History of communism
Encyclopedia
The history of the political ideology of communism
hypothetically stretches all the way from the Palaeolithic up until the present day. However, most modern forms of communism are based upon Marxism
, a variant of the ideology formed by the sociologist Karl Marx
in the 1840s. Various historical movements and societies that have stressed egalitarianism
and common ownership of goods have been described as communist, including hunter-gatherer societies
and early Christianity
. Marxism subsequently gained support across much of Europe, and under the control of the Bolshevik Party, a communist government seized power during the Russian revolution, leading to the creation of the Soviet Union
, the world’s first so called Marxist state, in the early 20th century.
During ensuing decades, communist governments took power in many parts of the world through conquest, including most of eastern Europe
, eastern Asia and parts of Africa
. During the late 1980s and early 1990s most of these communist regimes collapsed and adopted capitalistic economic policies
, even if remaining nominally communist, like the People’s Republic of China. Today, communist governments control countries like Cuba
and Nepal
.
Various historians have studied the history of communism, including Robert Service
and Archie Brown
, many of whom have taken a negative view of the ideology, which they viewed as having a tendency towards authoritarianism
, totalitarianism
and for allowing human rights abuses.
societies, as were found in the Palaeolithic, were essentially egalitarian and he therefore termed their ideology to be "primitive communism
". Certainly, communist ideas do predate Marxism, with various philosophers in Ancient Greece
, such as Pythagoras
and Plato
(in his The Republic) propagating the idea of common ownership. Some have also noted that early Christianity
supported a form of communism through the teachings in the New Testament
which emphasised sharing amongst everyone equally. Like Christianity, other ancient Jewish sects, like the Essenes
, also supported egalitarianism and communal living.
In Jamaica during the Early Modern period
, various groups supporting communist ideas appeared. The Roman Catholic Thomas More
propagated the concept of a society where the products of society should be shared equally in his Utopia
(1516) as did Tommaso Campanella
in his The City of the Sun
(1601). Within a few centuries, during the English Civil War
, various groups on the side of the Roundheads propagated the redistribution of wealth on an egalitarian basis, namely the Levellers
and the Diggers.
In the eighteenth century the French philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau in his hugely influential The Social Contract (1762), outlined the basis for a political order based on popular sovereignty rather than the rule of monarchs. His views proved influential during the French Revolution of 1789, in which various anti-monarchists, particularly the Jacobin
s, supported the idea of redistributing wealth equally among the people, including Jean-Paul Marat
and Gracchus Babeuf. The latter was involved in the "Conspiracy of the Equals" of 1796 intending to establish a revolutionary regime based on communal ownership, egalitarianism and the redistribution of property. The plot was however detected and he and several others involved were arrested and executed. Despite this setback the example of the French Revolutionary regime and Babeuf's doomed insurrection was an inspiration for radical French thinkers such as Compte Henri de Saint Simon, Louis Blanc
, Charles Fourier
and Pierre-Joseph Proudhon
who declared that Property is theft!
”.
In the 1840s, a German philosopher and sociologist named Karl Marx (1818–1883), who was living in England after fleeing the authorities in the German states, where he was considered a political threat, began publishing books in which he outlined his theories for a variety of communism now known as Marxism
. Marx was financially aided and supported by another German émigré, Friedrich Engels
(1820–1895), who like Marx had fled from the German authorities in 1849. Marx and Engels took on many influences from earlier philosophers; politically, they were influenced by Maximilien Robespierre
and several other radical figures of the French Revolution, whilst economically they were influenced by David Ricardo
and philosophically they were influenced by Hegel. Engels regularly met Marx at Chetham's Library
in Manchester
, England from 1845 and the alcove where they met remains identical to this day. It was here Engels relayed his experiences of industrial Manchester, chronicled in the Condition of the Working Class in England
, highlighting the struggles of the working class.
Marx stated that "the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles," something that he believed was happening between the bourgeoisie
who then controlled society and the proletariat
(the working class
masses) who toiled to produce everything but whom had no political control. He purported the idea that human society moved through a series of progressive stages, from primitive communism through to slavery
, feudalism
and then capitalism, and that this in turn would be replaced by communism - for Marx therefore, communism was seen as inevitable, as well as desirable.
Marx founded the Communist Correspondence Committee in 1846 through which the various communists, socialists
and other leftists across Europe could keep in contact with one another in the face of political oppression. He then published The Communist Manifesto
in 1848, which would prove to be one of the most influential communist texts ever written. He subsequently began work on a multi-volume epic that would examine and criticise the capitalist economy and the effect that it had upon politics, society and philosophy; the first volume of the work, which was known as Capital
, was published in 1869. However, Marx and Engels were not only interested in writing about communism, they were also active in supporting revolutionary activity that would lead to the creation of communist governments across Europe. They helped to found the International Workingmen's Association
, which would later become known as the First International, to unite various communists and socialists, and Marx was elected to the Association's General Council.
right-wing regimes that were then in power. In France in 1871, socialists set up a government known as the Paris Commune
after the fall of Napoleon III, however they were soon overthrown and many of their members executed by counter-revolutionaries. Meanwhile Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels joined the German Social-Democratic Party
, which had been created in 1875, but which was outlawed in 1879 by the German government, then led by Chancellor Otto von Bismarck
, who deemed it to be a political threat due to its revolutionary nature and increasing number of supporters. In 1890, the party was re-legalised, and by this time it had fully adopted Marxist principles. It subsequently achieved a fifth of the vote in the German elections, and some of its leaders, such as August Bebel
and Wilhelm Liebknecht
, became well-known public figures.
At the time, Marxism took off not only in Germany, but it also gained popularity in Hungary
, the Habsburg Monarchy
and the Netherlands
, although did not achieve such success in other European nations like the United Kingdom
, where Marx and Engels had been based. Nonetheless, the new political ideology had gained sufficient support that an organisation was founded known as the Second International
to unite the various Marxist groups around the world.
However, as Marxism took off, it also began to come under criticism from other European intellectuals, including fellow socialists and leftists; the Russian collectivist anarchist
Mikhail Bakunin
for instance criticised what he believed were the flaws in the Marxian theory that the state would eventually dissolve under a Marxist government, instead he believed that the state would gain in power and become authoritarian. Criticism also came from other sociologists, such as the German Max Weber
, who whilst admiring Marx, disagreed with many of his assumptions on the nature of society. Some Marxists tried to adapt to these criticisms and the changing nature of capitalism, for instance Eduard Bernstein
emphasised the idea of Marxists bringing legal challenges against the current administrations over the treatment of the working classes rather than simply emphasising violent revolution as more orthodox Marxists did. Other Marxists opposed Bernstein and other revisionists, with many, including Karl Kautsky
, Otto Bauer
, Rudolf Hilferding
, Rosa Luxemburg
, Vladimir Lenin
, and Georgi Plekhanov
sticking steadfast to the concept of violently overthrowing what they saw as the bourgeoisie-controlled government and instead establishing a "dictatorship of the proletariat
."
At the start of the 20th century, the Russian Empire
was an autocracy
controlled by the Tsar
, with millions of the country's largely agrarian population living in abject poverty
, and as the anti-communist historian Robert Service
noted, "poverty and oppression constituted the best soil for Marxism to grow in." The man responsible for largely introducing the ideology into the country was Georgi Plekhanov
, although the movement itself was largely organised by a man known as Vladimir Lenin
, who had for a time been exiled to a prison camp in Siberia
by the Tsarist government for his beliefs. A Marxist group known as the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party
was formed in the country, although it soon divided into two main factions; the Bolsheviks, who were led by Lenin, and the Mensheviks, who were led by Julius Martov
. In 1905, there was a revolution against the Tsar's rule, in which workers' councils, known as "soviets" were formed in many parts of the country, and the Tsar was forced to implement democratic reform, introducing an elected government, the Duma
.
In 1917, with further social unrest against the Duma and its part in involving Russia in the First World War, the Bolsheviks took power in the October Revolution. They subsequently began remodelling the country based upon communist principles, nationalising various industries and confiscating land from wealthy aristocrats and redistributing it amongst the peasants. They subsequently pulled out of the war against Germany by signing the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk
, which was unpopular amongst many in Russia for it gave away large areas of land to Germany. From the outset, the new government faced counter-revolutionary resistance from a myriad of forces, including anarchists, scattered tsarist resistance forces known as the White Guard
, and Western
powers, leading to the events of the Russian civil war
, which the Bolsheviks won and subsequently consolidated their power over the entire country, centralising power from the Kremlin
in the capital city of Moscow
. In 1922, the Russian Empire was officially redesignated to be the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, whilst in 1924 Lenin resigned as leader of the Union due to poor health, and soon died, with Joseph Stalin
subsequently taking over control.
