves from the estimates made by Stephen Courtois. Various museums and monuments have been constructed in remembrance of the victims of Communism, with support of the European Union and various governments in Canada, Eastern Europe, and the United States. Works such as ''The Black Book of Communism'' and ''
Bloodlands ''Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin'' is a 2010 book by Yale historian Timothy D. Snyder. It is about mass murders committed during World War II in territories controlled by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. In this book, Snyde ...
'' legitimized debates on the comparison of Nazism and Stalinism, and by extension communism, and the former work in particular was important in the criminalization of communism. The failure of Communist governments to live up to the ideal of a
communist society In Marxist thought, a communist society or the communist system is the type of society and economic system postulated to emerge from technological advances in the productive forces, representing the ultimate goal of the political ideology of co ...
, their general trend towards increasing
authoritarianism Authoritarianism is a political system characterized by the rejection of political plurality, the use of strong central power to preserve the political ''status quo'', and reductions in the rule of law, separation of powers, and democratic voti ...
and the inherent inefficiencies in their economies has been linked to the decline of communism in the late 20th century.
Walter Scheidel Walter Scheidel (born 9 July 1966) is an Austrian historian who teaches ancient history at Stanford University, California. Scheidel's main research interests are ancient social and economic history, pre-modern historical demography, and com ...
stated that despite wide-reaching government actions, Communist states failed to achieve long-term economic, social and political success. The experience of the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the
North Korean famine The North Korean Famine (), also known as the Arduous March or the March of Suffering (), was a period of mass starvation together with a general economic crisis from 1994 to 1998 in North Korea. During this time there was an increase in defec ...
, and alleged economic underperformance when compared to developed free market systems are cited as examples of Communist states failing to build a successful state while relying entirely on what they view as ''orthodox Marxism''. Despite those shortcomings, stated that there was a general increase in the standard of living throughout Eastern Bloc countries as the result of modernization programs under Communist governments. Branko Milanović wrote that following the end of the Cold War, many of those countries' economies declined to such an extent during the transition to capitalism that they have yet to return to the point they were prior to the collapse of communism. Most experts agree there was a significant increase in mortality rates following the years 1989 and 1991, including a 2014 World Health Organization report which concluded that the "health of people in the former Soviet countries deteriorated dramatically after the collapse of the Soviet Union." Post-Communist Russia during the IMF-backed economic reforms of Boris Yeltsin experienced surging economic inequality and poverty as unemployment reached double digits by the early to mid 1990s. By contrast, the Central European states of the former Eastern Bloc–Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia–showed healthy increases in life expectancy from the 1990s onward, compared to nearly thirty years of stagnation under Communism. Bulgaria and Romania followed this trend after the introduction of more serious economic reforms in the late 1990s. The economies of Eastern Bloc countries had previously experienced stagnation in the 1980s under Communism. A common expression throughout Eastern Europe after 1989 was "everything they told us about communism was a lie, but everything they told us about capitalism was true." According to Grigore Pop-Eleches and Joshua Tucker in their book ''Communism's Shadow: Historical Legacies and Contemporary Political Attitudes'', citizens of post-Communist countries are less supportive of democracy and more supportive of government-provided social welfare. They also found that those who lived under Communist rule were more likely to be "left-authoritarian" than citizens of other countries. Those who are "left-authoritarian" more often tend to be older generations that lived under Communism. In contrast, younger post-Communist generations continue to be anti-democratic, but they are not as left-wing ideologically, which "might help explain the growing popularity of
right-wing populists Right-wing populism, also called national populism and right-wing nationalism, is a political ideology that combines right-wing politics and populist rhetoric and themes. Its rhetoric employs anti- elitist sentiments, opposition to the Est ...
in the region."
Conservatives Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization in ...
, liberals, and
social democrats Social democracy is a political, social, and economic philosophy within socialism that supports political and economic democracy. As a policy regime, it is described by academics as advocating economic and social interventions to promote so ...
all view 20th-century Communist states as unqualified failures. Political theorist and professor Jodi Dean argues that this limits the scope of discussion around political alternatives to capitalism and neoliberalism. Dean argues that, when people think of capitalism, they do not consider what are its worst results ( climate change, economic inequality,
hyperinflation In economics, hyperinflation is a very high and typically accelerating inflation. It quickly erodes the real value of the local currency, as the prices of all goods increase. This causes people to minimize their holdings in that currency as t ...
, the Great Depression, the Great Recession, the robber barons, and unemployment) because the
history of capitalism The history of capitalism is diverse and the concept of capitalism has many debated roots. The history of the past 500 years is concerned with the development of capitalism in its various forms. Capital accumulated by a variety of methods, at a v ...
is viewed as dynamic and nuanced; the history of communism is not considered dynamic or nuanced, and there is a fixed historical narrative of communism that emphasizes
authoritarianism Authoritarianism is a political system characterized by the rejection of political plurality, the use of strong central power to preserve the political ''status quo'', and reductions in the rule of law, separation of powers, and democratic voti ...
, the
gulag The Gulag, an acronym for , , "chief administration of the camps". The original name given to the system of camps controlled by the GPU was the Main Administration of Corrective Labor Camps (, )., name=, group= was the government agency in ...
, starvation, and violence. Some historians, among them
Gary Gerstle Gary Gerstle (born 1954) is an American historian and academic. He is the Paul Mellon Professor of American History at the University of Cambridge, and a Fellow of Sidney Sussex College. Early life Gary Gerstle received his BA from Brown Univers ...
and
Walter Scheidel Walter Scheidel (born 9 July 1966) is an Austrian historian who teaches ancient history at Stanford University, California. Scheidel's main research interests are ancient social and economic history, pre-modern historical demography, and com ...
, suggest that the rise and fall of communism had a significant impacts on the development and decline of labor movements and social welfare states in the United States and other Western societies. Gerstle argues that organized labor in the US was strongest when the threat of communism reached its peak, and the decline of both organized labor and the welfare state coincided with the collapse of communism. Both Gerstle and Scheidel posit that as economic elites in the West became more fearful of possible communist revolutions in their own societies, especially as the tyranny and violence associated with communist governments became more apparent, the more willing they were to compromise and collaborate with the working class, and much less so once the threat waned.


