Marxist Marxism is a political philosophy and method of socioeconomic analysis. It uses a dialectical and materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to analyse class relations, social conflic ...

thought, a communist society or the communist system is the type of

society A society () is a group of individuals involved in persistent social interaction or a large social group sharing the same spatial or social territory, typically subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations. ...

and

economic system An economic system, or economic order, is a system of production, resource allocation and distribution of goods and services within an economy. It includes the combination of the various institutions, agencies, entities, decision-making proces ...

postulated to emerge from technological advances in the

productive forces Productive forces, productive powers, or forces of production ( German: ''Produktivkräfte'') is a central idea in Marxism and historical materialism. In Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels' own critique of political economy, it refers to the combin ...

, representing the ultimate goal of the political ideology of

communism Communism () is a political sociology, sociopolitical, political philosophy, philosophical, and economic ideology, economic ideology within the history of socialism, socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a ...

. A communist society is characterized by

common ownership Common ownership refers to holding the assets of an organization, enterprise, or community indivisibly rather than in the names of the individual members or groups of members as common property. Forms of common ownership exist in every economi ...

of the

means of production In political philosophy, the means of production refers to the generally necessary assets and resources that enable a society to engage in production. While the exact resources encompassed in the term may vary, it is widely agreed to include the ...

with free access to the articles of consumption and is classless, stateless, and moneyless, implying the end of the

exploitation of labour Exploitation is a concept defined as, in its broadest sense, one agent taking unfair advantage of another agent. When applying this to labour (or labor), it denotes an unjust social relationship based on an asymmetry of power or unequal exchange ...

.'' Critique of the Gotha Program'', Karl Marx. Communism is a specific stage of socioeconomic development predicated upon a superabundance of material wealth, which is postulated to arise from advances in production technology and corresponding changes in the social

relations of production Relations of production () is a concept frequently used by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in their theory of historical materialism and in ''Das Kapital''. It is first explicitly used in Marx's published book '' The Poverty of Philosophy'', al ...

. This would allow for distribution based on needs and social relations based on freely-associated individuals. The term communist society should be distinguished from the Western concept of the

communist state A communist state, also known as a Marxist–Leninist state, is a one-party state in which the totality of the power belongs to a party adhering to some form of Marxism–Leninism, a branch of the communist ideology. Marxism–Leninism was ...

, the latter referring to a state ruled by a party which professes a variation of

Marxism–Leninism Marxism–Leninism () is a communist ideology that became the largest faction of the History of communism, communist movement in the world in the years following the October Revolution. It was the predominant ideology of most communist gov ...

. Xue Muqiao wrote that within the

socialist mode of production The socialist mode of production, also known as socialism or communism, is a specific historical phase of economic development and its corresponding set of social relations that emerge from capitalism in the schema of historical materialism wit ...

there were several phases. Su Shaozhi and Feng Langrui article created two subdivisions within the socialist mode of production; the first phase was the transition from the capitalist mode of production to the socialist mode of production—the phase in which the proletariat seized power and set-up the dictatorship of the proletariat and in which undeveloped socialism was created. The second phase was advanced socialism; the socialism that Marx wrote about. The notion that socialism and Communism are distinct historical stages is alien to Karl Marx's work and only entered the lexicon of

Marxism Marxism is a political philosophy and method of socioeconomic analysis. It uses a dialectical and materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to analyse class relations, social conflict, ...

after his death. It is said that Karl Marx distinguishes between two phases of marketless communism: an initial phase, with labor vouchers, and a higher phase, with free access.

Economic aspects

A communist economic system would be characterized by advanced productive technology that enables material abundance, which in turn would enable the free distribution of most or all economic output and the holding of the means of producing this output in common. In this respect communism is differentiated from

socialism Socialism is an economic ideology, economic and political philosophy encompassing diverse Economic system, economic and social systems characterised by social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to private ownership. It describes ...

, which, out of economic necessity, restricts access to articles of consumption and services based on one's contribution. In further contrast to previous economic systems, communism would be characterized by the holding of natural resources and the means of production in common as opposed to them being privately owned (as in the case of

capitalism Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their use for the purpose of obtaining profit. This socioeconomic system has developed historically through several stages and is defined by ...

) or owned by public or cooperative organizations that similarly restrict their access (as in the case of socialism). In this sense, communism involves the "negation of property" insofar as there would be little economic rationale for exclusive control over production assets in an environment of material abundance. The fully developed communist economic system is postulated to develop from a preceding socialist system. Marx held the view that socialism—a system based on

social ownership Social ownership is a type of property where an asset is recognized to be in the possession of society as a whole rather than individual members or groups within it. Social ownership of the means of production is the defining characteristic of ...

of the means of production—would enable progress toward the development of fully developed communism by further advancing productive technology. Under socialism, with its increasing levels of automation, an increasing proportion of goods would be distributed freely.

