Communism

We explain what communism is, its origin, characteristics and countries that practice it. Also, differences with socialism and capitalism.

What is communism?

communism is a political ideology and a mode of socioeconomic organization that aspires to build a society without social classes by abolishing private ownership of the means of production (such as factories, land and mines). Although its theoretical objective is egalitarianism, it promotes control of politics and the economy by the State.

Communism is a radically different model from capitalism (which is based on the principle of private property and market freedom). Its foundations come from the philosophical work of the German thinker Karl Marx (1818-1883), author of texts such as Communist Party Manifesto (1848), written with Friedrich Engels (1820-1895), and The capital (1867), an important work on contemporary industrial society.

In Marx's work, communism and socialism were used synonymously although later both terms began to be differentiated, especially when communism became associated with the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 and some socialists adopted more reformist and democratic positions.

The communist doctrine is based on the recognition that throughout history there has been exploitation of man by man, that is, that some human beings used the work of others to obtain benefits and enrich themselves. The objective proposed in Marxist theory is to end this type of exploitation.

According to the Marxist perspective, history must be understood as the result of the class struggle, initiated since ancient times with the appearance of property. The various social classes compete for control of the means of production, and when social contradictions become more acute this struggle can lead to a dispute for control of the State.

lThe class struggle is presented as the “engine” of change social, economic and political since it is suggested that it pushes societies towards the adoption of new modes of production. From the slavery of the Ancient Age we would have passed to the feudal order, and from feudalism to industrial capitalism with the birth of two opposing social classes: the bourgeoisie (owner of the factories and other means of production) and the proletariat (the working class forced to sell their labor power).

Marx maintained that The current class struggle between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat would lead to the arrival of communism that is, to a society without social classes that would have to go through several previous phases (the most famous of which would be the “dictatorship of the proletariat”).

From the years of publication of Marx's work until today, many communist parties emerged of various tendencies and in different parts of the world. Some of them came to power, such as the Bolsheviks led by Vladimir Lenin in Russia in 1917 or the Chinese Communist Party led by Mao Zedong in 1949. In general, these historical experiences did not contribute to create more egalitarian societies similar to the original ideal of communism, and even in some cases they collapsed (such as the Soviet Union) or were forced to promote liberalizing economic reforms (such as China).

Marx's thought and the various variants of communism promoted by other thinkers and activists (such as Lenin, Leon Trotsky, Mao Zedong, among others) continue to inspire many leaders, activists and intellectuals around the world.

See also: Scientific communism

Characteristics of communism

Broadly speaking, communism is characterized by the following:

• It is a model of society that aspires to eliminate the division into social classes and to ensure that the accumulation of wealth in the hands of a few is unnecessary and impossible.
• It is based on Marxist philosophy and its vision of history known as historical materialism. However, there were experiences of community management of resources since ancient times, and ideals similar to communists from the work of Plato or the first Christian communities to the reflections of François Babeuf (1760-1797) during the French Revolution.
• It has different aspects or versions according to the interpretation made of the texts of Marx, Engels and their followers, and the specific way of applying their theories. Thus, within communism there are Marxism-Leninism, Trotskyism, Maoism, among others.
• Its fundamental principles include the abolition of private property (and the establishment of public or community property), state planning of the economy (against private initiative and outside the laws of the market) and the generation of a “new man” who puts the collective good before individual interest.
• In historical practice, communist experiences did not eliminate social inequality but rather they maintained a hierarchical order based on state control of the economy and political authoritarianism. In some cases, they had to resort to liberalizing some areas of the economy to address economic difficulties.

Origin of communism

Communism as a social and economic doctrine originated in the industrial society of the 19th century, but has antecedents on previous practices and ideas. In ancient times, the Greek philosopher Plato developed the model of an ideal society based on the elimination of private property and the centrality of the common good, although he did not question the submission of the lower strata to the ruling elite.

Some experiences of community property and egalitarian management from Antiquity were also important, such as the community of property in early Christianity.

Later, some models of ideal society developed by humanist thinkers emerged during the Renaissance and then the Enlightenment. The most notable was the book Utopia (1516) by Thomas More, who imagined a society without money in which people shared goods among themselves.

