Since the time of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels,[1] a variety of developments have been made in communist theory and attempts to build a communist society,[2] leading to a variety of different communist ideologies.[3] These span philosophical, social, political and economic ideologies and movements,[4] and can be split into three broad categories: Marxist-based ideologies, Leninist-based ideologies, and Non-Marxist ideologies, though influence between the different ideologies is found throughout and key theorists may be described as belonging to one or important to multiple ideologies.
Different communist schools of thought place a greater emphasis on certain aspects of classical Marxism while rejecting or modifying other aspects. Many communist schools of thought have sought to combine Marxian concepts and non-Marxian concepts which has then led to contradictory conclusions.[12] However, there is a movement toward the recognition that historical materialism and dialectical materialism remains the fundamental aspect of all Marxist communist schools of thought.[13] The offshoots of Marxism–Leninism are the most well-known of these and have been a driving force in international relations during most of the 20th century.[14][2]
Marxism is a method of socioeconomic analysis that views class relations and social conflict using a materialist interpretation of historical development and takes a dialectical view of social transformation.[15][16][17] It originates from the works of 19th century German philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.[18][1]Classical Marxism is the economic, philosophical and sociological theories expounded by Marx and Engels as contrasted with later developments in Marxism, especially Leninism and Marxism–Leninism.[19]
Under the capitalist mode of production, this struggle materializes between the minority (the bourgeoisie) who own the means of production and the vast majority of the population (the proletariat) who produce goods and services.[20] Starting with the concept that social change occurs because of the struggle between different classes[21] within society who are under contradiction against each other, a Marxist would conclude that capitalism exploits and oppresses the proletariat, therefore capitalism will inevitably lead to a proletarian revolution.[22] In a socialist society, private property—in the form of the means of production—would be replaced by co-operative ownership.[23][24] A socialist economy would not base production on the creation of private profits, but on the criteria of satisfying human needs—that is, production would be carried out directly for use. As Friedrich Engels said: "Then the capitalist mode of appropriation, in which the product enslaves first the producer, and then the appropriator, is replaced by the mode of appropriation of the product that is based upon the nature of the modern means of production; upon the one hand, direct social appropriation, as means to the maintenance and extension of production - on the other, direct individual appropriation, as means of subsistence and of enjoyment".[25]
Marxian economics and its proponents view capitalism as economically unsustainable and incapable of improving the living standards of the population due to its need to compensate for falling rates of profit by cutting employee's wages, social benefits and pursuing military aggression. The socialist system would succeed capitalism as humanity's mode of production through workers' revolution. According to Marxian crisis theory, socialism is not an inevitability, but an economic necessity.[26]
Orthodox Marxism is the body of Marxist thought that emerged after the death of Marx and which became the official philosophy of the socialist movement as represented in the Second International until World War I in 1914. Orthodox Marxism aims to simplify, codify and systematize Marxist method and theory by clarifying the perceived ambiguities and contradictions of classical Marxism. The philosophy of orthodox Marxism includes the understanding that material development (advances in technology in the productive forces) is the primary agent of change in the structure of society and of human social relations, and that social systems and their relations (e.g. feudalism, capitalism and so on) become contradictory and inefficient as the productive forces develop, which results in some form of social revolution arising in response to the mounting contradictions. This revolutionary change is the vehicle for fundamental society-wide changes and ultimately leads to the emergence of new economic systems.[27]
As a term, orthodox Marxism refers to the methods of historical materialism and of dialectical materialism and not the normative aspects inherent to classical Marxism, without implying dogmatic adherence to the results of Marx's investigations.[28] One of the most important historical proponents of Orthodox Marxism was the Czech-Austrian theorist Karl Kautsky.[29]
The purpose of Marxism–Leninism is the revolutionary transformation of a capitalist state into a socialist state by way of two-stage revolution led by a vanguard party of professional revolutionaries,[36] drawn from the proletariat.[43] To realise the two-stage transformation of the state, the vanguard party establishes the dictatorship of the proletariat and determines policy through democratic centralism. The Marxist–Leninist communist party is the vanguard for the political, economic and social transformation of a capitalist society into a socialist society which is the lower stage of socio-economic development and progress towards the upper-stage communist society which is stateless and classless, yet it features public ownership of the means of production, accelerated industrialisation, pro-active development of society's productive forces (research and development) and nationalised natural resources.[44][45][46]
As the official ideology of the Soviet Union, Marxism–Leninism was adopted by communist parties worldwide with variation in local application. Parties with a Marxist–Leninist understanding of the historical development of socialism advocate for the nationalisation of natural resources and monopolist industries of capitalism and for their internal democratization as part of the transition to workers' control. The economy under such a government is primarily coordinated through a universal economic plan with varying degrees of market distribution.[47][48] Since the fall of the Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc countries, many communist parties of the world today continue to use Marxism–Leninism as their method of understanding the conditions of their respective countries.[49][50] A variety of currents developed from Marxism-Leninism have gained prominence in various countries, including Bolshevism and Mariáteguism.
