What is Communism?
Communism is the idea of a society without social classes, where the means of production, such as land, factories and resources, are owned in common. In its classic form, goods would be distributed by the principle 'from each according to ability, to each according to needs'. The word also refers to the political movements and parties that worked toward this goal, and to the states they governed in the twentieth century. Communism is closely linked to Marxism, though the idea of common ownership is older than Marx. Its supporters, opponents and historians often disagree on how far the states that used the name reflected the original idea.
Core beliefs
- Private ownership of the means of production creates class division and exploitation.
- Property should be held in common by society as a whole.
- Production should meet human needs rather than create profit.
- Workers in all countries share common interests.
- In the final stage, social classes and the state itself would disappear.
History
Ideas of shared property appear in Plato's Republic, in some early Christian communities and in Thomas More's Utopia. In the nineteenth century, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels gave the term its modern meaning in The Communist Manifesto (1848). Marx distinguished a lower stage, often called socialism, from a higher stage of full communism. After the Russian Revolution of 1917, communist parties formed around the world and joined the Communist International. Following the Second World War, communist parties governed the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, China, North Korea, Vietnam and Cuba. Most communist governments in Europe ended between 1989 and 1991.
Variants
Marxism-Leninism, the doctrine of the Soviet Union, became the most widespread form. Maoism and Trotskyism grew from it with different emphases. Council communism and left communism favored rule by workers' councils over a single party. Anarchist communism, associated with Peter Kropotkin, rejects the state entirely. Eurocommunism, which developed in Western Europe in the 1970s, accepted multiparty democracy. Some religious and utopian communities have also practiced shared property on a small scale.
Criticisms
Liberal and conservative critics argue that communist states produced one-party rule, censorship and mass repression, including the Soviet purges of the 1930s and the famine of China's Great Leap Forward. Free-market economists such as Friedrich Hayek argued that without market prices, planners cannot coordinate a complex economy. Critics on the left, especially anarchists and some democratic socialists, argue that the communist states betrayed the original goal by creating new ruling elites. Defenders reply that these states did not reach communism as Marx described it.
In practice
During the Cold War, communist governments nationalized industry, collectivized agriculture and expanded literacy and basic health care, with very different results across countries. Today, China, Vietnam, Cuba, Laos and North Korea are ruled by communist parties, though most have adopted market reforms. In many democracies, communist parties take part in elections and some have joined coalition governments. Communist ideas also shaped trade unions, anti-colonial movements and debates about public ownership in countries that never had communist governments.