. Throughout its existence, Comintern would be dominated by the Kremlin despite its internationalist stance. Meanwhile, in 1921 the Soviet Union invaded its neighbouring Mongolia
to aid a popular uprising against the imperialist Chinese who then controlled the country, instituting a Marxist government, which declared the nation to be the Mongolian People's Republic in 1924.
Comintern and other such Soviet-backed communist groups soon spread across much of the world, though particularly in Europe, where the influence of the recent Russian Revolution was still strong. In Germany
, the Spartacist uprising
took place in 1919, when armed communists supported rioting workers, but the government put the rebellion down violently with the use of a right-wing paramilitary group, the Freikorps
, with many noted German communists, such as Rosa Luxemburg
, being killed. Within a few months, a group of communists seized power amongst public unrest in the German region of Bavaria
, forming the Bavarian Soviet Republic
, although once more this was put down violently by the Freikorps, who historians believe killed around 1200 communists and their sympathisers.
That same year, political turmoil in Hungary
following their defeat in the First World War led to a coalition government of the Social-Democratic Party and the Communist Party taking control. The communists, led by Bela Kun
, soon became dominant and instituted various communist reforms in the country, however the country was subsequently invaded by its neighbouring Romania
within a matter of months who overthrew the government, with the communist leaders either escaping abroad or being executed. In 1921, a communist revolt against the government occurred whilst supportive factory workers were on strike in Turin
and Milan
, northern Italy
, however the government acted swiftly and put down the rebellion. That same year, a further communist rebellion took place in Germany, only to be crushed, but another occurred in 1923, which once again was also defeated by the government. The communists of Bulgaria
had also attempted an uprising in 1923 but like most of their counterparts across Europe, they were defeated.
In 1924, Joseph Stalin
, a key Bolshevik who had been heavily involved in the October Revolution, took power in the Soviet Union. He was supported in his leadership by Nikolai Bukharin
but had various important opponents in the government, most notably Leon Trotsky
, Grigory Zinoviev
and Lev Kamenev
. Stalin continued Lenin's process of building a communist society, creating a variant of communism known as Stalinism
and as a part of this he abandoned some of the capitalist, free market policies that had been allowed to continue under Lenin, such as the New Economic Policy
. He radically altered much of the Union's agricultural production, modernising it by introducing tractors and other machinery, by collectivising the farms and by persecuting the kulaks, or richer farmers who rented their land to others for a profit.
Stalin also came to dominance over Comintern, and introduced a policy in the international organisation of opposing all leftists who were not Marxists, labelling them to be "social-fascists", although many communists, such as Jules Humbert-Droz
and Angelo Tasca, disagreed with him on this policy, believing that the left should unite against the rise of right wing movements like fascism
across Europe.
" operated from Dec. 1936 to Nov. 1938, as Stalin systematically destroyed the older generation of pre-1918 leaders, usually on the grounds they were enemy spies. In the Army, a majority of generals were executed. Hundreds of thousands of other "enemies" were sent to the Gulag
, where terrible conditions in Siberia led quickly to death.
. Trotskyism has been of notable and enduring relevance to communists, in part due to the depth of opposition of Soviet or post-Soviet aligned parties to Trotskyites, and in part due to the small number of influential intellectual leaders who have associated with Trotskyism. In Germany, the split in the SPD had initially led to a variety of Communist unions and parties forming, which included the councilist tendencies of the AAU-D AAU-E and KAPD. Councilism had a limited impact outside of Germany, but a number of international organisations formed. In Spain, a fusion of Left and Right dissidents led to the formation of the POUM
. Additionally, in Spain, the CNT
was associated with the development of the FAI
political party, a non-Marxist party which stood for revolutionary communism.
Relations with the US and Britain went from friendly to hostile; they denounced Stalin's political controls over eastern Europe and his blockade of Berlin. By 1947, the Cold War
had begun. Stalin himself believed that capitalism was a hollow shell and would crumble under increased non-military pressure exerted through proxies in countries like Italy. He greatly underestimated the economic strength of the West, and instead of triumph saw the West build up alliances designed to permanently stop or "contain" Soviet expansion. In early 1950 Stalin gave the go-ahead for North Korea's invasion of South Korea, expecting a short war. He was stunned when the Americans entered and defeated the North Koreans, putting them almost on the Soviet border. Stalin supported China's entry into the Korean war, which drove the Americans back to the prewar boundaries, but which escalated tensions. The US decided to mobilize its economy for a long contest with the Soviets, built the hydrogen bomb, and strengthened the NATO alliance that covered western Europe.
According to Gorlizki and Khlevniuk (2004), Stalin's consistent and overriding goal after 1945 was to consolidate the nation's superpower status and, in the face of his growing physical decrepitude, to maintain his own hold on total power. Stalin created a leadership system that reflected historic czarist styles of paternalism and repression, yet was also quite modern. At the top personal loyalty to Stalin counted for everything. However, Stalin also created powerful committees, elevated younger specialists, and began major institutional innovations. In the teeth of persecution, Stalin's deputies cultivated informal norms and mutual understandings which provided the foundations for collective rule after his death.
The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 was a significantly different affair. This revolution saw general strikes, the formation of independent workers councils, the restoration of the Social Democratic Party as a party for revolutionary communism of a non-Soviet variety, and the formation of two underground independent communist parties. The mainstream Communist Party was controlled for a period of about a week by non-Soviet aligned leaders. Two non-communist parties which supported the maintenance of socialism also regained their independence. This flowering of dissenting communism was crushed by a combination of a military invasion supported by heavy artillery and airstrikes; mass arrests, at least a thousand juridicial executions and an uncounted number of summary executions; the crushing of the Central Workers Council of Greater Budapest; mass refugee flight; and systematic scabbing by
Soviet Union aligned Hungarian communist party members. The effect of the Hungarian Revolution on other communist parties varied significantly, resulting in large membership losses in Anglophone communist parties, and in all Western states the development of small communist intellectual groups.
was wracked by increasing internal divisions over analysis and strategy. This was combined with an industrial impotence that was widely recognised. Additionally, the success of Soviet-aligned parties in Europe and Asia led to the persecution of Trotskyite intellectuals, such as the infamous purge of Vietnamese Trotskyists. The war had also strained Social Democratic parties in the West. In some cases, such as Italy, significant bodies of membership of the Social Democratic Party were inspired by the possibility of achieving advanced socialism. In Italy this group, combined with dissenting communists, began to discuss theory centred on the experience of work in modern factories, leading to Autonomist Marxism. In the United States this theoretical development was paralleled by the Johnston-Forrest tendency. In France a similar impulse occurred.
, France
, Portugal
and Greece
have very publicly strong communist movements that play an open and active leading role in the vast majority of their labor marches and strikes, and also anti-austerity protests
, all of which are large, pronounced events with much visibility. Also, worldwide marches on International Workers Day sometimes give a clearer picture of the size and influence of current communist movements, particularly within Europe.
Cuba has recently emerged from the crisis
sparked by the fall of the Soviet Union given the growth in its volume of trade with its new allies Venezuela and China (the former of whom has recently adopted a "Socialism for the 21st Century" according to Hugo Chavez
). Various other countries throughout South and Latin America have also taken similar shifts to more clearly socialistic policies and rhetoric, in a phenomenon academics are calling the "pink tide
".
North Korea has had less success in coping with the collapse of the Soviet bloc than its counterparts, which led that government to "supersede" its original Marxism-Leninism
with an ideology called Juche
. For this reason among others, there are no significant communist movements, whether State-based or local, who consider North Korea to have any connection to communism whatsoever. Cuba, however, does apparently have an ambassador to North Korea, and China still protects North Korean territorial integrity even as it simultaneously refuses to supply the state with material goods or other significant assistance.
In Nepal
, the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist)
leader Man Mohan Adhikari
briefly became Prime Minister and national leader from 1994 to 1995, and the Maoist guerrilla leader Prachanda
was elected Prime Minister by the Constituent Assembly of Nepal in 2008. Prachanda has since been deposed as PM, leading the Maoists to abandon their legalistic approach and return to their typical street actions and militancy and to lead sporadic general strike
s using their quite substantial influence on the Nepalese labor movement. These actions have oscillated between mild and intense, only the latter of which tends to make world news. They consider Prachanda's removal to be unjust.
The national government of India
depends on the parliamentary support of the Communist Party of India (Marxist)
, and CPI(M) leads the state governments in West Bengal
, Kerala
and Tripura
. The armed wing of the Communist Party of India (Maoist)
is fighting a war against the government of India and is active in half the country; the Indian government has recently declared the Maoists its chief objective to eliminate.
In Cyprus
, the veteran communist Dimitris Christofias
of AKEL won the 2008 presidential election.
