Communism (from Latin communis – common, universal)[1][2] is a socioeconomic system structured upon common ownership of the means of production and characterized by the absence of social classes, money,[3][4] and the state; as well as a social, political and economic ideology and movement that aims to establish this social order. The movement to develop communism, in its Marxist–Leninist interpretations, significantly influenced the history of the 20th century, which saw intense rivalry between the states which claimed to follow this ideology and their enemies.
Communism is most associated with Marxism, which considers itself the embodiment of scientific socialism. According to Marxism, capitalism is a historically necessary stage of society, which has led to the concentration of social classes into two major groups: proletariat - who must work to survive, and who make up a majority of society - and bourgeoisie - a minority who derive profit from employing the proletariat, through private ownership of the means of production. The political, social, and economic conflict between both groups (class struggle), each attempting to push their interests to their logical extreme, will lead into the capture of political power by the proletariat. Public ownership and management of the means of production by society will be established - this is known as socialism. As the development of the productive forces end scarcity, goods and services are made available on the basis of free access. This results in the disappearance of social classes and money.[5] Eventually, as the class struggle ends, the state ceases to be relevant and fades from recognition, as the social institutions for the collective self-management of the human community continue without it.[6] The result is communism: a stateless, classless and moneyless society, structured upon common ownership of the means of production.
Over Russia, there were hundreds of soviets; councils of workers which had the capability to act as a local government. The February Revolution had outed the Tsarist monarchy and established a provisional government. Half a million demonstrators called for transferring the power to the soviets in an event known as the July Days, but hundreds of peaceful demonstrators were murdered by the provisional government.[7] The October Revolution, led by Lenin and Trotsky, transferred power to the soviets, overthrowing the provisional government and making the Congress of Soviets as the governing body, composed of delegates elected by the soviets.[8][9][10] A majority of these soviets supported Lenin's Marxist Bolsheviks party. The Congress convened, and elected Lenin to the position of head of government.[11] This eventually resulted in the creation of the Soviet Union, with the aim of developing socialism and eventually communism. Lenin never claimed that the Soviet Union had achieved socialism; in fact, Lenin openly admitted that state capitalism was in place, but also stated that socialism was eventually going to be developed.[12][13]
Lenin's death led to a struggle for power between opposed factions, eventually resulting in the victory of Stalin, whose rule saw the elimination of any opposition. In his last days, Lenin had asked for Stalin to be removed from his position.[14] Stalin invented the term "Marxism-Leninism",[15] a promotional term designed to emphasize a professed adhererence to Marxism and Leninism (which is controversial) and a more accurate interpretation of these than other tendencies, which describes the political ideology Stalin implemented in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and, in a global scale, in the Comintern. Marxism-Leninism sets deviations from both Marxism and Leninism (such as the acceptance of "socialism in one country"[16][17][18]). There is no definite agreement between historians of about whether Stalin actually followed the principles of Marx and Lenin.[19] Marxism-Leninism is based on the creation of a single-party state[20] which has full control of the economy. According to Marxism-Leninism, the Soviet Union had achieved socialism and was on the way to communism; other communist tendencies disagree, some (of which some are Marxist, some others not) claiming that it had in fact established state capitalism,[21] and that socialism was not being developed but rather that its development was halted since the come to power of Stalin. To these tendencies, Marxism-Leninism is neither Marxism, Leninism, nor the union of both; but rather an artificial term created to justify Stalin's ideological distortion,[18] forced upon the CPSU and Comintern. In the Soviet Union, the struggle against Marxism-Leninism was led by the Left Opposition (with Trotsky as de facto leader). Trotskyism describes itself as a Marxist and Leninist tendency.
Marxism-Leninism was made into the official ideology of the Comintern, and exported to other countries. This body of thought formed the basis for the most clearly visible communist movement in the 20th century and, as such, in the Western world, the term "communism" came to refer to social movements and states associated with the Comintern. However, these states did not develop communism,[22] and the degree to which they had achieved socialism, if at all, is debated.
Saturday, October 18, 2014
Marxism-Leninism, Stalinism and Trotskyism
Marxism-Leninism, Stalinism and Trotskyism
Marxism-Leninism and Stalinism
Main articles: Marxism-Leninism and Stalinism
Marxism–Leninism is a political ideology developed by Stalin,[15] which according to its proponents is based in Marxism and Leninism. It is a promotional term, designed to emphasize a professed relationship to Marxism and Leninism, which is controversial. The term describes the specific political ideology which Stalin implemented in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and, in a global scale, in the Comintern. There is no definite agreement between historians of about whether Stalin actually followed the principles of Marx and Lenin.[19] It also contains deviations from both Marxism and Leninism, such as "socialism in one country".[16][17] Marxism–Leninism was the ideology of the most clearly visible communist movement. As such, it is the most prominent ideology associated with communism.
