What is Communism?
Communism is the belief that private ownership of factories, land and other productive property should give way to common ownership. Its founders argued that capitalism divides people into owners and workers, and that workers would one day take control and end class divisions. In theory, the state would eventually fade away. In practice, communist parties that took power built strong one-party states. Communism therefore means two things: a long tradition of thought about equality and shared wealth, and the record of the governments that ruled in its name.
Core beliefs
- History is shaped by class struggle between owners and workers.
- Capitalism produces wealth but also exploitation and crisis.
- Productive property should be held in common, not by private owners.
- Workers should take political power, and a revolution may be needed to do it.
- A final stage of society would have no classes and no state, and goods would be shared by need.
- Religion and nationalism often serve the ruling class, so many communists reject them.
History
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels published The Communist Manifesto in 1848. Workers' parties grew in Europe in the following decades, and the Paris Commune of 1871 became a model for later revolutionaries. In 1917, Lenin and the Bolsheviks took power in Russia and founded the Soviet Union. Communist parties then formed around the world, and the Soviet Union, China, Eastern Europe, Cuba, Vietnam and others adopted the system after 1945. Communist rule brought mass literacy, industrial growth and, in some places, better health care. It also brought terror. In the Soviet Union, millions died in the famine of the early 1930s, and the secret police and the Gulag camps killed or imprisoned millions more. In China, the Great Leap Forward caused a famine in which tens of millions died. The Khmer Rouge killed about a fifth of Cambodia's people. Most European communist governments fell in 1989-1991.
Variants
The movement split early. Social democrats took a gradual route and are no longer called communists. Leninists favoured a disciplined party leading a revolution. Trotskyists opposed Stalin and called for world revolution. Maoists put the peasantry at the centre. Eurocommunists in Western Europe accepted elections in the 1970s. Council communists and libertarian communists, including anarcho-communists, rejected the party state altogether. Stalinism describes the rigid, terror-based rule that grew under Stalin, and many communists have condemned it.
Criticisms
Critics argue that central planning is inefficient and cannot match the signals of prices, which led to shortages and poor goods. They say one-party rule leaves nothing to check abuse, and that every ruling communist party used censorship, secret police and forced labour. They point to the deaths from famine, purges and executions. Defenders reply that these states were poor, were attacked from outside, and distorted Marx's ideas. Some say real communism has never been tried. Critics answer that the pattern repeated in too many countries to be an accident.
In practice
A few states still call themselves communist, including China, Vietnam, Laos, Cuba and North Korea. Most of them now allow markets or private firms to a large degree, and they differ widely in how open they are. Communist parties also exist in democratic countries, where they run in elections and sometimes join governments. On the 12 axes the mainstream movement scores very strongly toward Public on Ownership and toward Planned on Markets. It scores toward Secular on Religion, and above the middle toward Strong leader on Authority.