In Moldova
, the communist party won the 2001, 2005 and 2009 parliamentary elections. However, the April 2009 Moldovan elections results, in which the communists supposedly won a third time, were massively protested (including an attack on the Parliament and Presidency buildings by angry crowds) and another round was held on July 29 in which three opposition parties (the Liberals, Liberal-Democrats, and Democrats)won and formed the Alliance for European Integration. However failing to elect the president, new parliamentary elections were held in November 2010 which resulted in roughly the same representation in the Parliament. According to Ion Marandici, a Moldovan political scientist the Moldovan Communists differ from those in other countries, because they managed to appeal to the ethnic minorities and the anti-Romanian Moldovans. After tracing the adaptation strategy of the Party of Communists from Republic of Moldova, he finds confirming evidence for five of the factors contributing to the electoral success, already mentioned in the theoretical literature on former Communist parties: the economic situation, the weakness of the opponents, the electoral laws, the fragmentation of the political spectrum and the legacy of the old regime. However, Ion Marandici identified seven additional explanatory factors at work in the Moldovan case: the foreign support for certain political parties, separatism, the appeal to the ethnic minorities, the alliance-building capacity, the reliance on the Soviet notion of the Moldovan identity, the state-building process and the control over a significant portion of the media. It is due to these seven additional factors that the successor party in Moldova managed to consolidate and expand its constituency. According to Ion Marandici, in the post-Soviet area the Moldovan Communists are the only ones who have been in power for so long and did not change the name of the party.
In Ukraine
and Russia
, the communists came second in the 2002 and 2003 elections, respectively. In the Czech Republic
, the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia
came third in the 2002 elections, as did the Communist Party of Portugal
in 2005.
Brazil
has the Communist Party of Brazil
as a member of the governing leftwing coalition led by president Lula da Silva; his party, Workers' Party (Brazil)
, itself has many different communist and democratic socialist tendencies within it.
In South Africa
, the South African Communist Party
(SACP) is a member of the Tripartite alliance alongside the African National Congress
and the Congress of South African Trade Unions
. Sri Lanka
has communist ministers in their national governments.
Colombia
is in the midst of a civil war
which has been waged since 1966 between the Colombian government and aligned rightwing paramilitaries
against two communist guerrilla groups; the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia - People's Army (FARC-EP) and the National Liberation Army
(ELN).
The Philippines
is still experiencing a low scale guerrilla insurgency by the New People's Army
.
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
hypothetically stretches all the way from the Palaeolithic up until the present day. However, most modern forms of communism are based upon Marxism
Marxism
Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...
, a variant of the ideology formed by the sociologist Karl Marx
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...
in the 1840s. Various historical movements and societies that have stressed egalitarianism
Egalitarianism
Egalitarianism is a trend of thought that favors equality of some sort among moral agents, whether persons or animals. Emphasis is placed upon the fact that equality contains the idea of equity of quality...
and common ownership of goods have been described as communist, including hunter-gatherer societies
Primitive communism
Primitive communism is a term used by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels to describe what they interpreted as early forms of communism: As a model, primitive communism is usually used to describe early hunter-gatherer societies, that had no hierarchical social class structures or capital accumulation...
and early Christianity
Early Christianity
Early Christianity is generally considered as Christianity before 325. The New Testament's Book of Acts and Epistle to the Galatians records that the first Christian community was centered in Jerusalem and its leaders included James, Peter and John....
. Marxism subsequently gained support across much of Europe, and under the control of the Bolshevik Party, a communist government seized power during the Russian revolution, leading to the creation of the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
, the world’s first so called Marxist state, in the early 20th century.
During ensuing decades, communist governments took power in many parts of the world through conquest, including most of eastern Europe
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...
, eastern Asia and parts of Africa
Africa
Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...
. During the late 1980s and early 1990s most of these communist regimes collapsed and adopted capitalistic economic policies
Capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system that became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism. There is no consensus on the precise definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category...
, even if remaining nominally communist, like the People’s Republic of China. Today, communist governments control countries like Cuba
Cuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...
and Nepal
Nepal
Nepal , officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, is a landlocked sovereign state located in South Asia. It is located in the Himalayas and bordered to the north by the People's Republic of China, and to the south, east, and west by the Republic of India...
.
Various historians have studied the history of communism, including Robert Service
Robert Service (historian)
Robert John Service is a British historian, academic, and author who has written extensively on the history of Soviet Russia, particularly the era from the October Revolution to Stalin's death...
and Archie Brown
Archie Brown
Archibald Haworth Brown CMG, FBA, commonly known as Archie Brown , is a British political scientist and historian. In 2005, he became Emeritus Professor of Politics at Oxford University and an Emeritus Fellow of St. Antony's College, Oxford, where he was a Professor of Politics and Director of St....
, many of whom have taken a negative view of the ideology, which they viewed as having a tendency towards authoritarianism
Authoritarianism
Authoritarianism is a form of social organization characterized by submission to authority. It is usually opposed to individualism and democracy...
, totalitarianism
Totalitarianism
Totalitarianism is a political system where the state recognizes no limits to its authority and strives to regulate every aspect of public and private life wherever feasible...
and for allowing human rights abuses.
Pre-Marxist Communism
Many historical groups have been considered as following forms of communism. Karl Marx and other early communist theorists believed that hunter-gathererHunter-gatherer
A hunter-gatherer or forage society is one in which most or all food is obtained from wild plants and animals, in contrast to agricultural societies which rely mainly on domesticated species. Hunting and gathering was the ancestral subsistence mode of Homo, and all modern humans were...
societies, as were found in the Palaeolithic, were essentially egalitarian and he therefore termed their ideology to be "primitive communism
Primitive communism
Primitive communism is a term used by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels to describe what they interpreted as early forms of communism: As a model, primitive communism is usually used to describe early hunter-gatherer societies, that had no hierarchical social class structures or capital accumulation...
". Certainly, communist ideas do predate Marxism, with various philosophers in Ancient Greece
Ancient Greece
Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...
, such as Pythagoras
Pythagoras
Pythagoras of Samos was an Ionian Greek philosopher, mathematician, and founder of the religious movement called Pythagoreanism. Most of the information about Pythagoras was written down centuries after he lived, so very little reliable information is known about him...
and Plato
Plato
Plato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the...
(in his The Republic) propagating the idea of common ownership. Some have also noted that early Christianity
Early Christianity
Early Christianity is generally considered as Christianity before 325. The New Testament's Book of Acts and Epistle to the Galatians records that the first Christian community was centered in Jerusalem and its leaders included James, Peter and John....
supported a form of communism through the teachings in the New Testament
New Testament
The New Testament is the second major division of the Christian biblical canon, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....
which emphasised sharing amongst everyone equally. Like Christianity, other ancient Jewish sects, like the Essenes
Essenes
The Essenes were a Jewish sect that flourished from the 2nd century BCE to the 1st century CE which some scholars claim seceded from the Zadokite priests...
, also supported egalitarianism and communal living.
In Jamaica during the Early Modern period
Early modern period
In history, the early modern period of modern history follows the late Middle Ages. Although the chronological limits of the period are open to debate, the timeframe spans the period after the late portion of the Middle Ages through the beginning of the Age of Revolutions...
, various groups supporting communist ideas appeared. The Roman Catholic Thomas More
Thomas More
Sir Thomas More , also known by Catholics as Saint Thomas More, was an English lawyer, social philosopher, author, statesman and noted Renaissance humanist. He was an important councillor to Henry VIII of England and, for three years toward the end of his life, Lord Chancellor...
propagated the concept of a society where the products of society should be shared equally in his Utopia
Utopia (book)
Utopia is a work of fiction by Thomas More published in 1516...
(1516) as did Tommaso Campanella
Tommaso Campanella
Tommaso Campanella OP , baptized Giovanni Domenico Campanella, was an Italian philosopher, theologian, astrologer, and poet.-Biography:...
in his The City of the Sun
The City of the Sun
The City of the Sun is a philosophical work by the Italian Dominican philosopher Tommaso Campanella. It is an important early utopian work.The work was written in Italian in 1602, shortly after Campanella's imprisonment for heresy and sedition...
(1601). Within a few centuries, during the English Civil War
English Civil War
The English Civil War was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations between Parliamentarians and Royalists...
, various groups on the side of the Roundheads propagated the redistribution of wealth on an egalitarian basis, namely the Levellers
Levellers
The Levellers were a political movement during the English Civil Wars which emphasised popular sovereignty, extended suffrage, equality before the law, and religious tolerance, all of which were expressed in the manifesto "Agreement of the People". They came to prominence at the end of the First...
and the Diggers.
