Communism (Economics)

The theory of social organization that advocates the communal ownership of all property and that all basic economic resources be held in common. It first appeared in English in 1843 (from the French commun), preceded by the first use of the term communist in English in 1841 by Goodwyn Barmby in his London Communist Propaganda Society. Modern communism theory is grounded in the ideas of Karl Marx, who hoped to see a society where no socioeconomic differences exist between different types of labor or places of habitation, be it rural or urban. In practice, communist economic systems are composed of production facilities that are state owned, and production decisions are made by official policy as opposed to being directed by market action.

Communism first emerged as a theory of government with the ancient Greek idea of the Golden Age, a belief in a world of communal bliss and harmony without the existence of private property. During the English Civil War of the 1640s, a number of Christian communist groups arose, notably the Diggers, led by Gerrard Winstanley. During the Industrial Revolution in the 18th century, the reinforcement of capitalism triggered the conditions that led to the commencement of modern communism. The endurance of terrible factory conditions, wages, and hours by the industrial class led to protests and a revolt against economic inequality and private property. In 1848, The Communist Manifesto of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels was published, and Marxian theories soon began to dominate left-wing thought. The Marxist movement, however, continued under the name of socialism.

Modern communism began to develop in 1903 with the split of the Russian Social Democratic Party into Bolshevism and Menshevism. Years of revolts and movements to bring about the downfall of capitalism and establish an international socialist state ensued. The Bolshevik victory, led by Vladimir Lenin, in the Russian Revolution of 1917 led to the establishment of the Russian Communist Party. In 1919, Lenin established the Comintern, or an association of communist parties of the world whose ultimate goal was to establish a harmonious, classless society. Under Joseph Stalin, however, the possibility of building a true communist system in one country alone was asserted. By 1943, the Comintern had been disbanded, and communism had been greatly strengthened by the many governments modeled on the Soviet communist plan. The Soviet Union's “satellite” nations of Albania, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, East Germany, and Yugoslavia all employed communist governments, and by 1950, the Chinese Communists held all of China, with the exception of Taiwan, under communist rule. Furthermore, a communist administration was installed in North Korea as well as in some nations of the Middle East and Africa. Marx's utopian ideal society in reality was based on a systematic repression of human rights to gain the condition of harmony that he sought. The modern history of communist states bears this out well, and it brought about their demise.

The collapse of communism began in 1985, when Mikhail Gorbachev became the leader of the Soviet Union and relaxed communist statutes. By 1991, the Soviet-bloc nations of Poland, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Romania, and Hungary had all dissolved dictatorial communist rule, and the Soviet Union was disbanded. Communist parties, or their descendent parties, remain politically important in Russia and in many eastern European nations as well as many of the other nations that emerged from the former Soviet Union. Into the 21st century, communism still held power, to some degree, in China, Cuba, Laos, North Korea, and Vietnam. Many of these governments, however, have made concessions to nonsocialist economic activity. For more information, see Marx and Engels (1848/1969) and Ozinga (1991).

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