communism

Society

2022

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

The hammer and sickle represent the working class that communism proposes to defend.

What is communism?

Communism is a political system and a mode of socio-economic organization, in which a society without social classes and without private property of the means of production (such as factories, mines, etc.). On the contrary, economic activity is organized by the Condition.

It is in principle a radically different model from that of capitalism. Its foundations come from the philosophical work of the German Karl Marx (1818-1883), author among many texts of The communist manifesto Y Capital , and an unquestionable reference in the thought of contemporary industrial society.

In this work communism and socialism were used as synonyms, although later distinctions would emerge as a result of the various traditions of thought Marxist. According to the Marxist perspective, the history is to be understood as the result of a class struggle, unleashed since ancient times with the appearance of property.

The various strata of society compete to gain control of the means of production, and thus be able to direct the conception of the State in their favor. In this way, the exploitation of man by man, phrase that means that the Humans they require the work of other human beings to obtain benefits and enrich themselves.

Following this understanding of history, the class struggle acts as the "engine" of the change social, economic and political, pushing societies towards the adoption of new modes of production: of the slavery of yesteryear, going through the organization feudal, until reaching the industrial age and the birth of the proletariat (the working class).

Marx predicted the subsequent arrival of communism, as a liberating and equalizing utopia, which would have to go through several previous phases (the most famous of which was what Marx called the "dictatorship of the proletariat") until it was consolidated as the final system of the humanity.

Obviously, from the publication years of Marx's work to the present day, many communist parties of very different tendencies have taken place. Some of them have managed to come to power in their countries, consolidating communist regimes that, for the most part, have had disastrous results.

However, the vision of Marx, with or without the additions of other later thinkers (Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky, Mao Zedong, etc.) is still valid and continues to inspire many to fight for a society that they consider more just.

Characteristics of communism

Marx and Engels are the founders of communism as we understand it today.

Broadly speaking, communism is characterized by the following:

  • It is a relatively utopian model of society, devoid of social classes, in which 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, as we explained before, although before it there were different experiences of community management of resources, as a result of great social changes such as the French Revolution from 1789.
  • It has different aspects or versions, according to the specific interpretation of Marx's texts that is made, and the concrete way of applying his theories that is conceived. Thus, within communism, there are Marxism-Leninism, Trotskyism, Maoism, etc.
  • Among its foundations are usually: the abolition of private property (and the imposition of community property in its place), the planning of the economy from the State (outside the "laws" of the market) and the generation of a "man new ”with the collective good to the individual.

Origin of communism

The strict origin of communism dates from the Antiquity, and can be traced back to numerous experiences of community ownership and egalitarian management. All of them, which can be as diverse as land ownership in the Inca empire, the doctrine Spartan in classical times or the community of goods of early Christianity, come together under the name of egalitarian communism.

From then on, on the other hand, we will speak of utopian socialism, to name the social doctrines proposed by humanist thinkers, during the Renaissance and then the Illustration. These ideas played an important role in the French Revolution of 1789 and the fall of the Old Regime in Europe.

As will be seen, the term "communist" is long before the work of Karl Marx, and arose in France, around 1840, to refer to the followers of two egalitarian political tendencies: that of Étienne Cabet (1788-1856), called Cabetism, and the one that claimed the thought of François Babeuf (1760-1797), called neo-Babuvism.

Although those terms had already been coined, Marxist interpretations gave communism and socialism a solid theoretical foundation. Marx and Friedrich Engels (1820-1895), founders of the Communist Correspondence Committee in Brussels, created a work that forever changed the way of understanding communism, which carried the different socialist experiences of the 20th century.

Communist countries

Currently, China is a world power with a communist regime.

Throughout history, especially in the 20th century and in the framework of the Cold War, numerous socialist or communist states were created. Most of it was associated with Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) or in its very bosom, but they were also found in other areas of Asia, Africa Y Latin America. But for the most part, these states no longer exist today.