In the eighteenth century the French philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau in his hugely influential The Social Contract (1762), outlined the basis for a political order based on popular sovereignty rather than the rule of monarchs. His views proved influential during the French Revolution of 1789, in which various anti-monarchists, particularly the Jacobin
Jacobin (politics)
A Jacobin , in the context of the French Revolution, was a member of the Jacobin Club, a revolutionary far-left political movement. The Jacobin Club was the most famous political club of the French Revolution. So called from the Dominican convent where they originally met, in the Rue St. Jacques ,...
s, supported the idea of redistributing wealth equally among the people, including Jean-Paul Marat
Jean-Paul Marat
Jean-Paul Marat , born in the Principality of Neuchâtel, was a physician, political theorist, and scientist best known for his career in France as a radical journalist and politician during the French Revolution...
and Gracchus Babeuf. The latter was involved in the "Conspiracy of the Equals" of 1796 intending to establish a revolutionary regime based on communal ownership, egalitarianism and the redistribution of property. The plot was however detected and he and several others involved were arrested and executed. Despite this setback the example of the French Revolutionary regime and Babeuf's doomed insurrection was an inspiration for radical French thinkers such as Compte Henri de Saint Simon, Louis Blanc
Louis Blanc
Louis Jean Joseph Charles Blanc was a French politician and historian. A socialist who favored reforms, he called for the creation of cooperatives in order to guarantee employment for the urban poor....
, Charles Fourier
Charles Fourier
François Marie Charles Fourier was a French philosopher. An influential thinker, some of Fourier's social and moral views, held to be radical in his lifetime, have become main currents in modern society...
and Pierre-Joseph Proudhon
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon was a French politician, mutualist philosopher and socialist. He was a member of the French Parliament, and he was the first person to call himself an "anarchist". He is considered among the most influential theorists and organisers of anarchism...
who declared that Property is theft!
Property is theft!
Property is theft! is a slogan coined by French anarchist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon in his 1840 book What is Property? Or, an Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government....
”.
Karl Marx
Marxism
Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...
. Marx was financially aided and supported by another German émigré, Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels was a German industrialist, social scientist, author, political theorist, philosopher, and father of Marxist theory, alongside Karl Marx. In 1845 he published The Condition of the Working Class in England, based on personal observations and research...
(1820–1895), who like Marx had fled from the German authorities in 1849. Marx and Engels took on many influences from earlier philosophers; politically, they were influenced by Maximilien Robespierre
Maximilien Robespierre
Maximilien François Marie Isidore de Robespierre is one of the best-known and most influential figures of the French Revolution. He largely dominated the Committee of Public Safety and was instrumental in the period of the Revolution commonly known as the Reign of Terror, which ended with his...
and several other radical figures of the French Revolution, whilst economically they were influenced by David Ricardo
David Ricardo
David Ricardo was an English political economist, often credited with systematising economics, and was one of the most influential of the classical economists, along with Thomas Malthus, Adam Smith, and John Stuart Mill. He was also a member of Parliament, businessman, financier and speculator,...
and philosophically they were influenced by Hegel. Engels regularly met Marx at Chetham's Library
Chetham's Library
Chetham's Library in Manchester, England is the oldest free public reference library in the United Kingdom. Chetham's Hospital, which contains both the library and Chetham's School of Music, was established in 1653 under the will of Humphrey Chetham , for the education of "the sons of honest,...
in Manchester
Manchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...
, England from 1845 and the alcove where they met remains identical to this day. It was here Engels relayed his experiences of industrial Manchester, chronicled in the Condition of the Working Class in England
The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844
The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844 is one of the best-known works of Friedrich Engels.Originally written in German as Die Lage der arbeitenden Klasse in England, it is a study of the working class in Victorian England. It was also Engels' first book, written during his stay in...
, highlighting the struggles of the working class.
Marx stated that "the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles," something that he believed was happening between the bourgeoisie
Bourgeoisie
In sociology and political science, bourgeoisie describes a range of groups across history. In the Western world, between the late 18th century and the present day, the bourgeoisie is a social class "characterized by their ownership of capital and their related culture." A member of the...
who then controlled society and the proletariat
Proletariat
The proletariat is a term used to identify a lower social class, usually the working class; a member of such a class is proletarian...
(the working class
Working class
Working class is a term used in the social sciences and in ordinary conversation to describe those employed in lower tier jobs , often extending to those in unemployment or otherwise possessing below-average incomes...
masses) who toiled to produce everything but whom had no political control. He purported the idea that human society moved through a series of progressive stages, from primitive communism through to slavery
Slavery
Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...
, feudalism
Feudalism
Feudalism was a set of legal and military customs in medieval Europe that flourished between the 9th and 15th centuries, which, broadly defined, was a system for ordering society around relationships derived from the holding of land in exchange for service or labour.Although derived from the...
and then capitalism, and that this in turn would be replaced by communism - for Marx therefore, communism was seen as inevitable, as well as desirable.
Marx founded the Communist Correspondence Committee in 1846 through which the various communists, socialists
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
and other leftists across Europe could keep in contact with one another in the face of political oppression. He then published The Communist Manifesto
The Communist Manifesto
The Communist Manifesto, originally titled Manifesto of the Communist Party is a short 1848 publication written by the German Marxist political theorists Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. It has since been recognized as one of the world's most influential political manuscripts. Commissioned by the...
in 1848, which would prove to be one of the most influential communist texts ever written. He subsequently began work on a multi-volume epic that would examine and criticise the capitalist economy and the effect that it had upon politics, society and philosophy; the first volume of the work, which was known as Capital
Das Kapital
Das Kapital, Kritik der politischen Ökonomie , by Karl Marx, is a critical analysis of capitalism as political economy, meant to reveal the economic laws of the capitalist mode of production, and how it was the precursor of the socialist mode of production.- Themes :In Capital: Critique of...
, was published in 1869. However, Marx and Engels were not only interested in writing about communism, they were also active in supporting revolutionary activity that would lead to the creation of communist governments across Europe. They helped to found the International Workingmen's Association
International Workingmen's Association
The International Workingmen's Association , sometimes called the First International, was an international organization which aimed at uniting a variety of different left-wing socialist, communist and anarchist political groups and trade union organizations that were based on the working class...
, which would later become known as the First International, to unite various communists and socialists, and Marx was elected to the Association's General Council.
Early development of Marxism
During the latter half of the 19th century, various left-wing organisations across Europe continued to campaign against the many autocraticAutocracy
An autocracy is a form of government in which one person is the supreme power within the state. It is derived from the Greek : and , and may be translated as "one who rules by himself". It is distinct from oligarchy and democracy...
right-wing regimes that were then in power. In France in 1871, socialists set up a government known as the Paris Commune
Paris Commune
The Paris Commune was a government that briefly ruled Paris from March 18 to May 28, 1871. It existed before the split between anarchists and Marxists had taken place, and it is hailed by both groups as the first assumption of power by the working class during the Industrial Revolution...
after the fall of Napoleon III, however they were soon overthrown and many of their members executed by counter-revolutionaries. Meanwhile Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels joined the German Social-Democratic Party
Social Democratic Party of Germany
The Social Democratic Party of Germany is a social-democratic political party in Germany...
, which had been created in 1875, but which was outlawed in 1879 by the German government, then led by Chancellor Otto von Bismarck
Otto von Bismarck
Otto Eduard Leopold, Prince of Bismarck, Duke of Lauenburg , simply known as Otto von Bismarck, was a Prussian-German statesman whose actions unified Germany, made it a major player in world affairs, and created a balance of power that kept Europe at peace after 1871.As Minister President of...
, who deemed it to be a political threat due to its revolutionary nature and increasing number of supporters. In 1890, the party was re-legalised, and by this time it had fully adopted Marxist principles. It subsequently achieved a fifth of the vote in the German elections, and some of its leaders, such as August Bebel
August Bebel
Ferdinand August Bebel was a German Marxist politician, writer, and orator. He is best remembered as one of the founders of the Social Democratic Party of Germany.-Early years:...
and Wilhelm Liebknecht
Wilhelm Liebknecht
Wilhelm Martin Philipp Christian Ludwig Liebknecht was a German social democrat and a principal founder of the SPD. His political career was a pioneering project combining Marxist revolutionary theory with practical, legal political activity...
, became well-known public figures.
At the time, Marxism took off not only in Germany, but it also gained popularity in Hungary
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
, the Habsburg Monarchy
Habsburg Monarchy
The Habsburg Monarchy covered the territories ruled by the junior Austrian branch of the House of Habsburg , and then by the successor House of Habsburg-Lorraine , between 1526 and 1867/1918. The Imperial capital was Vienna, except from 1583 to 1611, when it was moved to Prague...
and the Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
, although did not achieve such success in other European nations like the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, where Marx and Engels had been based. Nonetheless, the new political ideology had gained sufficient support that an organisation was founded known as the Second International
Second International
The Second International , the original Socialist International, was an organization of socialist and labour parties formed in Paris on July 14, 1889. At the Paris meeting delegations from 20 countries participated...
to unite the various Marxist groups around the world.
However, as Marxism took off, it also began to come under criticism from other European intellectuals, including fellow socialists and leftists; the Russian collectivist anarchist
Collectivist anarchism
Collectivist anarchism is a revolutionary doctrine that advocates the abolition of both the state and private ownership of the means of production...
