Communism

From Liberapedia

"Don't look now, there's a Commie behind you!"- Al Gore to George Bush, 1999 Presidential debate

This article is part of the Political Philosophy series.

Anarchism

Libertarianism

Conservatism

Liberalism

Communism

Socialism

Capitalism

Democracy

Republicanism

Popular sovereignty

Communism (Russian бфмцчиюд) is a social-economic system based on a society that is without classes and without sovereignty. It is a branch of socialism that dates from the Industrial and French Revolutions.^[1] It is based also on common ownership of the means of production.^[2] Communism is the opposite of Capitalism, which guarantees a lower class and upper class.

Contents 1 Marxists and other Communists 2 Marxism-Leninism 3 Theory and reality 4 Common Ownership 4.1 Common ownership historically 4.2 How far Common ownership works 5 Marxist schools 5.1 Marxism 5.1.1 Beliefs 5.1.1.1 Exploitation 5.1.1.2 Alienation 5.1.1.3 Base and superstructure 5.1.1.4 Class consciousness 5.1.1.5 Ideology 5.1.1.6 Historical materialism 5.1.1.7 Political economy 5.1.2 Marx's theory of history 5.2 Maoism 5.2.1 In China 5.2.2 In Cuba 5.3 Trotskyism 5.3.1 Definition 5.3.2 Movement 5.4 Eurocommunism 6 Non-Marxist schools of thought 7 Stalinism and the Soviet Union 7.1 Conservapedia's view on Stalinism 7.2 Young earth creationist view of Stalinism 8 See also 9 References

Marxists and other Communists

Communism can be divided into two broad categories: Marxist communism and non-Marxist communism. Although the dominant forms of communism are variants of Marxism, communism and Marxism are not same. Marxism is a branch within communism, not all communists are Marxists. There are non-Marxists version of communism like anarchist communism and Christian communism.

Marxism-Leninism

Marxism-Leninism is a variation of communism theorized by Lenin which is a horrible rule. It is similar to Nazism. Marxism-Leninism can never create a classless society. The former Soviet Union was unable to create an egalitarian society, instead it was actually a totalitarian party dictatorship and state capitalist country. The state owned all the important means of production and the state exploited the people the way Monopoly Capitalists do.

Theory and reality

Marx hypothesized the "dictatorship of the proletariat" would eventually result in a classless society. But in practice the "dictatorship of the proletariat" actually resulted in a brutal and tyrannical party dictatorship as experienced in the Soviet Union, Cuba, North Korea and China. The theory of the "dictatorship of the proletariat" is the largest fault of Marxism. Anarchist theorist Bakunin and Marx had disagreement over this. Bakunin predicted "dictatorship of the proletariat" is impossible because the proletariat cannot rule over others, and to benefit the proletariat, the state should be abolished, but Marx did not pay attention to his suggestion. Soviet Union was never classless, it had a bureaucracy who enjoyed greater freedom than the general population called "Nomenclatura". The social in socialism denoted worker control, while common ownership in general is a possible offshoot. State capitalism like in the Soviet Union meant the state owned all land, ran the industries, setting prices, wages, labor conditions and so on. Basically just like one huge corporation. It was state monopoly capitalism in this case, with no internal market, although trade between states occurred. Thus Lenin's New Economic Policy in the early 1920s allowed small-scale private market capitalism, Stalin reversed this, Khrushchev started to implement that and during Brezhnev's time it was well-established in Soviet Union. Perestroika under Gorbachev began private market capitalism again in all sectors. The overall conditions of the working class remain the same in Tsarist Russia, the Soviet Union and modern day Russia.

Common Ownership

One of the central ideas to communism is that the capital produced by an enterprise or company is not owned by the members of the company but invisibly. This is opposed to capitalism, wherein the members of the company do what they wish with capital. This leads to large companies collapsing suddenly, having large liquidity problems, and most or all of its members are laid off. Common ownership, however, avoids such pitfalls because it does not exploit workers at least not officially, and theoretically commonly owned capital would be applied to good use through reason. Unfortunately the bad side to guaranteed employment is that workers keep their jobs despite being incompetent or irresponsible. State capitalism in Communist countries did and does exploit workers whose labour provided high living standards for the party elite.

Common ownership historically

Common ownership has surfaced many times in Western civilization before the rise of Marxism. The Spartacus slave revolt in ancient Rome was based on this, and many medieval church systems commonly owned their land and revenue. It should be noted that though Spartacus failed, many people did stand up for him. And churches are still around today, though only very few practise common ownership.

How far Common ownership works

Common ownership of parts of an economy works. All developed economies are mixed economies. That includes the economy of the United States. Common ownership of a whole economy has never worked in practise.

Marxist schools

Note: These are social and economic theories. There is no reason to assume any of the theories below are true.

Marxism

Karl Marx envisioned modern communism and his writings were adapted by Vladimir Lenin when he overthrew the Russian Tsars during the Russian Revolution. Russia operated on Marxist-Leninist communism through Stalin and up until the end of the Cold War.