Obviously, a list of countries with this ideological orientation goes through those that have declared themselves as such, whether or not they adopt the term "socialist", "communist" or "popular" in their names. Among the now defunct communist projects are:

  • The Soviet Union (USSR). Born in 1922 and dissolved in 1991, which included the following fifteen nations, which after the fall of the bloc now have an independent capitalist existence:
    • The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. The largest, most populous and powerful of all those that made up the union.
    • The Transcaucasus Soviet Federal Socialist Republic. Formed by the current Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan, and whose capital was Tbilisi, but it only existed from 1922 to 1936. In that last year it was dissolved and its three member nations became independent Soviet Socialist Republics one from the other.
    • The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. More or less equivalent to present-day Ukraine, although at the time of the WWII, his territory it encompassed part of present-day Poland.
    • The Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic. It went through different stages: it was born in 1919 and that same year it would become the Lithuanian-Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic, to be renamed the Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1920, and continue to be so until its dissolution together with the USSR.
    • The Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic. Militaryly incorporated into the USSR in 1940 and not formally recognized by Western nations, which continued to deal with representatives of a government in exile.
    • The Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic. The second largest in territorial extension of all, after Russia.
    • The Kyrgyz Soviet Socialist Republic. It was part of the territory of Tsarist Russia and passed to the Soviet Union since the Revolution of 1918.
    • The Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic. Occupied by the Soviet military forces in 1940 and annexed since then to the USSR, something not considered legal by the European powers, which treated Latvia as an independent state.
    • The Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic.
    • The Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic. Initially part of Ukraine until 1924.
    • The Tajik Soviet Socialist Republic. Southern part of the former territory of Tsarist Russia.
    • The Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic.That it had been part of Russia itself until 1921.
    • The Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic. Created by order of Iósif Stalin himself in 1924, it underwent different transformations to its territory over the coming years.
  • The Federal Socialist Republic of Czechoslovakia. Born in 1948 and dissolved in 1989, in which the current States of the Czech Republic and Slovakia coexisted.
  • The German Democratic Republic. Also known as East Germany, it came into existence after the end of World War II and the division of German territory under the control of the victorious Allies in 1949. It was finally dissolved by joining its western sister republic in 1990.
  • The Democratic Republic of Cambodia. Forcibly established by the Khmer Rouge peasant army led by Pol Pot. It was the scene of one of the genocides most heinous of the twentieth century. It existed from 1975 to 1979.
  • The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Founded after the Second World War under the influence of the USSR, it later moved away when Iósif Stalin and the Yugoslav dictator Josip Broz Tito had their disagreements. After Tito's death in 1980, ethnic tensions in the country began to destabilize it and it finally ceased to exist in 1992.

On the other hand, there are currently five countries under communist regime:

  • The People's Republic of China. Standing since it emerged from the Chinese Civil War in 1949, under Mao Zedong, to this day. After the death of Mao, underwent a series of reforms towards capitalism in 1978, at the hand of Deng Xiao Ping, which turned it into a power economic and industrial.
  • The Democratic People's Republic of Korea. Better known as North Korea, it came into existence after the end of the Korean War, in which its southern neighbors became independent thanks to American support. They follow their own version of Marxist-Leninist ideology, with indigenous additions called "Juche."
  • The Socialist Republic of Cuba. Founded by Fidel Castro in 1961, after overthrowing the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista, it remained standing thanks to the economic aid of the Soviet Union. After his disappearance, he entered a "special period" of immense poverty, in which millions of its inhabitants emigrated by raft to the United States. Then it was forced to implement reforms towards a liberalization of the State, which accelerated after the death of Fidel Castro in 2016.
  • The Lao People's Democratic Republic. Founded after a bloody civil war that culminated in 1975, it has relaxed its ideological precepts to allow the emergence of free business Since 1980.
  • The Socialist Republic of Vietnam. Conqueror of the terrible Vietnam War against the United States, after an independence conflict against France, was partly created by its leader Ho Chi Minh. This nation of ancient Indochina has also had to gradually liberalize since the end of the 20th century, under the figure of a “market economy oriented towards socialism”.

Communism and socialism

In principle, the terms socialism and communism were used synonymously, even by Karl Marx himself. Even today the difference between one and the other is a matter of debate, since many consider communism a kind of revolutionary socialism. On the other hand, the most orthodox Marxist doctrines understand it as a first stage of transition between capitalism and the coming communism.

In general, socialism is associated with less rigid and more democratic forms of government, while communism represents its "hard" or "pure" wing. There are also those who prefer to use the term "social democracy" for the former. In any case, there is much debate regarding this terminology.

Communism and capitalism

Communism rejects private property and capitalism relies on it.

Communism is considered the traditional enemy of capitalism, since while the former seeks to abolish private property, the latter is based precisely on it.

Much of this antagonism stems from the fact that the United States and its allies, the democracies Liberals from the West, during almost the entire 20th century after World War II, opposed their ideological enemies, which made up the Eastern Bloc or Communist Bloc, led by the USSR. This conflict was called the Cold War.

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