Mikhail Bakunin
Mikhail Bakunin
Mikhail Alexandrovich Bakunin was a well-known Russian revolutionary and theorist of collectivist anarchism. He has also often been called the father of anarchist theory in general. Bakunin grew up near Moscow, where he moved to study philosophy and began to read the French Encyclopedists,...
for instance criticised what he believed were the flaws in the Marxian theory that the state would eventually dissolve under a Marxist government, instead he believed that the state would gain in power and become authoritarian. Criticism also came from other sociologists, such as the German Max Weber
Max Weber
Karl Emil Maximilian "Max" Weber was a German sociologist and political economist who profoundly influenced social theory, social research, and the discipline of sociology itself...
, who whilst admiring Marx, disagreed with many of his assumptions on the nature of society. Some Marxists tried to adapt to these criticisms and the changing nature of capitalism, for instance Eduard Bernstein
Eduard Bernstein
Eduard Bernstein was a German social democratic theoretician and politician, a member of the SPD, and the founder of evolutionary socialism and revisionism.- Life :...
emphasised the idea of Marxists bringing legal challenges against the current administrations over the treatment of the working classes rather than simply emphasising violent revolution as more orthodox Marxists did. Other Marxists opposed Bernstein and other revisionists, with many, including Karl Kautsky
Karl Kautsky
Karl Johann Kautsky was a Czech-German philosopher, journalist, and Marxist theoretician. Kautsky was recognized as among the most authoritative promulgators of Orthodox Marxism after the death of Friedrich Engels in 1895 until the coming of World War I in 1914 and was called by some the "Pope of...
, Otto Bauer
Otto Bauer
Otto Bauer was an Austrian Social Democrat who is considered one of the leading thinkers of the left socialist Austro-Marxist tendency...
, Rudolf Hilferding
Rudolf Hilferding
Rudolf Hilferding was an Austrian-born Marxist economist, leading socialist theorist, politician and chief theoretician for the Social Democratic Party of Germany during the Weimar Republic, almost universally recognized as the SPD's foremost theoretician of his century, and a...
, Rosa Luxemburg
Rosa Luxemburg
Rosa Luxemburg was a Marxist theorist, philosopher, economist and activist of Polish Jewish descent who became a naturalized German citizen...
, Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and communist politician who led the October Revolution of 1917. As leader of the Bolsheviks, he headed the Soviet state during its initial years , as it fought to establish control of Russia in the Russian Civil War and worked to create a...
, and Georgi Plekhanov
Georgi Plekhanov
Georgi Valentinovich Plekhanov was a Russian revolutionary and a Marxist theoretician. He was a founder of the Social-Democratic movement in Russia and was one of the first Russians to identify himself as "Marxist." Facing political persecution, Plekhanov emigrated to Switzerland in 1880, where...
sticking steadfast to the concept of violently overthrowing what they saw as the bourgeoisie-controlled government and instead establishing a "dictatorship of the proletariat
Dictatorship of the proletariat
In Marxist socio-political thought, the dictatorship of the proletariat refers to a socialist state in which the proletariat, or the working class, have control of political power. The term, coined by Joseph Weydemeyer, was adopted by the founders of Marxism, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, in the...
."
The Russian Revolution and the formation of the Soviet Union
At the start of the 20th century, the Russian Empire
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
was an autocracy
Autocracy
An autocracy is a form of government in which one person is the supreme power within the state. It is derived from the Greek : and , and may be translated as "one who rules by himself". It is distinct from oligarchy and democracy...
controlled by the Tsar
Tsar
Tsar is a title used to designate certain European Slavic monarchs or supreme rulers. As a system of government in the Tsardom of Russia and Russian Empire, it is known as Tsarist autocracy, or Tsarism...
, with millions of the country's largely agrarian population living in abject poverty
Poverty
Poverty is the lack of a certain amount of material possessions or money. Absolute poverty or destitution is inability to afford basic human needs, which commonly includes clean and fresh water, nutrition, health care, education, clothing and shelter. About 1.7 billion people are estimated to live...
, and as the anti-communist historian Robert Service
Robert Service (historian)
Robert John Service is a British historian, academic, and author who has written extensively on the history of Soviet Russia, particularly the era from the October Revolution to Stalin's death...
noted, "poverty and oppression constituted the best soil for Marxism to grow in." The man responsible for largely introducing the ideology into the country was Georgi Plekhanov
Georgi Plekhanov
Georgi Valentinovich Plekhanov was a Russian revolutionary and a Marxist theoretician. He was a founder of the Social-Democratic movement in Russia and was one of the first Russians to identify himself as "Marxist." Facing political persecution, Plekhanov emigrated to Switzerland in 1880, where...
, although the movement itself was largely organised by a man known as Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and communist politician who led the October Revolution of 1917. As leader of the Bolsheviks, he headed the Soviet state during its initial years , as it fought to establish control of Russia in the Russian Civil War and worked to create a...
, who had for a time been exiled to a prison camp in Siberia
Siberia
Siberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...
by the Tsarist government for his beliefs. A Marxist group known as the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party
Russian Social Democratic Labour Party
The Russian Social Democratic Labour Party , also known as Russian Social Democratic Workers' Party or Russian Social Democratic Party, was a revolutionary socialist Russian political party formed in 1898 in Minsk to unite the various revolutionary organizations into one party...
was formed in the country, although it soon divided into two main factions; the Bolsheviks, who were led by Lenin, and the Mensheviks, who were led by Julius Martov
Julius Martov
Julius Martov or L. Martov was born in Constantinople in 1873...
. In 1905, there was a revolution against the Tsar's rule, in which workers' councils, known as "soviets" were formed in many parts of the country, and the Tsar was forced to implement democratic reform, introducing an elected government, the Duma
Duma
A Duma is any of various representative assemblies in modern Russia and Russian history. The State Duma in the Russian Empire and Russian Federation corresponds to the lower house of the parliament. Simply it is a form of Russian governmental institution, that was formed during the reign of the...
.
In 1917, with further social unrest against the Duma and its part in involving Russia in the First World War, the Bolsheviks took power in the October Revolution. They subsequently began remodelling the country based upon communist principles, nationalising various industries and confiscating land from wealthy aristocrats and redistributing it amongst the peasants. They subsequently pulled out of the war against Germany by signing the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk
Treaty of Brest-Litovsk
The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was a peace treaty signed on March 3, 1918, mediated by South African Andrik Fuller, at Brest-Litovsk between Russia and the Central Powers, headed by Germany, marking Russia's exit from World War I.While the treaty was practically obsolete before the end of the year,...
, which was unpopular amongst many in Russia for it gave away large areas of land to Germany. From the outset, the new government faced counter-revolutionary resistance from a myriad of forces, including anarchists, scattered tsarist resistance forces known as the White Guard
White movement
The White movement and its military arm the White Army - known as the White Guard or the Whites - was a loose confederation of Anti-Communist forces.The movement comprised one of the politico-military Russian forces who fought...
, and Western
Western world
The Western world, also known as the West and the Occident , is a term referring to the countries of Western Europe , the countries of the Americas, as well all countries of Northern and Central Europe, Australia and New Zealand...
powers, leading to the events of the Russian civil war
Russian Civil War
The Russian Civil War was a multi-party war that occurred within the former Russian Empire after the Russian provisional government collapsed to the Soviets, under the domination of the Bolshevik party. Soviet forces first assumed power in Petrograd The Russian Civil War (1917–1923) was a...
, which the Bolsheviks won and subsequently consolidated their power over the entire country, centralising power from the Kremlin
Moscow Kremlin
The Moscow Kremlin , sometimes referred to as simply The Kremlin, is a historic fortified complex at the heart of Moscow, overlooking the Moskva River , Saint Basil's Cathedral and Red Square and the Alexander Garden...
in the capital city of Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
. In 1922, the Russian Empire was officially redesignated to be the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, whilst in 1924 Lenin resigned as leader of the Union due to poor health, and soon died, with Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
subsequently taking over control.
Comintern, Mongolia and the communist uprisings in Europe
In 1919, the Bolshevik government in Russia organised the creation of an international communist organisation that would act as the Third International after the collapse of the Second International in 1916 - this was known as the Communist International, although was commonly abbreviated as CominternComintern
The Communist International, abbreviated as Comintern, also known as the Third International, was an international communist organization initiated in Moscow during March 1919...
. Throughout its existence, Comintern would be dominated by the Kremlin despite its internationalist stance. Meanwhile, in 1921 the Soviet Union invaded its neighbouring Mongolia
Mongolia
Mongolia is a landlocked country in East and Central Asia. It is bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south, east and west. Although Mongolia does not share a border with Kazakhstan, its western-most point is only from Kazakhstan's eastern tip. Ulan Bator, the capital and largest...
to aid a popular uprising against the imperialist Chinese who then controlled the country, instituting a Marxist government, which declared the nation to be the Mongolian People's Republic in 1924.