The ideas that anticipated communism also played a minority role in the English civil wars (1642-1651), in which the group of diggers emerged (diggers) that questioned private property. Also in the French Revolution that began in 1789, in which a movement led by François Babeuf (1760-1797) participated, who unsuccessfully attempted to overthrow the Directory and establish a regime of equality through a movement known as the Conspiracy of Equals (1796). ).

After the French Revolution, various currents of thought emerged that are usually grouped under the term “utopian socialism.” One of them corresponded to the French philosopher Étienne Cabet (1788-1856), who is credited with coining the term “communism” around 1840.

Therefore, the term “communist” predates the work of Karl Marx and was used in the 1840s to refer to the followers of two egalitarian political tendencies: that of Cabet, called Cabetism or Icarian movement, and that which claimed Babeuf's thought, called neobabuvism.

Although the term “communism” already existed, the interpretations of Marx and Engels gave it a solid theoretical basis. These two German thinkers founded the Communist Committee of Correspondence in Brussels and in 1847 they promoted the revolutionary organization called the League of the Just to be renamed the League of the Communists. Then they published the Communist Party Manifesto (1848) and created a work that forever changed the way of understanding communism, which influenced the different socialist experiences of the 20th century.

communist countries

In the 20th century, and especially within the framework of the Cold War, numerous socialist or communist states were created. Most were associated with the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), but some also emerged in other areas of Asia, Africa and Latin America. For the most part, these States ceased to exist.

Countries with this ideological orientation generally adopted the term “socialist” or “popular” in their official names.

Among the communist projects that ceased to exist are:

• The Soviet Union (USSR). It was created in 1922, shortly after the success of the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, and dissolved in 1991. It was made up of fifteen nations that, after the fall of the communist bloc, became independent democratic and capitalist states:
  • The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. It was the largest, most populous and powerful of all the republics that made up the Soviet Union. The city of Moscow was the capital of the Soviet government.
  • The Transcaucasian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. It was made up of present-day Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan, and its capital was Tbilisi. It only existed between 1922 and 1936. In 1936 it was dissolved and its three member nations became independent Soviet socialist republics.
  • The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. It was roughly equivalent to modern-day Ukraine, although at the time of World War II its territory encompassed part of modern-day Poland.
  • The Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic. It went through different stages: it was born in 1919 and that year it joined Lithuania and became the Lithuanian-Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic. It was reconstituted as the Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1920 until its dissolution with the USSR.
  • Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic. It was militarily incorporated into the USSR in 1940, but was not formally recognized by Western nations, which maintained relations with representatives of the Estonian government in exile.
  • The Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic. It was occupied by Soviet military forces in 1940 and since then annexed to the USSR. This fact was considered illegal by the Western powers, which continued to recognize the overthrown independent republic of Latvia.
  • The Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic. It was militarily annexed to the USSR in 1940 under similar conditions to the other two Baltic republics (Estonia and Latvia).
  • Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic. It was the second largest Soviet republic after Russia, located in Central Asia.
  • The Kyrgyz Soviet Socialist Republic. It was part of the territory of the Tsarist Empire and passed to Soviet Russia after the Russian Revolution of 1917, until it was administratively separated from Russia and became a socialist republic of the USSR in 1936.
  • Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic. Initially it was part of Ukraine, but in 1940 it was established as one of the constituent republics of the Soviet Union.
  • The Tajik Soviet Socialist Republic. It was located in the southern tip of the Soviet Union. It was created in 1929 when it separated from the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic.
  • Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic. It was part of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic until 1925, when it became one of the republics of the USSR in Central Asia.
  • The Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic. It was created by order of Joseph Stalin in 1924 and underwent various territorial transformations over the years.
• The Socialist Republic of Czechoslovakia. It was born in 1948 after a communist coup d'état and was dissolved in 1990. This occurred after the Velvet Revolution of 1989, which caused the fall of communism and led in 1993 to the separation between the States of Slovakia and the Czech Republic. It was part of the Central and Eastern European countries that came under the hegemony of the Soviet Union during the Cold War, such as Poland, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and East Germany.
• The German Democratic Republic. Also known as East Germany or East Germany, it emerged in 1949, shortly after the end of World War II and the division of German territory between the Western Allies in the west and the Soviet Union in the east. It was dissolved upon the reunification of Germany in 1990.
• Democratic Kampuchea. It was established by force by the peasant army of the Khmer Rouge led by Pol Pot, a leader of the Cambodian Communist Party. It was the scene of one of the largest genocides of the 20th century. It existed from 1975 to 1979, when it was overthrown by a Vietnamese invasion.
• The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. It was founded after the Second World War under the influence of the USSR under the name of the People's Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. In 1948 it separated from the Soviet bloc due to differences between Joseph Stalin and the Yugoslav dictator Josip Broz Tito. It adopted its new name in 1963 and, after Tito's death in 1980, ethnic tensions began to destabilize the country, which finally ceased to exist in 1992.

