Communism

Communism is an approach to government with strong centralized control of the economy and a dictatorship of a "vanguard" party, based on the writings of Karl Marx and V. I. Lenin.

Communism was the ruling ideology of the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, which was the first Communist-ruled country, after the overthrow of the democratic government of the Russian Empire, as well as of the nations of Europe which the U.S.S.R. conquered in World War II (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria), those taken over by Communist partisans during the retreat of the Nazis, Yugoslavia and Albania, and Cambodia, which became Communist during the Vietnam War. Countries which became Communist-ruled and remain so include the People's Republic of China (though the Communist Party there no longer adheres to socialist economic policy), North Korea, Vietnam (which is also moving away from socialism), Laos, and Cuba. In Africa, Ethiopia, Somalia, Angola and Mozambique had governments which claimed to be Communist, and which were supported by the U.S.S.R., but those governments were more similar to non-Commmunist African dictatorships than to European or Asian communist governments.

Communist rule has frequently been accompanied by large scale starvation as a tool of policy, concentration camps for political opponents of the Communist government, genocide of minority groups, and mass executions. The Black Book of Communism estimates that over one hundred million people were killed by Commmunist governments in the 20th Century.

History of Communist Ideology

Communism as a political ideology is derived from the works of Karl Marx, who wrote The Communist Manifesto in 1848, setting forth a program for a revolutionary socialist movement. Marxian communism drew on an established school of socialist thought as well as a somewhat inchaote collection of revolutionary thinkers, many of whom had no specific program other than overthrow of existing social order. Marx's synthesis of these strains of thought quickly became the guiding philosophy for most of Europe's radical agitators. Marx considered his theory to be a scientific theory of politics and economics, based on dialectical materialism, derived from the dialectic of Hegel.

An international organziation of Communist parties was formed, with Marx and Engels in leading roles.

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, a Russian Communist, successfully led his faction to take over Russia's main socialist party, in 1905, then, in October 1917, led a putsch against the disorganized democratic government which had replaced the Czarist government in February of that year. Aside from leading the COmmunist government of the Russian Empire, which was renamed the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, Lenin wrote a number of books on the theory and practice of establishing and running of Communist government. Lenin's theoretical contributions were important enough to the ultimate history of Communism that Communist theory is known as Marxism-Leninism, to distinguish it from earlier Marxist thought, which had branched into several ideologies, some of which held that peaceful transitions to socialism were possible.

After Lenin's death, Joseph Stalin succeeded to power after a bloody power struggle in the top ranks of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Stalin wrote further theoretical works, and as a part of his cult of personality, claimed to have advanced Marxist theory to Marxism-Leninism-Stalinism, but since his death in 1953, the term Stalinism has come to refer to the particular excesses of Stalin's rule.

Mao Zedong, the leader of the Chinese Communist Party also wrote a number of theoretical and practical works, and claimed that Marxism-Leninism-Maoism was the true dialectical expression of Marxism.

Leon Trotsky, who had led the Red (Communist) Army to victory in the Russian civil war, fled to exile after being displaced in the leadership after Lenin's death. While in exile, he wrote many works critical of Stalin's practices and theories of Communism. Trotsky's development of the theory of Communism has inspired Trotskyism, an ideology adopted by many Communist splinter parties in non-communist countries.

Communist Parties

The first Communist parties arose in the mid-19th century, inspired by The Communist Manifesto. Communist parties from several European countries joined the first International Workingmen's Association, along with other socialist parties and labor unions. The First International fell apart, but the IWA was revived, in a "Second International", in 1889. Throughout the 19th century, Communist parties spread to most European countries and the United States. Some communists joined larger, more popular socialist parties and labor movements.

During World War II, the socialist and communist parties split over the issue of supporting the war. After the success of the Communists in Russia, they created a Communist International (Comintern), also called the Third International. The Comintern was used by the Soviet government as a way of funding Communist parties in other countries, and to ensure those parties' continued support of Soviet foreign-policy goals. The Comintern was quite successful at this latter task, as most of its member parties rapidly switched from denunciations of Nazi Germany to denunciations of the so-called imperialist opponents of Nazi Germany after the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of 1939, and as rapidly switched to denunciations of Nazi Germany and support for the war effort of the Allies after the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941. Communist parties were a significant part of partisan resistance to the Nazis in countries and areas which fell to Nazi advances.

After World War II, the Red (Soviet) Army had conquered most of central Europe, and installed local Communists to run governments in the countries the Red Army occupied. In 1949, Mao Zedong's Chinese Communist Party completed the conquest of the mainland of China, and established the People's Republic of China. Mao had survived a long civil war against the Chinese Nationalist government, and the three-cornered war between the Communists, Nationalists, and Japanese, all without significant Soviet support. As a result, Mao did not feel compelled to follow the dictates of the Comintern, and would occasionally criticize Soviet foreign policy, and "Red" China began to follow a foreign policy which occasionally put it in conflict with the Soviet Union. In some non-communist countries, the Chinese Communist Party vied with the CPSU for the allegience of the local Communists.