Comintern and other such Soviet-backed communist groups soon spread across much of the world, though particularly in Europe, where the influence of the recent Russian Revolution was still strong. In Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, the Spartacist uprising
Spartacist uprising
The Spartacist Uprising , also known as the January uprising , was a general strike in Germany from January 5 to January 15, 1919. Its suppression marked the end of the German Revolution...
took place in 1919, when armed communists supported rioting workers, but the government put the rebellion down violently with the use of a right-wing paramilitary group, the Freikorps
Freikorps
Freikorps are German volunteer military or paramilitary units. The term was originally applied to voluntary armies formed in German lands from the middle of the 18th century onwards. Between World War I and World War II the term was also used for the paramilitary organizations that arose during...
, with many noted German communists, such as Rosa Luxemburg
Rosa Luxemburg
Rosa Luxemburg was a Marxist theorist, philosopher, economist and activist of Polish Jewish descent who became a naturalized German citizen...
, being killed. Within a few months, a group of communists seized power amongst public unrest in the German region of Bavaria
Bavaria
Bavaria, formally the Free State of Bavaria is a state of Germany, located in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the largest state by area, forming almost 20% of the total land area of Germany...
, forming the Bavarian Soviet Republic
Bavarian Soviet Republic
The Bavarian Soviet Republic, also known as the Munich Soviet Republic was, as part of the German Revolution of 1918–1919, the short-lived attempt to establish a socialist state in form of a council republic in the Free State of Bavaria. It sought independence from the also recently proclaimed...
, although once more this was put down violently by the Freikorps, who historians believe killed around 1200 communists and their sympathisers.
That same year, political turmoil in Hungary
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
following their defeat in the First World War led to a coalition government of the Social-Democratic Party and the Communist Party taking control. The communists, led by Bela Kun
Béla Kun
Béla Kun , born Béla Kohn, was a Hungarian Communist politician and a Bolshevik Revolutionary who led the Hungarian Soviet Republic in 1919.- Early life :...
, soon became dominant and instituted various communist reforms in the country, however the country was subsequently invaded by its neighbouring Romania
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
within a matter of months who overthrew the government, with the communist leaders either escaping abroad or being executed. In 1921, a communist revolt against the government occurred whilst supportive factory workers were on strike in Turin
Turin
Turin is a city and major business and cultural centre in northern Italy, capital of the Piedmont region, located mainly on the left bank of the Po River and surrounded by the Alpine arch. The population of the city proper is 909,193 while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat...
and Milan
Milan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...
, northern Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, however the government acted swiftly and put down the rebellion. That same year, a further communist rebellion took place in Germany, only to be crushed, but another occurred in 1923, which once again was also defeated by the government. The communists of Bulgaria
Bulgaria
Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...
had also attempted an uprising in 1923 but like most of their counterparts across Europe, they were defeated.
Stalinism in the Soviet Union
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
, a key Bolshevik who had been heavily involved in the October Revolution, took power in the Soviet Union. He was supported in his leadership by Nikolai Bukharin
Nikolai Bukharin
Nikolai Ivanovich Bukharin , was a Russian Marxist, Bolshevik revolutionary, and Soviet politician. He was a member of the Politburo and Central Committee , chairman of the Communist International , and the editor in chief of Pravda , the journal Bolshevik , Izvestia , and the Great Soviet...
but had various important opponents in the government, most notably Leon Trotsky
Leon Trotsky
Leon Trotsky , born Lev Davidovich Bronshtein, was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and theorist, Soviet politician, and the founder and first leader of the Red Army....
, Grigory Zinoviev
Grigory Zinoviev
Grigory Yevseevich Zinoviev , born Ovsei-Gershon Aronovich Radomyslsky Apfelbaum , was a Bolshevik revolutionary and a Soviet Communist politician...
and Lev Kamenev
Lev Kamenev
Lev Borisovich Kamenev , born Rozenfeld , was a Bolshevik revolutionary and a prominent Soviet politician. He was briefly head of state of the new republic in 1917, and from 1923-24 the acting Premier in the last year of Lenin's life....
. Stalin continued Lenin's process of building a communist society, creating a variant of communism known as Stalinism
Stalinism
Stalinism refers to the ideology that Joseph Stalin conceived and implemented in the Soviet Union, and is generally considered a branch of Marxist–Leninist ideology but considered by some historians to be a significant deviation from this philosophy...
and as a part of this he abandoned some of the capitalist, free market policies that had been allowed to continue under Lenin, such as the New Economic Policy
New Economic Policy
The New Economic Policy was an economic policy proposed by Vladimir Lenin, who called it state capitalism. Allowing some private ventures, the NEP allowed small animal businesses or smoke shops, for instance, to reopen for private profit while the state continued to control banks, foreign trade,...
. He radically altered much of the Union's agricultural production, modernising it by introducing tractors and other machinery, by collectivising the farms and by persecuting the kulaks, or richer farmers who rented their land to others for a profit.
Stalin also came to dominance over Comintern, and introduced a policy in the international organisation of opposing all leftists who were not Marxists, labelling them to be "social-fascists", although many communists, such as Jules Humbert-Droz
Jules Humbert-Droz
Jules Humbert-Droz was a Swiss Communist and a founding member of the Communist Party of Switzerland. He held high Comintern office through the 1920s and also acted as Comintern emissary to several west European countries. Prior to his becoming a Communist, Humbert-Droz was a pastor...
and Angelo Tasca, disagreed with him on this policy, believing that the left should unite against the rise of right wing movements like fascism
Fascism
Fascism is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists seek to rejuvenate their nation based on commitment to the national community as an organic entity, in which individuals are bound together in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood...
across Europe.
The Great Terror
The "Great TerrorGreat Purge
The Great Purge was a series of campaigns of political repression and persecution in the Soviet Union orchestrated by Joseph Stalin from 1936 to 1938...
" operated from Dec. 1936 to Nov. 1938, as Stalin systematically destroyed the older generation of pre-1918 leaders, usually on the grounds they were enemy spies. In the Army, a majority of generals were executed. Hundreds of thousands of other "enemies" were sent to the Gulag
Gulag
The Gulag was the government agency that administered the main Soviet forced labor camp systems. While the camps housed a wide range of convicts, from petty criminals to political prisoners, large numbers were convicted by simplified procedures, such as NKVD troikas and other instruments of...
, where terrible conditions in Siberia led quickly to death.
Pre-war dissident communisms
The internal pressures of Western and Central European failed revolutions, the actual nature of the Soviet Union, and the nature of the Soviet Union as reported by emigres and Western sources led to the development of dissident communisms throughout the world. In the Soviet Union left and right wing block of Bolshevik communists formed opposing the main party line, including attempts to oppose this line through methods deemed unacceptable by the Party. Two of these which achieved international notability included the International Right Opposition and TrotskyismTrotskyism
Trotskyism is the theory of Marxism as advocated by Leon Trotsky. Trotsky considered himself an orthodox Marxist and Bolshevik-Leninist, arguing for the establishment of a vanguard party of the working-class...
. Trotskyism has been of notable and enduring relevance to communists, in part due to the depth of opposition of Soviet or post-Soviet aligned parties to Trotskyites, and in part due to the small number of influential intellectual leaders who have associated with Trotskyism. In Germany, the split in the SPD had initially led to a variety of Communist unions and parties forming, which included the councilist tendencies of the AAU-D AAU-E and KAPD. Councilism had a limited impact outside of Germany, but a number of international organisations formed. In Spain, a fusion of Left and Right dissidents led to the formation of the POUM
Poum
Poum is a commune in the North Province of New Caledonia, an overseas territory of France in the Pacific Ocean. The town of Poum is located in the far northwest, located on the southern part of Banare Bay, with Mouac Island just offshore....
. Additionally, in Spain, the CNT
Confederación Nacional del Trabajo
The Confederación Nacional del Trabajo is a Spanish confederation of anarcho-syndicalist labor unions affiliated with the International Workers Association . When working with the latter group it is also known as CNT-AIT...
was associated with the development of the FAI
Federación Anarquista Ibérica
The Federación Anarquista Ibérica is a Spanish organization of anarchist militants active within affinity groups inside the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo trade union. It is often abbreviated as CNT-FAI because of the close relationship between the two organizations...
political party, a non-Marxist party which stood for revolutionary communism.
