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Communism (from Latin communis, 'common, universal') is a philosophical, social, political, and economic ideology and movement whose ultimate goal is the establishment of a communist society, namely a socioeconomic order structured upon the ideas of common ownership of the means of production and the absence of social classes, money and the state.
Communism includes a variety of schools of thought which broadly include Marxism and anarcho-communism as well as the political ideologies grouped around both, all of which share the analysis that the current order of society stems from capitalism, its economic system and mode of production, namely that in this system there are two major social classes, conflict between these two classes is the root of all problems in society and this situation can only ultimately be resolved through a social revolution.
The two classes are the proletariat (the working class), who make up the majority of the population within society and must work to survive; and the bourgeoisie (the capitalist class), a small minority who derives profit from employing the working class through private ownership of the means of production. According to this analysis, revolution would put the working class in power and in turn establish social ownership of the means of production which is the primary element in the transformation of society towards communism.
Along with social democracy, communism became the dominant political tendency within the international socialist movement by the 1920s. The emergence of the Soviet Union as the world's first nominally communist state led to communism's widespread association with Marxism–Leninism and the Soviet economic model. Almost all communist governments in the 20th century espoused Marxism–Leninism or a variation of it. Some economists and intellectuals argue that, in practice, the model under which these nominally communist states operated was in fact a form of state capitalism or a non-planned administrative or command economy and not an actual communist economic model in accordance with most accepted definitions of “communism” as an economic theory. (Full article...)
Li Dazhao (29 October 1888 – 28 April 1927) was a Chinese intellectual who co-founded the Communist Party of China with Chen Duxiu in 1921. Li was born in Laoting (a county of Tangshan), Hebei province to a peasant family. He began his high school education at Tangshan Number 1 High School in 1905. From 1913 to 1917 Li studied political economy at Waseda University in Japan before returning to China in 1918.
As a leading intellectual in the New Culture Movement, Li was recruited by Cai Yuanpei to head the library at Peking University. In this position he influenced a number of students in the May Fourth Movement, including Mao Zedong, who worked in the library's reading room. Li was among the first of the Chinese intellectuals to look to China's villages as a basis for a political movement and was among the earliest to explore the Bolshevik government in the Soviet Union as a possible model for China's reform. Even as late as 1921, however, he still maintained warm relations with other New Culture figures such as Hu Shi.
By many accounts, Li was a nationalist and believed that the peasantry in China were to play an important role in China's revolution. As with many intellectuals of his time, the roots of Li's revolutionary thinking were actually mostly in Kropotkin's communist anarchism, but after the events of the May Fourth Movement and the failures of the anarchistic experiments of many intellectuals, like his compatriots, he turned more towards Marxism. Of course, the success of the Bolshevik Revolution was a major factor in the changing of his views. In later years, Li combined both his original nationalist and newly acquired Marxist views in order to contribute a strong political view to China.
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However, underneath the conservative popular base is I the substratum of the outcasts and outsiders, the exploited and persecuted of other races and other colors, the unemployed and the unemployable. They exist outside the democratic process; their life is the most immediate and the most real need for ending intolerable conditions and institutions. Thus their opposition is revolutionary even if their consciousness is not. Their opposition hits the system from without and is therefore not deflected by the system; it is an elementary force which violates the rules of the game and, in doing so, reveals it as a rigged game. When they get together and go out into the streets, without arms, without protection, in order to ask for the most primitive civil rights, they know that they face dogs, stones, and bombs, jail, concentration camps, even death. Their force is behind every political demonstration for the victims of law and order. The fact that they start refusing to play the game may be the fact which marks the beginning of the end of a period.
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— Herbert Marcuse (1898-1979)
One Dimensional Man , 1964
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Articles:
- Dutch:
- Communistenbond van Bosnië-Herzegovina, De Tribune, De Vonk, Democratische Federatie van Hongaarse Vrouwen, Dimitrov Communistische Jeugdunie, Gerardus Johannes Marinus van het Reve, Hongaars Onafhankelijkheidsfront, Lijst van CPN-fractievoorzitters Tweede Kamer, Marxistischer Studentenbund Spartakus, Montenegrijnse Communistenbond, Nationale Raad van Hongaarse Vrouwen, De Waarheid, Elli Schmidt, Miljan Radović, Patriottisch Volksfront, PRON, Marko Orlandić, Ina Brouwer, Leendert van den Muijzenberg, Daan Monjé
- German:
- Arbeiterbund für den Wiederaufbau der KPD, Allgemeine Arbeiter-Union – Einheitsorganisation, GegenStandpunkt, Kommunistische Jugend Österreichs - Junge Linke, Kommunistischer StudentInnenverband, Kommunistische Partei der Türkei/Marxisten Leninisten, Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands, Kommunistische Partei Österreichs, Kommunistische Arbeiterpartei Deutschlands, Kommunistischer Jugendverband Deutschlands (1970er), Kommunistischer Oberschülerverband, Marxistisch-Leninistische Partei Deutschlands, Marxistische Gruppe, Münchner Räterepublik, Rote Gruppe, Rote Marine, Roter Frontkämpferbund, Sozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterjugend, Spartakusbund, Vereinigte Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands
- Spanish:
- Joventut Comunista del País Valencià, Colectivos de Jóvenes Comunistas, Frente Revolucionario Antifascista y Patriota, Unión de Juventudes Comunistas de España, Las Trece Rosas, Julián Grimau, Gladys Marín, Luis Emilio Recabarren, Partido Comunista de España Unificado, Partido Socialista Popular (Cuba), Unión Navarra de Izquierdas, Organización Revolucionaria de Trabajadores
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