Social aspects

Individuality, freedom and creativity

A communist society would free individuals from long working hours by first automating production to an extent that the average length of the working day is reduced and second by eliminating the exploitation inherent in the division between workers and owners. A communist system would thus free individuals from alienation in the sense of having one's life structured around survival (making a wage or salary in a capitalist system), which

Karl Marx Karl Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, political theorist, economist, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. He is best-known for the 1848 pamphlet '' The Communist Manifesto'' (written with Friedrich Engels) ...

referred to as a transition from the "realm of necessity" to the "realm of freedom". As a result, a communist society is envisioned as being composed of an intellectually-inclined population with both the time and resources to pursue its creative hobbies and genuine interests, and to contribute to creative social wealth in this manner. Marx considered "true richness" to be the amount of time one has at his disposal to pursue one's creative passions. Marx's notion of communism is in this way radically individualistic. Marx's concept of the "realm of freedom" goes hand-in-hand with his idea of the ending of the

division of labor The division of labour is the separation of the tasks in any economic system or organisation so that participants may specialise (Departmentalization, specialisation). Individuals, organisations, and nations are endowed with or acquire specialis ...

, which would not be required in a society with highly automated production and limited work roles. In a communist society, economic necessity and relations would cease to determine cultural and social relations. As

scarcity In economics, scarcity "refers to the basic fact of life that there exists only a finite amount of human and nonhuman resources which the best technical knowledge is capable of using to produce only limited maximum amounts of each economic good. ...

is eliminated, alienated labor would cease and people would be free to pursue their individual goals. Additionally, it is believed that the principle of "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" could be fulfilled due to scarcity being non-existent.

Politics, law and governance

Marx and Engels maintained that a communist society would have no need for the state as it exists in contemporary capitalist society. The capitalist state mainly exists to enforce hierarchical economic relations, to enforce the exclusive control of property, and to regulate capitalistic economic activities—all of which would be non-applicable to a communist system. Engels noted that in a socialist system the primary function of public institutions will shift from being about the creation of laws and the control of people into a technical role as an administrator of technical production processes, with a decrease in the scope of traditional politics as scientific administration overtakes the role of political decision-making. Communist society is characterized by democratic processes, not merely in the sense of electoral democracy, but in the broader sense of open and collaborative social and workplace environments. Marx never clearly specified whether or not he thought a communist society would be just; other thinkers have speculated that he thought communism would transcend justice and create society without conflicts, thus, without the needs for rules of justice.. First published Tue Aug 26, 2003; substantive revision Mon Jun 14, 2010. Accessed March 4, 2011.

Transitional stages

Marx also wrote that between

capitalist Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their use for the purpose of obtaining profit. This socioeconomic system has developed historically through several stages and is defined by ...

and communist society, there would be a transitory period known as the dictatorship of the proletariat. During this preceding phase of societal development, capitalist economic relationships would gradually be abolished and replaced with socialism. Natural resources would become

public property Public property is property that is dedicated to public use. The term may be used either to describe the use to which the property is put, or to describe the character of its ownership (owned collectively by the population of a state). State own ...

, while all manufacturing centers and workplaces would become socially owned and democratically managed. Production would be organized by scientific assessment and

planning Planning is the process of thinking regarding the activities required to achieve a desired goal. Planning is based on foresight, the fundamental capacity for mental time travel. Some researchers regard the evolution of forethought - the cap ...

, thus eliminating what Marx called the "anarchy in production". The development of the productive forces would lead to the marginalization of human labor to the highest possible extent, to be gradually replaced by automated labor.

In Soviet ideology

The communist economic system was officially enumerated as the ultimate goal of the

Communist Party of the Soviet Union The Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU),. Abbreviated in Russian as КПСС, ''KPSS''. at some points known as the Russian Communist Party (RCP), All-Union Communist Party and Bolshevik Party, and sometimes referred to as the Soviet ...

in its party platform. According to the 1986 Programme of the CPSU: In

Vladimir Lenin Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov ( 187021 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin, was a Russian revolutionary, politician and political theorist. He was the first head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 until Death and state funeral of ...

's political theory, a classless society would be a society controlled by the direct producers, organized to produce according to socially managed goals. Such a society, Lenin suggested, would develop habits that would gradually make political representation unnecessary, as the radically democratic nature of the Soviets would lead citizens to come to agree with the representatives' style of management. Only in this environment, Lenin suggested, could the state wither away, ushering in a period of stateless communism. In

Soviet ideology Before the perestroika reforms of Mikhail Gorbachev that promoted a more liberal form of socialism, the formal ideology of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) was Marxism–Leninism, a form of socialism consisting of a Centralisa ...