As a political term, it has a variety of uses, but most commonly it is used as a pejorative shorthand for Marxism–Leninism by a variety of competing political tendencies such as capitalism and Trotskyism.[54] Although Stalin himself repudiated any qualitatively original contribution to Marxism, the communist movement usually credits him with systematizing and expanding the ideas of Lenin into the ideology of Marxism–Leninism as a distinct body of work.[39][40] In this sense, Stalinism can be thought of as being roughly equivalent to Marxism–Leninism, although this is not universally agreed upon.[55] At other times, the term is used as a general umbrella term—again pejoratively—to describe a wide variety of political systems and governments.[55] In this sense, it can be seen as being roughly equivalent to actually existing socialism,[56] although sometimes it is used to describe totalitarian governments that are not socialist.[citation needed]
Some of the contributions to communist theory that Stalin is particularly known for are the following:
Leon Trotsky and his supporters organized into the Left Opposition[61] and their platform became known as Trotskyism.[62] Stalin eventually succeeded in gaining control of the Soviet regime and Trotskyist attempts to remove Stalin from power resulted in Trotsky's exile from the Soviet Union in 1929. During Trotsky's exile, mainstream communism fractured into two distinct branches, i.e. Trotskyism and Stalinism.[14] Trotskyism supports the theory of permanent revolution and world revolution instead of the two-stage theory and socialism in one country. It supported proletarian internationalism[63] and another communist revolution in the Soviet Union which Trotsky claimed had become a degenerated worker's state under the leadership of Stalin in which class relations had re-emerged in a new form,[64][65] rather than the dictatorship of the proletariat. In 1938, Trotsky founded the Fourth International, a Trotskyist rival to the Stalinist Communist International.[66][67][68]
Trotskyist ideas became more prominent through the 1960s,[69] having found echo among political movements in some countries in Asia and Latin America, especially in Argentina,[70][71] Brazil,[72][73] Bolivia[74] and Sri Lanka.[75] Many Trotskyist organizations are also active in more stable, developed countries in North America and Western Europe.[76][77] Trotsky's politics differed sharply from those of Stalin and Mao, most importantly in declaring the need for an international proletarian revolution (rather than socialism in one country)[78] and unwavering support for a true dictatorship of the proletariat-based on democratic principles. As a whole, Trotsky's theories and attitudes were never accepted in Marxist–Leninist circles after Trotsky's expulsion, either within or outside of the Soviet Bloc. This remained the case even after the "Secret Speech" and subsequent events critics claim exposed the fallibility of Stalin.[79]
Trotsky's followers claim to be the heirs of Lenin in the same way that mainstream Marxist–Leninists do. There are several distinguishing characteristics of this school of thought—foremost is the theory of permanent revolution,[80] contrasted to the theory of socialism in one country. This stated that in less-developed countries the bourgeoisie were too weak to lead their own bourgeois-democratic revolutions.[81] Due to this weakness, it fell to the proletariat to carry out the bourgeois revolution. With power in its hands, the proletariat would then continue this revolution permanently, transforming it from a national bourgeois revolution to a socialist international revolution.[82] Another shared characteristic between Trotskyists is a variety of theoretical justifications for their negative appraisal of the post-Lenin Soviet Union after Trotsky was expelled[83] by a majority vote from the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks)[84] and subsequently from the Soviet Union. As a consequence, Trotsky defined the Soviet Union under Stalin as a planned economy ruled over by a bureaucratic caste. Trotsky advocated overthrowing the government of the Soviet Union after he was expelled from it.[85] Trotskyist currents include orthodox Trotskyism, third camp, Posadism, Pabloism, and Morensim.[86][87][88]
Maoism is the Marxist–Leninist trend of communism associated with Mao Zedong and was mostly practised within the People's Republic of China.[38] Khrushchev's reforms heightened ideological differences between China and the Soviet Union, which became increasingly apparent in the 1960s. As the Sino-Soviet split in the international communist movement turned toward open hostility, China portrayed itself as a leader of the underdeveloped world against the two superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union.[89][90]
