We explain what the differences are between socialism and communism, what they have in common and what is the history of both terms.
What is the difference between socialism and communism?
Very often, the terms communism Y socialism they are used as if they were synonymous, to refer to any leftist political position that one wishes to label as radical.
The reason for this is that both concepts come from a similar political and economic philosophy, developed throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries as a response to the problems of inequality insurmountable, oligopoly Y exploitation of the working class by the big capitalists, owners of the means of production.
But despite the similarities between both terms, it is important to know the differences that distinguish them, so that we can refer to one or the other with absolute property.
Let us begin by saying that both "communism" and "socialism" are terms that each group together a set of schools of thought and philosophical views of society. society. That is, it is not about concepts absolute and universal, but rather philosophical and political orientations that can be translated, in practice, into very different proposals.
Historically, the first term to emerge was socialism, whose first mentions date back to the second half of the 18th century, when it was used by the defenders of the social contract like the monk Ferdinando Facchinei (1725-1814) or the philosopher Appiano Bonafede (1716-1793). It was later used by followers of the Welsh philanthropist Robert Owen (1771-1858), who preached the doctrine of human brotherhood.
With its current meaning, the term socialism appeared in 1830, when numerous political sects emerged from the French Revolution by 1789 they declared themselves followers of Robert Owen, Henri de Saint-Simon, Charles Fourier, and other revolutionary thinkers. With that name were grouped the critical positions to the tremendously unequal world that the Industrial Revolution brought with it, and to the capitalist system that sustained it.
For its part, talk of communism began about ten years later, in France, as a result of a famous banquet of more than a thousand impoverished diners that took place in Paris on July 1, 1840, and in which the need was discussed to promote social and political changes to achieve “true equality”.
The "communists" of the time considered themselves cabetists (followers of Étienne Cabet) and neo-Babuvistas (heirs of Francois Babeuf), and their efforts gained such national and international notoriety (especially in Germany at the time) that the term "Communist" began to displace or at least be used in conjunction with that of "socialist."
However, the Communists differed from their cousins the Socialists in that they professed a more confrontational political vision, which class struggle a central place in his proposal for a workers' revolution. It was for this reason that Karl Marx (1818-1883) and Friedrich Engels (1820-1895), the German philosophers who reinvented this terminology, always preferred to speak of communism in their writings.
Marx renamed the socialist tendencies prior to his philosophical work as "utopian socialism", Meaning by this that they proposed paths to socialism that were not based on the rigorous study of reality, nor did they propose a method for this, unlike his proposal - today known as Marxist- who called "scientific socialism”Or just communism.
In Marx's work, however, all this referred to the historical march towards a society devoid of social classes; a society that he baptized with many terms, such as "positive humanism", "kingdom of free individuality", "free association of producers", "socialism" or "communism".
Later scholars of his work, on the other hand, understood that these last two terms had to be understood as different stages in this long journey: thus, for Marxism, socialism would be the transitional stage, intermediate between the capitalism and communism.
Post-Marx thinkers, such as Max Weber (1864-1920), for example, preferred to be more practical and call a "rational" variant of communism socialism, which they distinguished from "domestic communism" in that the production of goods and services, thus as their consumption, it had to be orchestrated in socialism collectively, while in "domestic communism" they were entirely free, but had an always common goal and origin.
In any case, and as we have seen so far, the use of these terms has changed a lot over time and it is not always used with historical fidelity or theoretical precision.
Throughout the 20th century there were many attempts to apply communism, with catastrophic results that led to genocides, dictatorships and other similar horrors, while more modern and lax variants of socialism achieved relative success in the form of social democracy, that is, through their coexistence with the free market and with the democratic political system.
In an absolutely strict sense, however, there has never been a nation capable of implementing total communism or socialism. For better and for worse.
Differences between communism and socialism
Like the use of its terms, the concrete differences between socialism and communism can vary depending on who states them or in what historical context we discuss them. Today, the distance between communism and socialism can be roughly summed up in the following terms:
| Communism | Socialism |
|---|---|
| It is the result of a violent and revolutionary insurgency of the working classes, thus imposing a "dictatorship of the proletariat”And eliminate any attempt at opposition. | Being a less rigid ideology, it is possible to approach socialism through gradual processes of reform and transformation, instead of a revolutionary outbreak. |
| The private property, all assets become community property, managed by a Condition strong central. | Private property is respected, but the dynamics of production and redistribution of wealth are led by a democratically elected state for the common welfare. |
| The central State dictates what each person receives free of charge, depending on their basic needs accommodation, food, education and medical care. | A free market system is maintained in which individual effort is rewarded, but the State has its resources available to redistribute wealth and achieve a more egalitarian society in basic matters: food, education, medical care. |
| The central state controls and directs economic and cultural production, giving rise to more or less totalitarian societies. | The State can sponsor and subsidize assets that are considered of social interest, and eventually take actions to interfere in the market, always under the protection of the law and respecting the republican order. |
| Today the economic system of countries such as China, Cuba, North Korea, Laos and Vietnam is considered. | Today social democracy is the form of socialism that coexists with democratic and free market systems, with notable success in countries such as Norway, Denmark, Sweden and other European nations. |