Marxism-Leninism refers to the socioeconomic system and political ideology implemented by Stalin in the Soviet Union and later copied by other states based on the Soviet model (central planning, single-party state, etc.), whereas Stalinism refers to Stalin's style of governance (political repression, cult of personality, etc.); Marxism-Leninism stayed after de-Stalinization, Stalinism did not. However, the term "Stalinism" is sometimes used to refer to Marxism-Leninism, sometimes to avoid implying Marxism-Leninism is related to Marxism and Leninism.
Maoism is a form of Marxism-Leninism associated with Chinese leader Mao Zedong. After de-Stalinization, Marxism-Leninism was kept in the Soviet Union but certain "anti-revisionist" tendencies, such as Hoxhaism and Maoism, argued that it was deviated from. Therefore, different policies were applied in Albania and China, which became more distanced from the Soviet Union.
Marxism-Leninism has been criticized by other communist and Marxist tendencies. They argue that Marxist-Leninist states did not establish socialism but rather state capitalism.[21] The dictatorship of the proletariat, according to Marxism, represents the rule of the majority (democracy) rather than of one party, to the extent that co-founder of Marxism Friedrich Engels described its "specific form" as the democratic republic.[45] Additionally, according to Engels, state property by itself is private property of capitalist nature[46] unless the proletariat has control of political power, in which case it forms public property.[47] Whether the proletariat was actually in control of the Marxist-Leninist states is a matter of debate between Marxism-Leninism and other communist tendencies. To these tendencies, Marxism–Leninism is neither Marxism nor Leninism nor the union of both, but rather an artificial term created to justify Stalin's ideological distortion,[18] forced into the CPSU and Comintern. In the Soviet Union, this struggle against Marxism–Leninism was represented by Trotskyism, which describes itself as a Marxist and Leninist tendency.
Trotskyism
Main article: Trotskyism
Trotsky and his supporters, struggling against Stalin for power in the Soviet Union, organized into the Left Opposition and their platform became known as Trotskyism. Stalin eventually succeeded in gaining control of the Soviet regime and Trotskyist attempts to remove Stalin from power resulted in Trotsky's exile from the Soviet Union in 1929. Trotsky later founded the Fourth International, a Trotskyist rival to the Comintern, in 1938.
Trotsky's politics differed sharply from those of Stalin and Mao, most importantly in declaring the need for an international proletarian revolution (rather than socialism in one country) and unwavering support for a true dictatorship of the proletariat based on democratic principles.
Libertarian Marxism
Main article: Libertarian Marxism
Libertarian Marxism refers to a broad scope of economic and political philosophies that emphasize the anti-authoritarian aspects of Marxism. Early currents of libertarian Marxism, known as left communism,[48] emerged in opposition to Marxism–Leninism[49] and its derivatives, such as Stalinism, Maoism, and Trotskyism.[50] Libertarian Marxism is also critical of reformist positions, such as those held by social democrats.[51] Libertarian Marxist currents often draw from Marx and Engels' later works, specifically the Grundrisse and The Civil War in France;[52] emphasizing the Marxist belief in the ability of the working class to forge its own destiny without the need for a revolutionary party or state to mediate or aid its liberation.[53] Along with anarchism, Libertarian Marxism is one of the main currents of libertarian socialism.[54]Libertarian Marxism includes such currents as Luxemburgism, council communism, left communism, Socialisme ou Barbarie, the Johnson-Forest tendency, world socialism, Lettrism/Situationism and operaismo/autonomism, and New Left.[55] Libertarian Marxism has often had a strong influence on both post-left and social anarchists. Notable theorists of libertarian Marxism have included Anton Pannekoek, Raya Dunayevskaya, CLR James, Antonio Negri, Cornelius Castoriadis, Maurice Brinton, Guy Debord, Daniel Guérin, Ernesto Screpanti and Raoul Vaneigem.
Council communism
Main article: Council communism
Council communism is a far-left movement originating in Germany and the Netherlands in the 1920s. Its primary organization was the Communist Workers Party of Germany (KAPD). Council communism continues today as a theoretical and activist position within both left-wing Marxism and libertarian socialism.The central argument of council communism, in contrast to those of social democracy and Leninist communism, is that democratic workers' councils arising in the factories and municipalities are the natural form of working class organization and governmental power. This view is opposed to both the reformist and the Leninist ideologies, with their stress on, respectively, parliaments and institutional government (i.e., by applying social reforms, on the one hand, and vanguard parties and participative democratic centralism on the other).
