What Is Communism? Learn Its History, Pros, and Cons

What Is Communism? Its History, Pros, and Cons: Communism is a classless, stateless system of society based on mutual ownership of the resources of production. It can be considered an element of the socialist movement as a whole. Marxists frequently referred to one of the primordial forms of individual and social structure as “primitive communism.” However, communism as a political ideology tends to be an imagined vision of future social order. Self-described communists embrace an extensive variety of ideologies, including the more common left-leaning currents of Maoism, Trotskyism, council communism, Luxemburgism, anarchist communism, and Christian communism.

Karl Marx believed that society could not be converted from the capitalist to the communist modes of production all at once, but instead required a transitional period known as the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat. Marx’s vision of a communist society emerging from capitalism was never realized, and it remains theoretical; Marx, in fact, said very little about what a communist society would actually look like. However, the term “Communism,” especially when capitalized, is frequently used to refer to the political and economic regimes of communist parties that aspired to embody proletarian dictatorship.

Early Communism

According to Karl Marx, the genesis of modern communism was the hunter-gatherer stage of humanity. According to Marx, private property didn’t emerge until after humanity was able to produce a surplus.

The concept of a society based on shared property ownership has roots in Western philosophy that date back to antiquity. The Republic, written by Plato in the fourth century BCE, explores the idea of the ruling class sharing property. Thomas More, an English writer who lived in the 16th century, is also credited with influencing communist ideas. More described a society based on shared property ownership, with its rulers managing it by using reason, in his work Utopia (1516). There is some evidence that communist ideas returned to England in the 17th century. Several social reformers established common ownership communities in the early 19th century. However, they replaced the religious emphasis with a logical and charitable foundation, unlike many earlier communist societies. The wave of socialist revolutions in Europe throughout the 19th century gave rise to communism in its current state. As the Industrial Revolution gained momentum, socialist skeptics held capitalism responsible for the suffering of the proletariat—a new class of impoverished, urban factory workers who endured frequently dangerous working conditions.

Emergence of Modern Communism

Marxism

Marx and Engels aspired to abolish capitalism and the mechanisms they believed were to blame for the exploitation of workers, like other socialists. But unlike earlier socialists, who frequently supported longer-term social reform, Marx and Engels held that the only way to socialism was through popular revolt. Marxist proponents of communism contend that alienation is the primary attribute of existence in class society and that communism is preferable because it involves the full realization of human freedom. According to Marxism, a process of class conflict and revolutionary struggle will lead to the proletariat’s victory and the construction of a communist society in which private ownership is eventually eliminated and the means of production and subsistence belong to the people.

The phrases “socialism” and “communism” were frequently used synonymously in the late 19th century. Marx and Engels claimed that communism would not grow fully from capitalism; rather, it would go through a “first phase” during which most productive property would be owned collectively, while there would still be some class distinctions. Eventually, the “first phase” would give way to a “higher phase” in which there would no longer be a need for a state, and class distinctions would be abolished. Lenin frequently used the terms “socialism” and “communism” interchangeably to describe Marx and Engels’ purported “first phase” of communism and the purported “higher phase” of communism.

Leninism

Leninism is a political philosophy put out by Russian Marxist revolutionary Vladimir Lenin that advocates the construction of a proletariat dictatorship, headed by a revolutionary vanguard party, as a necessary political step before communism can be established. In order to overthrow capitalism in the Russian Empire (1721–1917), the Leninist Vanguard party’s role is to give the working masses the political consciousness (education and organization) and revolutionary leadership they need.

The Communist Manifesto (1848) establishes 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.” The Bolsheviks, as the vanguard party, viewed history through the theoretical framework of dialectical materialism, which sanctioned political commitment to the successful overthrow of capitalism, followed by the establishment of socialism; and as the revolutionary national government, to realize the socio-economic transition by any means.

Other Communists

Some of Marx’s contemporaries advocated similar concepts, but they had different ideas about how to achieve a society without classes. The International Workers Association was established by anarchists as a result of the division within the First International between supporters of Marx and Mikhail Bakunin. The state and capitalism, according to anarchists, cannot be abolished separately because they are interdependent. Peter Kropotkin and other anarcho-communists predicted a swift shift to a society without classes. One of the most popular types of anarchist organization was anarcho-syndicalism, which promoted labor unions as having more power over society than Communist parties. As a result, many anarchists continue to oppose Marxist communism today.

Growth of Modern Communism

The 1917 October Revolution in Russia was the first time that a party with an avowedly Marxist perspective, in this case, the Bolshevik Party, took national power. The Bolsheviks’ takeover of state power sparked intense practical and theoretical discussion within the Marxist movement. Marx believed that the most advanced capitalist development would lay the groundwork for socialism and communism. Russia, on the other hand, was one of Europe’s poorest countries, with a vast, largely illiterate peasantry and a minority of industrial workers.

The Bolsheviks’ successful rise to power was built on the slogans “peace, bread, and land” and “All power to the Soviets,” which tapped into the massive public desire to end Russian involvement in World War I, the peasants’ demand for land reform, and popular support for the Soviets. During the Russian Civil War (1918-1922), the Bolsheviks seized all productive property and implemented a program of “war communism,” which put factories and railroads under strict government control, collected and rationed food, and established some bourgeois industrial management.

After three years of war and the Kronstadt revolt in 1921, Lenin established the New Economic Policy (NEP), which promised capitalism a “limited place for a limited time.” The NEP lasted until 1928 when it was brought to an end by Joseph Stalin’s personal struggle for control and the implementation of the first Five Year Plan. Following the Russian Civil War, the Bolsheviks merged the former Russian Empire into the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), or Soviet Union, in 1922.