Spreading Communism (1948–1957)
The devastation of the war resulted in a massive recovery program involving the rebuilding of industrial plants, housing, and transportation, as well as the demobilization and migration of millions of soldiers and civilians. In the midst of this turmoil during the winter of 1946–1947 the Soviet Union experienced the worst natural famine in the 20th century. There was no serious opposition to Stalin, as the secret police continued to send possible suspects to the "Gulag."Relations with the US and Britain went from friendly to hostile; they denounced Stalin's political controls over eastern Europe and his blockade of Berlin. By 1947, the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
had begun. Stalin himself believed that capitalism was a hollow shell and would crumble under increased non-military pressure exerted through proxies in countries like Italy. He greatly underestimated the economic strength of the West, and instead of triumph saw the West build up alliances designed to permanently stop or "contain" Soviet expansion. In early 1950 Stalin gave the go-ahead for North Korea's invasion of South Korea, expecting a short war. He was stunned when the Americans entered and defeated the North Koreans, putting them almost on the Soviet border. Stalin supported China's entry into the Korean war, which drove the Americans back to the prewar boundaries, but which escalated tensions. The US decided to mobilize its economy for a long contest with the Soviets, built the hydrogen bomb, and strengthened the NATO alliance that covered western Europe.
According to Gorlizki and Khlevniuk (2004), Stalin's consistent and overriding goal after 1945 was to consolidate the nation's superpower status and, in the face of his growing physical decrepitude, to maintain his own hold on total power. Stalin created a leadership system that reflected historic czarist styles of paternalism and repression, yet was also quite modern. At the top personal loyalty to Stalin counted for everything. However, Stalin also created powerful committees, elevated younger specialists, and began major institutional innovations. In the teeth of persecution, Stalin's deputies cultivated informal norms and mutual understandings which provided the foundations for collective rule after his death.
Eastern Bloc
The military success of the Red Army in Central and Eastern Europe led to a consolidation of power in Communist hands. In some cases, such as Czechoslovakia, this led to an enthusiastic support for socialism inspired by the Communist Party and a Social Democratic Party willing to fuse. In other cases, such as Poland or Hungary, the fusion of the Communist Party with the Social Democratic party was forcible, and accomplished through undemocratic means. In many cases the Communist Parties of Central Europe were faced with a population initially quite willing to reign in market forces, institute limited nationalisation of industry, and supporting the development of intensive social welfare states: broadly, the population largely supported socialism. However, the purges of non-Communist parties which supported socialism, combined with forced collectivisation of agriculture, and a Soviet-bloc wide recession in 1953 led to deep unrest. This unrest first surfaced in Berlin in 1953, where Brecht ironically suggested the that Party ought to elect a new People. However, Khrushchev's Secret Speech of 1956 opened up internal debate, even if members were unaware, in both the Polish and Hungarian Communist Parties. This led to the Polish Crisis of 1956 which was resolved through change in Polish leadership, and a negotiation between the Soviet and Polish parties over the direction of the Polish economy.The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 was a significantly different affair. This revolution saw general strikes, the formation of independent workers councils, the restoration of the Social Democratic Party as a party for revolutionary communism of a non-Soviet variety, and the formation of two underground independent communist parties. The mainstream Communist Party was controlled for a period of about a week by non-Soviet aligned leaders. Two non-communist parties which supported the maintenance of socialism also regained their independence. This flowering of dissenting communism was crushed by a combination of a military invasion supported by heavy artillery and airstrikes; mass arrests, at least a thousand juridicial executions and an uncounted number of summary executions; the crushing of the Central Workers Council of Greater Budapest; mass refugee flight; and systematic scabbing by
Soviet Union aligned Hungarian communist party members. The effect of the Hungarian Revolution on other communist parties varied significantly, resulting in large membership losses in Anglophone communist parties, and in all Western states the development of small communist intellectual groups.
Early post-war dissident Communisms
Following the Second World War TrotskyismTrotskyism
Trotskyism is the theory of Marxism as advocated by Leon Trotsky. Trotsky considered himself an orthodox Marxist and Bolshevik-Leninist, arguing for the establishment of a vanguard party of the working-class...
was wracked by increasing internal divisions over analysis and strategy. This was combined with an industrial impotence that was widely recognised. Additionally, the success of Soviet-aligned parties in Europe and Asia led to the persecution of Trotskyite intellectuals, such as the infamous purge of Vietnamese Trotskyists. The war had also strained Social Democratic parties in the West. In some cases, such as Italy, significant bodies of membership of the Social Democratic Party were inspired by the possibility of achieving advanced socialism. In Italy this group, combined with dissenting communists, began to discuss theory centred on the experience of work in modern factories, leading to Autonomist Marxism. In the United States this theoretical development was paralleled by the Johnston-Forrest tendency. In France a similar impulse occurred.
Contemporary Communism (1993-Present)
With the fall of the communist governments in the Soviet Union and the eastern bloc, the power that the state-based Marxist ideologies held on the world was weakened, but there are still many communist movements of various types and sizes around the world. Three other communist nations, particularly those in eastern Asia, the People's Republic of China, Vietnam and Laos, all moved toward market economies but without major privatization of the state sector during the 1980s and 1990s; see Socialism with Chinese characteristics and doi moi for more details. SpainSpain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, Portugal
Portugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
and Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
have very publicly strong communist movements that play an open and active leading role in the vast majority of their labor marches and strikes, and also anti-austerity protests
Anti-austerity protests
Anti-austerity protests, chiefly taking the form of massive street protests by those affected by them and some of them also involving a greater or lesser degree of militancy, have happened regularly across various countries, especially on the European continent, since the onset of the present-day...
, all of which are large, pronounced events with much visibility. Also, worldwide marches on International Workers Day sometimes give a clearer picture of the size and influence of current communist movements, particularly within Europe.
Cuba has recently emerged from the crisis
Special Period
The Special Period in Time of Peace in Cuba was an extended period of economic crisis that began in 1991 after the dissolution of the Soviet Union and, by extension, the Comecon. The economic depression of the Special Period was at its most severe in the early-to-mid 1990s before slightly declining...
sparked by the fall of the Soviet Union given the growth in its volume of trade with its new allies Venezuela and China (the former of whom has recently adopted a "Socialism for the 21st Century" according to Hugo Chavez
Hugo Chávez
Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías is the 56th and current President of Venezuela, having held that position since 1999. He was formerly the leader of the Fifth Republic Movement political party from its foundation in 1997 until 2007, when he became the leader of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela...
). Various other countries throughout South and Latin America have also taken similar shifts to more clearly socialistic policies and rhetoric, in a phenomenon academics are calling the "pink tide
Pink tide
Pink tide is a term being used in contemporary 21st century political analysis in the media and elsewhere to describe the perception that Leftist ideology in general, and Left-wing politics in particular, is increasingly influential in Latin America.In 2005, the BBC reported that out of 350...
".
North Korea has had less success in coping with the collapse of the Soviet bloc than its counterparts, which led that government to "supersede" its original Marxism-Leninism
Marxism-Leninism
Marxism–Leninism is a communist ideology, officially based upon the theories of Marxism and Vladimir Lenin, that promotes the development and creation of a international communist society through the leadership of a vanguard party over a revolutionary socialist state that represents a dictatorship...
with an ideology called Juche
Juche
Juche or Chuch'e is a Korean word usually translated as "self-reliance." In the Democratic People's Republic of Korea , "Juche" refers specifically to a political thesis of Kim Il-sung, the Juche Idea, that identifies the Korean masses as the masters of the country's development...
. For this reason among others, there are no significant communist movements, whether State-based or local, who consider North Korea to have any connection to communism whatsoever. Cuba, however, does apparently have an ambassador to North Korea, and China still protects North Korean territorial integrity even as it simultaneously refuses to supply the state with material goods or other significant assistance.
In Nepal
Nepal
Nepal , officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, is a landlocked sovereign state located in South Asia. It is located in the Himalayas and bordered to the north by the People's Republic of China, and to the south, east, and west by the Republic of India...
, the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist)
Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist)
The Communist Party of Nepal , also known as CPN-UML, CPN, is one of the largest communist parties in Nepal. It was created on January 6, 1991 through the unification of the Communist Party of Nepal and the Communist Party of Nepal...
leader Man Mohan Adhikari
Man Mohan Adhikari
Man Mohan Adhikari was the Prime Minister of Nepal from 1994 to 1995, representing the Communist Party of Nepal . He was the first democratically-elected Communist Party member to be PM in Nepal....
briefly became Prime Minister and national leader from 1994 to 1995, and the Maoist guerrilla leader Prachanda
Prachanda
Puspa Kamal Dahal ; born Chhabilal Dahal on 11 December 1954, also known as Prachanda ]]. Prachanda led CPN as it launched an insurgency on 13 February 1996. In 2008 the ensuing civil war culminated in the overthrow of the Shah dynasty in favor of a communist...
was elected Prime Minister by the Constituent Assembly of Nepal in 2008. Prachanda has since been deposed as PM, leading the Maoists to abandon their legalistic approach and return to their typical street actions and militancy and to lead sporadic general strike
General strike
A general strike is a strike action by a critical mass of the labour force in a city, region, or country. While a general strike can be for political goals, economic goals, or both, it tends to gain its momentum from the ideological or class sympathies of the participants...
s using their quite substantial influence on the Nepalese labor movement. These actions have oscillated between mild and intense, only the latter of which tends to make world news. They consider Prachanda's removal to be unjust.