The core principle of council communism is that the government and the economy should be managed by workers' councils composed of delegates elected at workplaces and recallable at any moment. As such, council communists oppose state-run authoritarian "State socialism"/"State capitalism". They also oppose the idea of a "revolutionary party", since council communists believe that a revolution led by a party will necessarily produce a party dictatorship. Council communists support a worker's democracy, which they want to produce through a federation of workers' councils.
Left communism
Main article: Left communism
Rosa Luxemburg, inspiration of left communism.
Left Communists see themselves to the left of Leninists (whom they tend to see as 'left of capital', not socialists), anarchist communists (some of whom they consider internationalist socialists) as well as some other revolutionary socialist tendencies (for example De Leonists, who they tend to see as being internationalist socialists only in limited instances).
Although she died before left communism became a distinct tendency, Rosa Luxemburg has heavily influenced most left communists, both politically and theoretically. Proponents of left communism have included Amadeo Bordiga, Herman Gorter, Anton Pannekoek, Otto Rühle, Karl Korsch, Sylvia Pankhurst and Paul Mattick.
Prominent left communist groups existing today include the International Communist Party, the International Communist Current and the Internationalist Communist Tendency.
Leninism
Leninism
Main article: Leninism
Vladimir Lenin, 1920.
"We want to achieve a new and better order of society: in this new and better society there must be neither rich nor poor; all will have to work. Not a handful of rich people, but all the working people must enjoy the fruits of their common labour. Machines and other improvements must serve to ease the work of all and not to enable a few to grow rich at the expense of millions and tens of millions of people. This new and better society is called socialist society. The teachings about this society are called 'socialism'."Leninism is the revolutionary theories developed by Vladimir Lenin, including the organizational principles of democratic centralism, Vanguardism and the political theory of imperialism. Leninist theory postulates that, with the strongly determined will of the Bourgeoisie to establish Imperialism, socialism will not arise spontaneously through the natural decay of capitalism, and that workers by themselves, who may be more or less sedated by reactionary propaganda, are unable to effectively organize and develop socialist consciousness, therefore requiring the leadership of a revolutionary vanguard organized on the basis of democratic centralism. As a result, Leninism promotes a Vanguard party in order to lead the working-class and peasants in a revolution.
-Vladimir Lenin, "To the Rural Poor" (1903); Collected Works, Vol 6, p. 366
Although the creation of a vanguard party was outlined by Marx and Engels in Chapter II: "Proletarians and Communists" of The Communist Manifesto[citation needed], Lenin modified this position by changing the role of the vanguards to professional revolutionaries, who were to hold power post-revolution and direct the national economy and society in developing world socialism.
After disposing of the Bourgeois dictatorship through socialist revolution, Leninists seek to create a socialist state in which the working class would be in power, which they see as being essential for laying the foundations for a transitional withering of the state towards communism (Stateless society). In this state, the vanguard party would act as a central nucleus in the organization of socialist society, presiding over a single-party political system. Leninism rejects political pluralism, seeing it as divisive and destructive. Instead, Leninism advocates the concept of democratic centralism as a process to ensure the voicing of concern and disagreement and to refine policy. Generally, the purpose of democratic centralism is "diversity in ideas, unity in action."
After Lenin's death in 1924, Leninism branched into multiple (sometimes opposing) interpretations, including Trotskyism and Marxism-Leninism.
Marxist communism
Marxist Communism
Marxism
Main article: Marxism
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At the root of Marxism is the materialist conception of history, known as historical materialism for short. It holds that the key characteristic of economic systems through history has been the mode of production, and that the change between modes of production has been triggered by class struggle. According to this analysis, the Industrial Revolution ushered the world into a new mode of production: capitalism. Before capitalism, certain working classes had ownership of instruments utilized in production. But because machinery was much more efficient, this property became worthless, and the mass majority of workers could only survive by selling their labor, working through making use of someone else's machinery, and therefore making someone else profit. Thus with capitalism, the world was divided between two major classes: the proletariat and the bourgeoisie.[41] These classes are directly antagonistic: the bourgeoisie has private ownership of the means of production and earns a profit off surplus value, which is generated by the proletariat, which has no ownership of the means of production and therefore no option but to sell its labor to the bourgeoisie.