Communist States

It is common to refer to the Soviet Union and China (governed by communist parties) as “communist states” with “state socialist” economic foundations. By abolishing private control of the means of production and establishing state control of the economy, they claim to have achieved part of the socialist program. However, they do not claim to be truly communist because they have not established communal ownership of property.

Various Ideologies of Communism

Stalinism

Stalinism represents Stalin’s governance style as opposed to Marxism-Leninism, the socioeconomic system and political ideology implemented by Stalin in the Soviet Union and later adopted by other states based on the ideological Soviet model, such as central planning, nationalization, and one-party state, as well as public ownership of the means of production, accelerated industrialization, and pro-active development of society’s productive forces (research and development). Marxism-Leninism survived de-Stalinization, but Stalinism did not. In his final letters before his death, Lenin cautioned the Soviet Union about the dangers of Stalin’s personality and encouraged it to replace him. The Soviet Communist Party referred to its own ideology as Marxism-Leninism-Stalinism until Joseph Stalin’s death in 1953.

Trotskyism

Trotskyism, founded by Leon Trotsky in opposition to Stalinism, is a Marxist and Leninist tendency that favors the doctrine of permanent revolution and world revolution over the two-stage theory and Stalin’s one-country socialism. It advocated for a new communist revolution in the Soviet Union as well as proletarian internationalism.

Rather than symbolizing proletarian dictatorship, Trotsky contended that under Stalin’s leadership, the Soviet Union had degraded into a degenerated workers’ state in which class relations had re-emerged in a new form. Trotsky’s beliefs were markedly different from those of Stalin and Mao, most notably in his declaration of the need for an international proletarian revolution—rather than socialism in one country—and his advocacy for a true proletarian dictatorship founded on democratic principles.

Maoism

Maoism is an ideology based on the ideas of Chinese political leader Mao Zedong. It was widely implemented as the guiding political and military doctrine of the Communist Party of China and as the theory directing revolutionary movements around the world from the 1950s until Deng Xiaoping Chinese economic reform in the 1970s. Peasants should be the bulwark of the revolutionary activity led by the working class, which is a significant difference between Maoism and other varieties of Marxism-Leninism. Revolutionary populism, practicality, and dialectics are three common Maoist principles.

Eurocommunism

A revisionist movement known as “Eurocommunism” claimed to have created a theory and method of social transformation that was better appropriate to Western Europe in the 1970s and 1980s. Communists of this kind attempted to lessen the influence of the Soviet Union and its All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) during the Cold War. They were particularly influential among the French Communist Party, Italian Communist Party, and Communist Party of Spain.

Libertarian Marxist Communism

A wide range of economic and political ideologies that place an emphasis on Marxism’s anti-authoritarian features make up libertarian Marxism. Early movements of left communism, or libertarian Marxism, opposed Marxism-Leninism and its offshoots, such as Stalinism, Trotskyism, and Maoism. Liberal Marxism also opposes reformist viewpoints, such as those of social democrats.

Cold War Years

As a result of the Soviet Union’s victory in World War II in 1945, the Soviet Army captured states in both Eastern Europe and East Asia, spreading communism as a movement to numerous new countries. This spread of communism in Europe and Asia gave rise to a few other branches, such as Maoism. The entry of many new nations within the zone of Soviet influence and strength in Eastern Europe greatly strengthened Communism. With Soviet aid, governments modelled on Soviet Communism took power in Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Poland, Hungary, and Romania.

Following World War II, Albania too became an independent Communist republic. By 1950, the Chinese Communists controlled the entire Mainland China, thereby ruling the world’s most populous nation. Other countries where rising Communist influence has caused discord and, in some cases, fighting include the Korean Peninsula, Laos, numerous Middle Eastern and African nations, and, especially, Vietnam. Communists strove, with varied degrees of success, to combine with nationalist and socialist forces against what they perceived as Western imperialism in poor countries.

Criticism of Communism

Marxism has drawn criticism from a range of political ideologies and academic fields. This includes general criticism of dogmatism in intellectual discourse, a lack of internal coherence, criticism of materialism (both philosophical and historical), claims that Marxism is a form of historical determinism or that it requires the suppression of individual rights, problems with the implementation of communism, and economic problems like the distorted or absent price signals and diminished incentives. Epistemological and empirical issues are commonly noted as well.

FAQs on What Is Communism? Learn Its History, Pros, and Cons

Q: What is Communism?

Answer:

Communism is a classless, stateless system of society based on mutual ownership of the resources of production. It can be considered an element of the socialist movement as a whole.

Q: Why did Communism fail?

Answer:

Many variables contributed to the failure of communism, including the lack of profit-motivation among citizens, the inefficiency of central planning, and the adverse outcomes of a small number of people gaining so much power and misusing it.

Q: Which nations still practice communism?

Answer:

In China, Cuba, Laos, North Korea, and Vietnam, communism is the recognized political system. Although these nations are essentially authoritarian in nature and adhere to some capitalist ideas, they do not fit Marx’s definition of the term.

Q: Give an example of Communism.

Answer:

A commune, where residents live side by side and share responsibilities and possessions, is an example of communism. Despite their propensity for being small, many of these communities are functional.

Q: What Are the Differences Between Socialism and Communism?

Answer:

Both communism and socialism support shared ownership, equality, and the empowerment of the working class. Socialism is thought to be a more moderate worldview, though. Contrary to communism, it supports gradual change over revolution and allows capitalism to continue to flourish in some sectors of the economy.