The national government of India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
depends on the parliamentary support of the Communist Party of India (Marxist)
Communist Party of India (Marxist)
The Communist Party of India is a political party in India. It has a strong presence in the states of Kerala, West Bengal and Tripura. As of 2011, CPI is leading the state government in Tripura. It leads the Left Front coalition of leftist parties in various states and the national parliament of...
, and CPI(M) leads the state governments in West Bengal
West Bengal
West Bengal is a state in the eastern region of India and is the nation's fourth-most populous. It is also the seventh-most populous sub-national entity in the world, with over 91 million inhabitants. A major agricultural producer, West Bengal is the sixth-largest contributor to India's GDP...
, Kerala
Kerala
or Keralam is an Indian state located on the Malabar coast of south-west India. It was created on 1 November 1956 by the States Reorganisation Act by combining various Malayalam speaking regions....
and Tripura
Tripura
Tripura is a state in North-East India, with an area of . It is the third smallest state of India, according to area. Tripura is surrounded by Bangladesh on the north, south, and west. The Indian states of Assam and Mizoram lie to the east. The capital is Agartala and the main languages spoken are...
. The armed wing of the Communist Party of India (Maoist)
Communist Party of India (Maoist)
The Communist Party of India is a Maoist political party in India which aims to overthrow the government of India through violent means. It was founded on 21 September 2004, through the merger of the People's War, and the Maoist Communist Centre . The merger was announced to the public on October...
is fighting a war against the government of India and is active in half the country; the Indian government has recently declared the Maoists its chief objective to eliminate.
In Cyprus
Cyprus
Cyprus , officially the Republic of Cyprus , is a Eurasian island country, member of the European Union, in the Eastern Mediterranean, east of Greece, south of Turkey, west of Syria and north of Egypt. It is the third largest island in the Mediterranean Sea.The earliest known human activity on the...
, the veteran communist Dimitris Christofias
Dimitris Christofias
Dimitris Christofias also Demetris is a left-wing Greek Cypriot politician and the current and sixth President of the Republic of Cyprus. Christofias was the General Secretary of AKEL and is Cyprus's first, and the European Union's first and so far only, communist head of state. He won the 2008...
of AKEL won the 2008 presidential election.
In Moldova
Moldova
Moldova , officially the Republic of Moldova is a landlocked state in Eastern Europe, located between Romania to the West and Ukraine to the North, East and South. It declared itself an independent state with the same boundaries as the preceding Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1991, as part...
, the communist party won the 2001, 2005 and 2009 parliamentary elections. However, the April 2009 Moldovan elections results, in which the communists supposedly won a third time, were massively protested (including an attack on the Parliament and Presidency buildings by angry crowds) and another round was held on July 29 in which three opposition parties (the Liberals, Liberal-Democrats, and Democrats)won and formed the Alliance for European Integration. However failing to elect the president, new parliamentary elections were held in November 2010 which resulted in roughly the same representation in the Parliament. According to Ion Marandici, a Moldovan political scientist the Moldovan Communists differ from those in other countries, because they managed to appeal to the ethnic minorities and the anti-Romanian Moldovans. After tracing the adaptation strategy of the Party of Communists from Republic of Moldova, he finds confirming evidence for five of the factors contributing to the electoral success, already mentioned in the theoretical literature on former Communist parties: the economic situation, the weakness of the opponents, the electoral laws, the fragmentation of the political spectrum and the legacy of the old regime. However, Ion Marandici identified seven additional explanatory factors at work in the Moldovan case: the foreign support for certain political parties, separatism, the appeal to the ethnic minorities, the alliance-building capacity, the reliance on the Soviet notion of the Moldovan identity, the state-building process and the control over a significant portion of the media. It is due to these seven additional factors that the successor party in Moldova managed to consolidate and expand its constituency. According to Ion Marandici, in the post-Soviet area the Moldovan Communists are the only ones who have been in power for so long and did not change the name of the party.
In Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
and Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
, the communists came second in the 2002 and 2003 elections, respectively. In the Czech Republic
Czech Republic
The Czech Republic is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Poland to the northeast, Slovakia to the east, Austria to the south, and Germany to the west and northwest....
, the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia
Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia
The Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia , abbreviated to KSČM, is a political party in the Czech Republic. It has a membership of 82,994 and is a member party of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left bloc in the European Parliament...
came third in the 2002 elections, as did the Communist Party of Portugal
Portugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
in 2005.
Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
has the Communist Party of Brazil
Communist Party of Brazil
The Communist Party of Brazil is a political party in Brazil. It has national reach and deep penetration in the trade union and students movements. PCdoB dispute with the Brazilian Communist Party the title of "oldest political party in Brazil"...
as a member of the governing leftwing coalition led by president Lula da Silva; his party, Workers' Party (Brazil)
Workers' Party (Brazil)
The Workers' Party is a democratic socialist political party in Brazil. Launched in 1980, it is recognized as one of the largest and most important left-wing movements of Latin America. It governs at the federal level in a coalition government with several other parties since January 1, 2003...
, itself has many different communist and democratic socialist tendencies within it.
In South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
, the South African Communist Party
South African Communist Party
South African Communist Party is a political party in South Africa. It was founded in 1921 as the Communist Party of South Africa by the joining together of the International Socialist League and others under the leadership of Willam H...
(SACP) is a member of the Tripartite alliance alongside the African National Congress
African National Congress
The African National Congress is South Africa's governing Africanist political party, supported by its tripartite alliance with the Congress of South African Trade Unions and the South African Communist Party , since the establishment of non-racial democracy in April 1994. It defines itself as a...
and the Congress of South African Trade Unions
Congress of South African Trade Unions
The Congress of South African Trade Unions is a trade union federation in South Africa. It was founded in 1985 and is the biggest of the country’s three main trade union federations, with 21 affiliated trade unions, altogether organising 1.8 million workers.-Establishment:COSATU was established in...
. Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is a country off the southern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Known until 1972 as Ceylon , Sri Lanka is an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait, and lies in the vicinity of India and the...
has communist ministers in their national governments.
Colombia
Colombia
Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia , is a unitary constitutional republic comprising thirty-two departments. The country is located in northwestern South America, bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the...
is in the midst of a civil war
Civil war
A civil war is a war between organized groups within the same nation state or republic, or, less commonly, between two countries created from a formerly-united nation state....
which has been waged since 1966 between the Colombian government and aligned rightwing paramilitaries
Paramilitarism in Colombia
Paramilitarism in Colombia refers to the origins and activities of far right-wing paramilitary groups in Colombia during the 20th century.Right-wing paramilitary groups are the parties considered to be most responsible for human rights violations in Colombia during the later half of the current...
against two communist guerrilla groups; the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia - People's Army (FARC-EP) and the National Liberation Army
National Liberation Army (Colombia)
National Liberation Army is a revolutionary, avowed Marxist guerrilla group that has been operating in several regions of Colombia since 1964....
(ELN).
The Philippines
Philippines
The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...
is still experiencing a low scale guerrilla insurgency by the New People's Army
New People's Army
The New People's Army is the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines. It was formed on March 29, 1969. The Maoist NPA conducts its armed guerrilla struggle based on the strategical line of 'protracted people's war'.The NPA exacts so called "revolutionary taxes" from business owners...
.
Further Reading
- Brown, ArchieArchie BrownArchibald Haworth Brown CMG, FBA, commonly known as Archie Brown , is a British political scientist and historian. In 2005, he became Emeritus Professor of Politics at Oxford University and an Emeritus Fellow of St. Antony's College, Oxford, where he was a Professor of Politics and Director of St....
. The Rise & Fall of Communism. Vintage, London, 2010. ISBN 978-1-845-95067-5 - Pons, Silvio and Robert Service, eds. A Dictionary of 20th-Century Communism (Princeton University Press, 2010). 944 pp. ISBN 978-0-691-13585-4 online review
- Service, RobertRobert Service (historian)Robert John Service is a British historian, academic, and author who has written extensively on the history of Soviet Russia, particularly the era from the October Revolution to Stalin's death...
. Comrades: Communism: A World History (Pan MacMillan, 2008) 571 pages; ISBN 0330439685 - Tucker, Robert C. Stalin as Revolutionary, 1879-1929 (1973); Stalin in Power: The Revolution from Above, 1929-1941. (1990) online edition a standard biography; online at ACLS e-books
External links
- BBC animation showing fall of Communism in Europe
- The Red Flag: Communism and the Making of the Modern World - Book review by Quentin Peel for The Financial Times