Historical materialism goes on and says: the rising bourgeoisie within feudalism, through the furtherance of its own material interests, captured power and abolished, of all relations of private property, only the feudal privileges, and with this took out of existence the feudal ruling class. This was another of the keys behind the consolidation of capitalism as the new mode of production, which is the final expression of class and property relations, and also has led into a massive expansion of production. It is, therefore, only in capitalism that bourgeois property in itself can be abolished.[42] The proletariat, similarly, will capture political power, abolish bourgeois property through the implementation of the community of the means of production, therefore abolishing the bourgeoisie, and ultimately abolishing the proletariat itself, and ushering the world into a new mode of production: communism. In between capitalism and communism there is the dictatorship of the proletariat, a democratic state characterized by the existence of organs of class rule, where the whole of the public authority is elected and recallable under the basis of universal suffrage;[43] it is the defeat of the bourgeois state, but not yet of the capitalist mode of production, and at the same time the only element which places into the realm of possibility moving on from this mode of production.
An important concept in Marxism is socialization vs. nationalization. Nationalization is merely state ownership of property, whereas socialization is actual control and management by society of property. Marxism considers socialization its goal, and considers nationalization a tactical issue, with state ownership still being in the realm of the capitalist mode of production. In the words of Engels: "the transformation [...] into State-ownership does not do away with the capitalistic nature of the productive forces. [...] State-ownership of the productive forces is not the solution of the conflict, but concealed within it are the technical conditions that form the elements of that solution".[44] This has led some Marxist currents to label states such as the Soviet Union, based on nationalization, as state capitalist.
Dissolution of the Soviet Union
Dissolution of the Soviet Union
Further information: List of communist parties, List of communist and anti-capitalist parties with parliamentary representation and Dissolution of the Soviet Union
A demonstration of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, Moscow, December 2011.
At present, states controlled by Marxist-Leninist parties under a single-party system include the People's Republic of China, Cuba, Laos, and Vietnam. North Korea currently refers to its leading ideology as Juche, which is portrayed as a development of Marxism-Leninism. Communist parties, or their descendant parties, remain politically important in a number of other countries. The South African Communist Party is a partner in the African National Congress-led government. In India, communists lead the governments of three states, with a combined population of more than 115 million. In Nepal, communists hold a majority in the parliament.[38] The Communist Party of Brazil is a part of the parliamentary coalition led by the ruling democratic socialist Workers' Party and is represented in the executive cabinet of Dilma Rousseff.
The People's Republic of China has reassessed many aspects of the Maoist legacy; it, along with Laos, Vietnam, and, to a lesser degree Cuba, has reduced state control of the economy in order to stimulate growth. Chinese economic reforms started in 1978 under the leadership of Deng Xiaoping; since then, China has managed to bring down the poverty rate from 53% in the Mao era to just 6% in 2001.[39] The People's Republic of China runs Special Economic Zones dedicated to market-oriented enterprise, free from central government control. Several other states ran by self-proclaimed Marxist-Leninist parties have also attempted to implement market-based reforms, including Vietnam.
Theories within Marxism as to why communism in Central and Eastern Europe was not achieved after revolutions pointed to such elements as the pressure of external capitalist states, the relative backwardness of the societies in which the revolutions occurred, and the emergence of a bureaucratic stratum or class that arrested or diverted the transition process in its own interests. Marxist critics of the Soviet Union, most notably Trotsky, referred to the Soviet system, along with other states ran by Marxist-Leninist parties, as "degenerated" or "deformed workers' states", arguing that the Soviet system fell far short of Marx's communist ideal and he claimed the working class was politically dispossessed. The ruling stratum of the Soviet Union was, by Trotskyism, held to be a bureaucratic caste, but not a new ruling class, despite their political control.
Cold War
Cold War
Main article: Cold War
USSR postage stamp depicting the states ruled by self-proclaimed communist parties, launching the first artificial satellite Sputnik 1.
Marxist-Leninist governments modeled on the Soviet Union took power with Soviet assistance in Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Poland, Hungary and Romania. A Marxist-Leninist government was also created under Marshal Tito in Yugoslavia, but Tito's independent policies led to the expulsion of Yugoslavia from the Cominform, which had replaced the Comintern. Titoism, a new branch in the Marxist-Leninist movement, was labelled "deviationist"[by whom?]. Albania also became an independent Marxist-Leninist state after World War II.[36]
By 1950, the Chinese Marxist-Leninists had taken over all of mainland China. In the Korean War and Vietnam War, Communists fought for power in their countries against the United States and its allies. With varying degrees of success, Communists attempted to unite with nationalist and socialist forces against perceived Western imperialism in these poor countries.