Parties and groups that supported the Communist Party of China in their criticism against the new Soviet leadership proclaimed themselves as anti-revisionist and denounced the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the parties aligned with it as revisionist "capitalist roaders". The Sino-Soviet split resulted in divisions amongst communist parties around the world. Notably, the Party of Labour of Albania sided with the People's Republic of China.[91][92] Effectively, the communist party under Mao Zedong's leadership became the rallying forces of a parallel international communist tendency. The ideology of the Chinese communist party, Marxism–Leninism–Mao Zedong Thought, was adopted by many of these groups.[93]
After Mao's death and his replacement by Deng Xiaoping, the international Maoist movement diverged. One sector accepted the new leadership in China whereas a second renounced the new leadership and reaffirmed their commitment to Mao's legacy and a third renounced Maoism altogether and aligned with Albania.[94]
Drawing inspiration from Lenin's New Economic Policy,[95] Dengism is a political and economic ideology first developed by Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping.[38] The theory does not claim to reject Marxism–Leninism or Mao Zedong Thought, but instead it seeks to adapt them to the existing socio-economic conditions of China. Deng also stressed opening China to the outside world, the implementation of one country, two systems and through the phrase "seek truth from facts"[38] an advocate of political and economic pragmatism.[96]
As reformist communism and a branch of Maoism, Dengism is often criticized by traditional Maoists. Dengists believe that isolated in our current international order and with an extremely underdeveloped economy it is first and foremost necessary to bridge the gap between China and Western capitalism as quickly as possible in order for socialism to be successful (see the theory of primary stage of socialism). In order to encourage and promote the advancement of productivity by creating competition and innovation, Dengist thought promotes the idea that the PRC needs to introduce certain market elements in a socialist country. Dengists still believe that China needs public ownership of land, banks, raw materials and strategic central industries so a democratically elected government can make decisions on how to use them for the benefit of the country as a whole instead of the land owners, but at the same time private ownership is allowed and encouraged in industries of finished goods and services.[97][98][99] According to the Dengist theory, private owners in those industries are not a bourgeoisie. Because in accordance with Marxist theory, bourgeois owns land and raw materials. In Dengist theory, private company owners are called civil run enterprises.[100]
China was the first country that adopted this belief. It boosted its economy and achieved the Chinese economic miracle.[101] It has increased the Chinese GDP growth rate to over 8% per year for thirty years and China now has the second highest GDP in the world. Due to the influence of Dengism, Vietnam and Laos have also adopted similar beliefs and policies, allowing Laos to increase its real GDP growth rate to 8.3%.[102] Cuba is also starting to embrace such ideas. Dengists take a very strong position against any form of personality cults which appeared in the Soviet Union during Stalin's rule and the current North Korea.[103][104]
Marxism–Leninism–Maoism is a political philosophy that builds upon Marxism–Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought. It was first formalised by the Peruvian communist party Shining Path in 1988.[105]
The synthesis of Marxism–Leninism–Maoism did not occur during the life of Mao. From the 1960s, groups that called themselves Maoist, or which upheld Marxism–Leninism–Mao Zedong Thought, were not unified around a common understanding of Maoism and had instead their own particular interpretations of the political, philosophical, economical and military works of Mao. Maoism as a unified, coherent stage of Marxism was not synthesized until the late 1980s through the experience of the people's war waged by the Shining Path. This led the Shining Path to posit Maoism as the newest development of Marxism in 1988.[105]
