Communism

Not to be confused with Communalism or Communitarianism.

For other uses, see Communism (disambiguation).

Communism (from Latin communis 'common, universal') is a political and economic ideology whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a socioeconomic classless order centered on common ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange that allocates products in society based on need. A communist society entails the absence of private property and social classes, and ultimately money and the state.

Communists often seek a voluntary state of self-governance but disagree on the means to this end. This reflects a distinction between a libertarian socialist approach of communization, revolutionary spontaneity, and workers' self-management, and an authoritarian socialist, vanguardist, or party-driven approach to establish a socialist state, which is expected to wither away.

There are many variants of communism, such as anarchist communism, Marxist schools of thought (including Leninism and its offshoots), and religious communism. These ideologies share the analysis that the current order of society stems from the capitalist economic system and mode of production; they believe that there are two major social classes under capitalism, that the relationship between them is exploitative, and that it can only be resolved through social revolution. The two classes under capitalism are the proletariat (working class), who make up most of the population and sell their labor power to survive, and the bourgeoisie (owning class), a minority that derives profit from employing the proletariat through private ownership of the means of production. Some variants additionally emphasize feudal classes, such as the peasantry and feudal lords, or other classes. According to this, a communist revolution would put the working class in power, and establish common ownership of property, the primary element in the transformation of society towards a socialist mode of production.

Communism in its modern form grew out of the socialist movement in 19th-century Europe that argued capitalism caused the misery of urban factory workers. In 1848, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels offered a new definition of communism in The Communist Manifesto. In the 20th century, Communist governments espousing Marxism–Leninism came to power, first in the Soviet Union with the 1917 Russian Revolution, then in Eastern Europe, Asia, and other regions after World War II. By the 1920s, communism had become one of the two dominant types of socialism in the world, the other being social democracy. Communist parties have been described as radical left or far-left.

For much of the 20th century, more than one-third of the world's population lived under Communist governments. These were characterized by one-party rule, rejection of private property and capitalism, state control of economic activity and mass media, restrictions on freedom of religion, and suppression of opposition. With the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, many governments abolished Communist rule. Only a few nominally Communist governments remain, such as China, Cuba, Laos, North Korea, and Vietnam. Except for North Korea, these have allowed more economic competition while maintaining one-party rule. Communism's decline has been attributed to economic inefficiency and to authoritarianism and bureaucracy within Communist governments.

Although the emergence of the Soviet Union as the first state based on Marxism–Leninism led to socialism becoming widely associated with the Soviet economic model, several scholars argue that in practice this model functioned as a form of state capitalism. Public memory of 20th-century Marxist-Leninist states has been described as a battleground between anti-communism and anti anti-communism. Authors have written about mass killings under communist regimes and mortality rates, which remain controversial, polarized, and debated topics in academia, historiography, and politics when discussing communism and the legacy of Marxist-Leninist states. From the 1990s, many Communist parties adopted democratic principles and came to share power with others in government, such as the CPN UML and the Nepal Communist Party, which support People's Multiparty Democracy in Nepal.

Etymology and terminology

Communism derives from the French word communisme, a combination of the Latin word communis (which literally means common) and the suffix ‑isme (an act, practice, or process of doing something). Semantically, communis 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. 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 to designate various social situations. After 1848, communism came to be primarily associated with Marxism, most specifically embodied in The Communist Manifesto, 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 auteur communiste ("communist author"). In 1793, Restif first used communisme 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, the term communism has usually been distinguished from socialism. The modern definition and usage of the term socialism was settled by the 1860s, becoming predominant over alternative terms such as associationism (Fourierism), mutualism, or co-operative, which had previously been used as synonyms. Meanwhile, the term communism fell out of use during this period.

An early distinction between communism and socialism was that the latter aimed to only socialize production, whereas the former aimed to socialize both production and consumption (in the form of common access to final goods). 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". 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.

In 19th century Europe, the use of the terms communism and socialism eventually accorded with the cultural attitude of adherents and opponents towards religion. 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 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 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.

By 1888, Marxists employed the term 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 be used to refer to a distinct stage between capitalism and communism. This intermediate stage was a concept 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. A distinction between communist and socialist as descriptors of political ideologies arose in 1918 after the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party renamed itself as the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, which resulted in the adjective Communist being used to refer to socialists who supported the politics and theories of Bolshevism, Leninism, and later in the 1920s those of Marxism–Leninism. In spite of this common usage, Communist parties also continued to describe themselves as socialists dedicated to socialism.

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

The hammer and sickle is a common theme of communist symbolism. This is an example of a hammer and sickle and red star design from the flag of the Soviet Union.

In the United States, communism is widely used as a pejorative term as part of a Red Scare, much like socialism, and mainly in reference to authoritarian socialism and Communist states. The emergence of the Soviet Union as the world's first Communist state led to the term's widespread association with Marxism–Leninist and the Soviet-type economic planning model. In his essay "Judging Nazism and Communism", Martin Malia defines a "generic Communism" category as any Communist political party 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 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 socialist states themselves did not describe themselves as communist or claim to have achieved communism; they referred to themselves as being a socialist state that is 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

Main article: History of communism

Early communism

Further information: Pre-Marxist communism, Primitive communism, Religious communism, Scientific socialism, and Utopian socialism

According to Richard Pipes, the idea of a classless, egalitarian society first emerged in ancient Greece. Since the 20th century, ancient Rome has been examined in this context, as well as thinkers such as Aristotle, Cicero, Demosthenes, Plato, and Tacitus. Plato, in particular, has been considered 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, 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.

In the medieval Christian Church, some monastic communities and religious orders shared their land and their other property. Sects deemed heretical such as the Waldensians preached an early form of Christian communism. As summarized by historians Janzen Rod and Max Stanton, the Hutterites believed in strict adherence to biblical principles, church discipline, and practised a form of communism. In their words, 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 Marx's early writings; Marx stated that "[a]s 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 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 Marxist communist ethos that aims for unity reflects the Christian universalist teaching that humankind is one and that there is only one god who does not discriminate among people.