Beliefs

Marxism is based on these tenets:

• that capitalism exploits workers by the owners of the capital
• that people's consciousness of the condition of their lives is based on materials and relations
• social classes are based on relationships in production
• that material conditions and social relations are historically malleable
• in history, the conflicts between classes with different interests drive change and structure historical periods ^[3]

Exploitation

Marx believed that capitalism was the exploitation of one class by another. In other words, it works on the basis of paying the worker less than the full value of their labor, in an effort to turn a profit. The profit is not moderated based on risk versus reward.

Alienation

Marx refers to the alienation of people from aspects of their "human nature." He believes that alienation is a systematic result of capitalism. Under capitalism, the fruits of production belong to the employers, who expropriate the surplus created by others and in so doing generate alienated labour.^[4] Alienation describes objective features of a person's situation in capitalism - it isn't necessary for them to believe or feel that they are alienated.^[3]

Base and superstructure

This is the idea that all the relations among people with regard to “the social production of their existence” forms the economic basis, on which arises a superstructure of political and legal institutions. To the base corresponds religion, philosophy, and other main ideas of society.^[4]

Class consciousness

The idea that a social class must possess this awareness of itself and the world around it in order to mount a successful revolution of sociality.^{[citation needed]} A revolution like the one Ralph Nader wants to happen to America.

Ideology

Because the ruling class controls the society's means of production, the superstructure of society, as well as its ruling ideas, will be determined according to what is in the ruling class's best interests.

"The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force."- Karl Marx, in The German Ideology^[5]

Historical materialism

An idea that looks for the causes of developments and changes in human societies, in the way that humans as a whole make the means to life, giving an emphasis, through economic analysis, to everything that co-exists with the economic base of society (e.g. social classes, political structures, ideologies), like the rest of the beliefs.

Political economy

Political economy studies the means of production, specifically capital, and how this manifests itself in economic activity.

Marx's theory of history

Marx had a very interesting interpretation of history, past, present and yet to come (probably coming from the "when history was written, the last page will say" Bushist philosophy). He thought that all history had, has and will have a timeline based on classes. The Marxist theory of historical materialism understands society as fundamentally determined by the material conditions at any given time - this means the relationships which people enter into with one another in order to fulfill their basic needs, for instance to feed and clothe themselves and their families.^[5] In general Marx and Engels identified five (and one transitional) successive stages of the development of these material conditions in Western Europe.^[7]

1. Primitive Communism: as seen in cooperative tribal societies. Primitive conservatives secretly hide fake WMDs underneath large rocks as security in case future conservatives need an emergency excuse for an invasion to protect oil imports.
2. Slave Society: which develops when the tribe becomes a city-state. Aristocracy is born. Conservatives own slaves.
3. Feudalism: aristocracy is the ruling class. Merchants develop into capitalists.
4. Capitalism: capitalists are the ruling class, who create and employ the true working class. The rise of the Liberals.
5. Socialism: workers gain class consciousness, overthrow the capitalists and take control over the state. Neocons finally defeated!
6. Communism: a classless and stateless society. Al Gore shall lead the liberal nation to glorious empire upon the moon!

Maoism

Maoism is a variant of Communism derived from the teachings of the late Chinese leader Mao Zedong. China is currently communist.

"Marxism consists of thousands of truths, but they all boil down to one: It's right to rebel against reactionaries."- Mao Zedong^[8]

Mao Zedong Thought has always been the preferred term by the Communist Party of China and the word Maoism has rarely been used in the English language except pejoratively. Likewise, Maoist groups outside China only began to call themselves Maoist after the death of the man himself, a reflection of Mao's view that he did not change, but only developed, Marxism-Leninism. Contemporary Maoist groups, believing Mao's theories to have been sufficiently substantial additions to the basics of Marxism, have since the 1980s called themselves "Marxist-Leninist-Maoist," "Revolutionary Communist" or simply "Maoist."

In China

Since the death of Mao Zedong in 1976, and the reforms of Deng Xiaoping starting in 1978, the role of Mao's ideology within China has radically changed.^[9] Although Mao Zedong Thought nominally remains the state ideology, Deng's admonition to seek truth from facts means that state policies are judged on their practical consequences and the role of ideology in determining policy has been considerably reduced. Deng also separated Mao from Maoism, making it clear that Mao was fallible and hence that the supposed truth of Maoism comes from observing social consequences rather than by using Mao's quotations as holy writ, as was done in Mao's lifetime.

In Cuba

Fidel Castro led a revolution in Cuba and installed himself as a dictator, and banished the nation to communism. However, like the Russians before him, he became a fascist, and started abusing human rights. No pattern can be discerned at this time.

