Basic Government Systems/Communism

Communism and Communist States

What is Communism?

Communism is a socio-economic system based on the abolition of private property and the holding of the means of production as common property. It is essentially workers' ownership of the means of production. Proponents believe that this promotes equality and the eliminates the class system. However, there are many different approaches to communism, each leading to a differing community of practice:

• Marxism
• Leninism
• Stalinism
• Maoism
• Trotskyism
• Hoxhaism
• Luxemburgism
• Left Communism
• Christian Communism
• Anarchist Communism (Anarcho-Communism)

History

Jean-Luc Nancy claims that the term communism was used in 14th century Europe to mean “people having in common a property belonging to the category of main morte – that is, not being submitted to the law of heritage”. The first modern use of the term communist was by Restif de la Bretonne in a 1785 review of Projet de Communauté philosophe by his friend Victor d'Hupay (1777).

Many define the USSR, China, Vietnam and such as "Communist Countries"; this is not the case in the original idea of Marx. He envisioned a world where everyone is equal, much unlike that of the Soviet Union. Likewise when the USSR was founded, Lenin did not say it was Communist, but rather that it was a future they were striving for.

Experience of the 20th century also showed that social revolution, including the socialist revolution in Russia, conceived as a means of transition to the building of a communist society, led not to the annihilation of the state, but to its multiple reinforcement and expansion. As a result, under conditions of real socialism, the state essentially wholly subordinated and absorbed both societies and the individual was taken.

Discussion questions

What happens when communism and capitalism blend? As there are many different forms of communism with different structures its difficult to answer as is the lack of easily accsesable information in different communist styled economy not everything is the same, also don't get sucked in by those small minded James Bond movies.

Is it possible to have a country that advocates there should be no countries?