Communism was seen as a rival of and a threat to western capitalism for most of the 20th century.[37] This rivalry peaked during the Cold War, as the world's two remaining superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union, polarized most of the world into two camps of nations. It supported the spread of their respective economic and political systems. As a result, the camps expanded their military capacity, stockpiled nuclear weapons, and competed in space exploration
Modern Communism
Modern communism
The moderate Mensheviks opposed Lenin's Bolshevik plan for socialist revolution before capitalism was more fully developed. The Bolsheviks' successful rise to power was based upon the slogans such as "Peace, bread, and land" which tapped the massive public desire for an end to Russian involvement in the First World War, the peasants' demand for land reform, and popular support for the Soviets.[33]
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During the Russian Civil War (1918–1922), the Bolsheviks nationalized all productive property and imposed a policy named war communism, which put factories and railroads under strict government control, collected and rationed food, and introduced some bourgeois management of industry. After three years of war and the 1921 Kronstadt rebellion, Lenin declared the New Economic Policy (NEP) in 1921, which was to give a "limited place for a limited time to capitalism." The NEP lasted until 1928, when Joseph Stalin achieved party leadership, and the introduction of the Five Year Plans spelled the end of it. Following the Russian Civil War, the Bolsheviks, in 1922, formed the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), or Soviet Union, from the former Russian Empire.
Vladimir Lenin giving a speech.
Following World War II, Marxist-Leninists consolidated power in Central and Eastern Europe, and in 1949, the Communist Party of China (CPC), led by Mao Zedong, established the People's Republic of China, which would follow its own ideological path of development following the Sino-Soviet split. Cuba, North Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Angola, and Mozambique were among the other countries in the Third World that adopted or imposed a government ran by a Marxist-Leninist party at some point. By the early 1980s almost one-third of the world's population lived in states ruled by a self-proclaimed Marxist-Leninist party, including the former Soviet Union and PRC.[citation needed]
States such as the Soviet Union and PRC succeeded in becoming industrial and technological powers, challenging the capitalists' powers in the arms race and space race.
Early communism
Early communism
The origins of communism are debatable, and there are various historical groups, as well as theorists, whose beliefs have been subsequently described as communist. German philosopher Karl Marx saw primitive communism as the original, hunter-gatherer state of humankind from which it arose. For Marx, only after humanity was capable of producing surplus, did private property develop. The idea of a classless society first emerged in Ancient Greece.[23] Plato in his The Republic described it as a state where people shared all their property, wives, and children: "The private and individual is altogether banished from life and things which are by nature private, such as eyes and ears and hands, have become common, and in some way see and hear and act in common, and all men express praise and feel joy and sorrow on the same occasions."[23]In the history of Western thought, certain elements of the idea of a society based on common ownership of property can be traced back to ancient times. Examples include the Spartacus slave revolt in Rome.[24] The 5th-century Mazdak movement in Persia (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 for striving for an egalitarian society.[25]
At one time or another, various small communist communities existed, generally under the inspiration of Scripture.[26] In the medieval Christian church, for example, some monastic communities and religious orders shared their land and other property (see Religious and Christian communism).
Communist thought has also been traced back to the work of 16th-century English writer Thomas More. In his treatise Utopia (1516), More portrayed a society based on common ownership of property, whose rulers administered it through the application of reason. In the 17th century, communist thought surfaced again in England, where a Puritan religious group known as the "Diggers" advocated the abolition of private ownership of land.[27] Eduard Bernstein, in his 1895 Cromwell and Communism[28] argued that several groupings in the English Civil War, especially the Diggers espoused clear communistic, agrarian ideals, and that Oliver Cromwell's attitude to these groups was at best ambivalent and often hostile.[29] Criticism of the idea of private property continued into the Age of Enlightenment of the 18th century, through such thinkers as Jean Jacques Rousseau in France. Later, following the upheaval of the French Revolution, communism emerged as a political doctrine.[30]
Various social reformers in the early 19th century founded communities based on common ownership. But unlike many previous communist communities, they replaced the religious emphasis with a rational and philanthropic basis.[31] Notable among them were Robert Owen, who founded New Harmony in Indiana (1825), and Charles Fourier, whose followers organized other settlements in the United States such as Brook Farm (1841–47).[31] Later in the 19th century, Karl Marx described these social reformers as "utopian socialists" to contrast them with his program of "scientific socialism" (a term coined by Friedrich Engels). Other writers described by Marx as "utopian socialists" included Saint-Simon.
In its modern form, communism grew out of the socialist movement of 19th-century Europe. As the Industrial Revolution advanced, socialist critics blamed capitalism for the misery of the proletariat—a new class of urban factory workers who labored under often-hazardous conditions. Foremost among these critics were Marx and his associate Friedrich Engels. In 1848, Marx and Engels offered a new definition of communism and popularized the term in their famous pamphlet The Communist Manifesto.[31]
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