Trotskyism

Trotskyism is the theory of Marxism as advocated by Leon Trotsky. Trotsky considered himself an orthodox Marxist. His politics differed sharply from those of Josef Stalin, most importantly in declaring the need for an international revolution (rather than socialism in one country) and unwavering support for a true dictatorship of the working class based on democratic principles. See Neocons? Communism can work with Democracy!

Trotsky was, together with Vladimir Lenin, the most important and well-known leader of the Russian Revolution and the international Communist movement in 1917 and the following years. Nowadays, numerous groups around the world continue to describe themselves as Trotskyist, although they have developed Trotsky's ideas in different ways. A follower of Trotskyist ideas is usually called a "Trotskyist."^[10]

Although Trotsky is generally portrayed positively, he suppressed the Kronstadt rebellion. This action was criticized by anarchist philosopher Emma Goldman who later wrote a book My Disillusionment with Russia.

Trotskyists frequently set out to make conditions worse for ordinary people because they want people to become desperate and to start a revolution.

Definition

Trotskyism can be distinguished from other Marxist theories by four key elements:

• Support for the strategy of permanent revolution^[11]
• Criticism of the post-1924 leadership of the Soviet Union,^[12] analysis of its features and after 1933, support for political revolution in the Soviet Union and in what Trotskyists term the deformed workers' states;
• Support for social revolution in the advanced capitalist countries through working class mass action;
• support for working-class internationalism.^[13]

Movement

In 1938, Trotsky and the organisations that supported his outlook established the Fourth International. He said that only the Fourth International, basing itself on Lenin's theory of the vanguard party, could lead the world revolution, and that it would need to be built in opposition to both the capitalists and the Stalinists. Trotskyists want people to join them. They believe they will accomplish revolution and overthrow fat rich white supremacist capitalist Republican conservative fascist statist imperialist Stalinist neocon warmongering rights-violating hatemongering fearmongering racist prodigal antisocialist scaremongering toadish McCarthyist ruling class that is leading the world to the cliff of oblivion!

Eurocommunism

Eurocommunism is the word that describes more moderate, reformist communist parties in Western Europe. These parties did not support the Soviet Union and denounced its inhumane policies. Such parties were politically active and significant in Italy, France, Spain, and the Scandinavian countries.^[6]

Non-Marxist schools of thought

Non-Marxist versions of communism are anarchist communism and Christian communism. The collapse of the Soviet Union gave the opportunity for non-Marxist version of communism to grow and becoming influential. They do not agree with Marxists. Anarchist communism rejects the Marxists theory of "Directorship of Proletariat" as authoritarian and oppressive.

Stalinism and the Soviet Union

After Lenin, the leader was Josef Stalin, who sought to fulfill his predecessor's principles of Marxism and began to massacre his own people. Stalin is the reason why a lot of people are afraid of communism today. It had only begun with Lenin, but when Stalin took over, well, he built walls around the edge of the Empire with armed guards ordered to shoot anyone trying to escape. And people still tried to escape.

Conservapedia's view on Stalinism

According to Кфизёяуаредъа, Ronald Reagan personally slayed Stalin.^[14] With his bare hands.^[15]

Young earth creationist view of Stalinism

We sometimes like to mix parody and satire with good information. We know you're smart enough to tell the difference.

This section has no content, as YEC's don't know about Stalinism. According to their version of history, you skip the first 84 years of every century. "It's the only way it works," Andrew Schlafly commented. "It's scientificalistic!" a YEC leader said in defense when attacked by seventeen branches of the scientific community.

See also

• Collectivism
• The Good, The Bad and The OTT

References

1. "Socialism." Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia. Columbia University Press. 03 Feb. 2008. Reference.com.
2. Morris, William. News from nowhere (in English). Retrieved on January 2008.
3. A Dictionary of Sociology, Article: Alienation
4. See Marx: A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (1859), Preface, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1977, with some notes by R. Rojas, and Engels: Anti-Dühring (1877), Introduction General
5. Karl Marx, The German Ideology
6. "Communism," Microsoft® Encarta® Online Encyclopedia 2007 http://encarta.msn.com © 1997-2007 Microsoft Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
7. Marx makes no claim to have produced a master key to history. Historical materialism is not "an historico-philosophic theory of the marche generale imposed by fate upon every people, whatever the historic circumstances in which it finds itself". (Marx, Karl, Letter to editor of the Russian paper Otetchestvennye Zapiskym, 1877) His ideas, he explains, are based on a concrete study of the actual conditions that pertained in Europe.
8. On the Revolutionary "Three-In-One" Combination
9. UC Berkeley Journalism - Faculty - Deng's Revolution
10. Collins Dictionary and Thesaurus (1993)
11. cf for instance, Trotsky, Leon, The Permanent Revoultion (1928) and Results and Prospects (1906), New Park Publications, London, (1962)
12. What is Trotskyism (1973) Ernest Mandel
13. Trotsky, Revolution Betrayed, 1936
14. What? It's perfectly plausible!

We sometimes like to mix parody and satire with good information. We know you're smart enough to tell the difference.