See also

* ''
American Communist History ''American Communist History'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal published by Routledge on behalf of the Historians of American Communism. It covers research on the historical impact of Communism in the United States. The journal wa ...
'' * Anti anti-communism *
Commons-based peer production Commons-based peer production (CBPP) is a term coined by Harvard Law School professor Yochai Benkler. It describes a model of socio-economic production in which large numbers of people work cooperatively; usually over the Internet. Commons-based ...
* Communism by country *
Crimes against humanity under communist regimes Crimes against humanity under communist regimes occurred during the 20th century, including forced deportations, massacres, torture, forced disappearances, extrajudicial killings, terror,Kemp-Welch, p. 42. ethnic cleansing, enslavement and t ...
*
Criticism of communist party rule The actions by governments of communist states have been subject to criticism across the political spectrum. According to the critics, the rule by communist parties leads to totalitarianism, political repression, restrictions of human rights ...
* Criticism of Marxism *
Crypto-communism Crypto-communism (or cryptocommunism) is a secret support for, or admiration of, communism. Individuals and groups have been labelled as crypto-communists, often as a result of being associated with, or influenced by communists. Crypto-communism a ...
*
List of communist parties There are a number of communist parties active in various countries across the world and a number that used to be active. They differ not only in method, but also in strict ideology and interpretation, although they are generally within the tradi ...
* Outline of Marxism *
Post-scarcity economy Post-scarcity is a theoretical economic situation in which most goods can be produced in great abundance with minimal human labor needed, so that they become available to all very cheaply or even freely. Post-scarcity does not mean that scarc ...
* Sociocultural evolution * ''
Twentieth Century Communism ''Twentieth Century Communism'' is a bi-annual peer-reviewed academic journal for "an international forum for the latest research" focusing on the "Russian revolution (1917–1991) and on the activities of communist parties themselves" but extendin ...
''


Notes


Citations


Quotes


References


Bibliography


Further reading

* * * * * * * . Historiographical essay that covers the scholarship of the three major schools: totalitarianism, revisionism, and post-revisionism. * * .
PDF version
* * * * * * * * * . (print). * * * * * * * * * * *


External links

* Retrieved 18 August 2021.
"Communism"
''Encyclopædia Britannica Online''. Retrieved 18 August 2021.
Libertarian Communist Library
at Libcom.org contains almost 20,000 articles, books, pamphlets, and journals on libertarian communism. . Retrieved 18 August 2021. One example bein
"Marx on the Russian Mir, and misconceptions by Marxists"
* Retrieved 18 August 2021.

at the Library of Congress contains materials on the topic of communism. Retrieved 18 August 2021. * See als
"The True Levellers Standard Advanced: Or, The State of Community Opened, and Presented to the Sons of Men"
from
Kingston University London Kingston University London is a Public university, public research university located within the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames, in South London, South West London, England. Its roots go back to the Kingston Technical Institute, founded in 1 ...
's Faculty of Business and Social Sciences at Marxists Internet Archive. Retrieved 18 August 2021. {{authority control 1770s neologisms Anarcho-communism Anti-capitalism Anti-fascism Economic ideologies Left-wing ideologies Marxism–Leninism Political ideologies Political culture Social anarchism Socialism