, Marx's concepts of the "lower and higher phases of communism" articulated in the '' Critique of the Gotha Program'' were reformulated as the stages of "socialism" and "communism". The Soviet state claimed to have begun the phase of "socialist construction" during the implementation of the first Five-Year Plans during the 1930s, which introduced a centrally planned, nationalized/collectivized economy. The 1962 Program of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, published under the leadership of

Nikita Khrushchev Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (– 11 September 1971) was the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and the Premier of the Soviet Union, Chai ...

, claimed that socialism had been firmly established in the USSR, and that the state would now progress to the "full-scale construction of communism", although this may be understood to refer to the "technical foundations" of communism more so than the withering away of the state and the division of labor per se. However, even in the final edition of its program before the party's dissolution, the CPSU did not claim to have fully established communism, instead claiming that the society was undergoing a very slow and gradual process of transition.

Fictional portrayals

Several works of utopian fiction have portrayed versions of a communist society. Some examples include: '' Assemblywomen'' (391 BC) by

Aristophanes Aristophanes (; ; ) was an Ancient Greece, Ancient Greek Ancient Greek comedy, comic playwright from Classical Athens, Athens. He wrote in total forty plays, of which eleven survive virtually complete today. The majority of his surviving play ...

, an early piece of utopian satire which mocks Athenian democracy's excesses through the story of the Athenian women taking control of the government and instituting a proto-communist

utopia A utopia ( ) typically describes an imagined community or society that possesses highly desirable or near-perfect qualities for its members. It was coined by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book ''Utopia (book), Utopia'', which describes a fictiona ...

; '' The Law of Freedom in a Platform'' (1652) by Gerrard Winstanley, a radical communist vision of an ideal state; ''

News from Nowhere ''News from Nowhere'' is an 1890 classic work combining utopian socialism and soft science fiction written by the artist, designer and socialist pioneer William Morris. It was first published in serial form in the ''Commonweal (UK), Commonwea ...

'' (1892) by

William Morris William Morris (24 March 1834 – 3 October 1896) was an English textile designer, poet, artist, writer, and socialist activist associated with the British Arts and Crafts movement. He was a major contributor to the revival of traditiona ...

, describing a future society based on common ownership and democratic control of the means of production; ''

Red Star A red star, five-pointed and filled, is a symbol that has often historically been associated with communist ideology, particularly in combination with the hammer and sickle, but is also used as a purely socialist symbol in the 21st century. ...

'' (1908, Russian: Красная звезда), Alexander Bogdanov's 1908

science fiction Science fiction (often shortened to sci-fi or abbreviated SF) is a genre of speculative fiction that deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts. These concepts may include information technology and robotics, biological manipulations, space ...

novel about a communist society on

Mars Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun. It is also known as the "Red Planet", because of its orange-red appearance. Mars is a desert-like rocky planet with a tenuous carbon dioxide () atmosphere. At the average surface level the atmosph ...

; and '' The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia'' (1974) by

Ursula K. Le Guin Ursula Kroeber Le Guin ( ; Kroeber; October 21, 1929 – January 22, 2018) was an American author. She is best known for her works of speculative fiction, including science fiction works set in her Hainish universe, and the ''Earthsea'' fantas ...

, set between a pair of planets: one that like Earth today is dominated by private property, nation states, gender hierarchy, and war, and the other an anarchist society without private property. The economy and society of the

United Federation of Planets In the fictional universe of ''Star Trek'', the United Federation of Planets (UFP) is the interstellar government with which, as part of its space force Starfleet, most of the characters and starships of the franchise are affiliated. Commonly re ...

in the ''

Star Trek ''Star Trek'' is an American science fiction media franchise created by Gene Roddenberry, which began with the Star Trek: The Original Series, series of the same name and became a worldwide Popular culture, pop-culture Cultural influence of ...

'' franchise has been described as a communist society where material scarcity has been eliminated due to the wide availability of replicator technology that enables free distribution of output, where there is no need for money. '' The Culture'' novels by Iain M Banks are centered on a communist

post-scarcity economy Post-scarcity is a theoretical economic situation in which most goods can be produced in great abundance with minimal human labor, so that they become available to all very cheaply or even freely. Post-scarcity does not mean that scarcity ha ...

where technology is advanced to such a degree that all production is automated, and there is no use for money or property (aside from personal possessions with sentimental value). Humans in the Culture are free to pursue their own interests in an open and socially-permissive society. The society has been described by some commentators as "communist-bloc" or " anarcho-communist". Banks' close friend and fellow science fiction writer Ken MacLeod has said that The Culture can be seen as a realization of Marx's communism, but adds that "however friendly he was to the radical left, Iain had little interest in relating the long-range possibility of utopia to radical politics in the here and now. As he saw it, what mattered was to keep the utopian possibility open by continuing technological progress, especially space development, and in the meantime to support whatever policies and politics in the real world were rational and humane."

References

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