Currently, there are five countries organized under communist regimes:

• The People's Republic of China. It was founded after the communist victory in the Chinese civil war in 1949 and was under the rule of Mao Zedong until his death in 1976. In 1978 it began to undergo a series of economic reforms promoted by the government of Deng Xiaoping, which established a capitalist economy. with state control of some key areas and turned China into an economic and industrial power.
• The Democratic People's Republic of Korea. It is commonly known as North Korea and emerged in 1948 following the division of the Korean Peninsula after the end of World War II. It was consolidated as a sovereign state when the Korean War (1950-1953) concluded, in which South Korea managed to resist North Korea's attempted annexation thanks to American support. The North Korean government is governed by its own version of Marxist-Leninist ideology, called Juche, which emphasizes self-reliance, militarism and nationalism.
• The Republic of Cuba. It was organized as a communist regime led by Fidel Castro starting in 1961, after the triumph of the Cuban Revolution that overthrew Fulgencio Batista in 1959. It remained standing thanks to economic aid from the Soviet Union. After the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, Cuba entered a “special period” of poverty and famine, in which thousands of Cubans emigrated on rafts to the United States. As a result, the government was forced to implement reforms towards a relative liberalization of the economy, such as promoting foreign investment and tourism, which accelerated after the transfer of power from Fidel to his brother Raúl Castro in 2008.
• The Lao People's Democratic Republic. It was founded after a long civil war that ended in 1975 with the triumph of the Pathet Lao (the Lao People's Liberation Army), supported by the communists of Vietnam. Since the 1980s it began to relax its ideological precepts to allow the emergence of free enterprise, foreign investment and tourism.
• The Socialist Republic of Vietnam. It was the winner of the Vietnam War against South Vietnam and the United States in 1975, after having achieved independence from France in 1954, led by the nationalist and communist leader Ho Chi Minh. Since the end of the 20th century, it had to liberalize its economy, in the form of a “market economy oriented toward socialism.”

Communism and socialism

At first, The terms socialism and communism were used synonymously, even by Karl Marx and some non-Marxist tendencies were recognized as communist (such as the anarcho-communism of the Russian anarchist Pyotr Kropotkin). However, distinctions between both words subsequently arose, especially after the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, when the term “communist” became associated with Leninism and other revolutionary tendencies, and the term “socialism” began to be identified with reformist socialism and social democracy.

Even today the difference between socialism and communism is a matter of debate, since many consider communism as a form of revolutionary socialism. On the other hand, the most orthodox Marxist doctrines They understand socialism as a transition stage between capitalism and communism.

In general, socialism is associated with reformist and more democratic forms of government or political participation (also called “social democracy”), while communism represents a revolutionary model of social transformation or a single-party political regime based on state administration of the economy.

Continue in: Differences between socialism and communism

Communism and capitalism

Communism is often considered the opposite model to capitalism since while communism proposes to abolish private property, capitalism is sustained by it.

The antagonism between communism and capitalism intensified throughout the 20th century, especially during the Cold War, when the United States and the liberal democracies of the West confronted the communist bloc led by the Soviet Union. These two blocks faced each other in various ideological, political, economic, cultural and even military conflicts, until the fall of Soviet communism occurred at the end of the 20th century.

References

• Bobbio, N. et al. (Dirs.). (2015). Politics Dictionary. New edition entirely revised and expanded. 21st century.
• Dagger, R and Ball, T. (2024). Communism. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/
• Marx K and Engels, F. (2017). communist manifesto (translation of the original published in 1848, with introduction by E. Hobsbawm and notes by H. Tarcus). 21st century.
• Paniagua, J. (2010). Brief history of socialism and communism. Second edition. Nowtilus.