Since then, it has grown and developed significantly and has served as an animating force of revolutionary movements in countries such as Brazil,[106] Colombia, Ecuador, India,[107] Nepal[108] and the Philippines and has also led to efforts being undertaken towards the constitution or reconstitution of communist parties in countries such as Austria, France, Germany, Sweden and the United States.[109][110]
Marxism–Leninism–Maoism–Prachanda Path is the ideological line of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist Centre). It is considered to be a further development of Marxism–Leninism and Maoism. It is named after the leader of the CPN(M), Pushpa Kamal Dahal, commonly known as Prachanda.[111] Prachanda Path was proclaimed in 2001 and its formulation was partially inspired by the Shining Path which refers to its ideological line as Marxism–Leninism–Maoism–Gonzalo Thought.[112] Prachanda Path does not make an ideological break with Marxism–Leninism or Maoism, but rather it is an extension of these ideologies based on the political situation of Nepal. The doctrine came into existence after it was realized that the ideology of Marxism–Leninism and Maoism could not be practiced as done in the past, therefore Prachanda Path based on the circumstances of Nepalese politics was adopted by the party.[111] Prachanda's positions are seen by some Marxist–Leninist–Maoists around the world as "revisionist".[113]
Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era[123][124] is an ideological doctrine based on the writings, speeches and policies of Chinese Communist Partygeneral secretaryXi Jinping.[125][126] According to the CCP, Xi Jinping Thought "builds on and further enriches" previous party ideologies and has also been called as the "Marxism of contemporary China and of the 21st century".[127] It consists of 14-point fundamental principles, which were announced together with Xi Jinping Thought.[128][129]
Hoxhaism is an anti-revisionist Marxist-Leninist variant that appeared after the ideological row between the Communist Party of China and the Party of Labour of Albania in 1978.[130] The Albanians rallied a new separate international tendency. This tendency would demarcate itself by a strict defense of the legacy of Stalin and fierce criticism of virtually all other communist groupings as revisionist.[130]
Critical of the United States, Soviet Union and China, Enver Hoxha declared the latter two to be social-imperialist and condemned the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia by withdrawing from the Warsaw Pact in response.[131] Hoxhaism asserts the right of nations to pursue socialism by different paths, dictated by the conditions in those countries.[132] Hoxha declared Albania to be the world's only state legitimately adhering to Marxism–Leninism after 1978. The Albanians were able to win over a large share of the Maoists, mainly in Latin America such as the Popular Liberation Army and the Marxist–Leninist Communist Party of Ecuador, but it also had a significant international following in general.[93]
After the fall of the communist government in Albania, the pro-Albanian parties are grouped around an international conference and the publication Unity and Struggle.[133][134]
Elements of Titoism are characterized by policies and practices based on the principle that in each country, the means of attaining ultimate communist goals must be dictated by the conditions of that particular country rather than by a pattern set in another country.[137] During Josip Broz Tito's era, this specifically meant that the communist goal should be pursued independently of and often in opposition to the policies of the Soviet Union.[138][139] The term was originally meant as a pejorative and was labeled by Moscow as a heresy during the period of tensions between the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia known as the Informbiro period from 1948 to 1955. The implementation of socialist self-management which to move the managing of companies into the hands of workers and to separate the management from the state.[140][141][139] It was also meant to demonstrate the viability of a third way between the capitalist United States and the socialist Soviet Union.[142] From 1949 the central government began to cede power to communal local governments, seeking to decentralise the government[139] and work towards a withering away of the state.[142][143]Rankovićism disagreed with this decentralisation, viewing it as a threat to the stability of Yugoslavia.[144]
Unlike the rest of Eastern Bloc which fell under Stalin's influence post-World War II, Yugoslavia remained independent from Moscow[145] due to the strong leadership of Tito[146] and the fact that the Yugoslav Partisans liberated Yugoslavia with only limited help from the Red Army.[147][148][149]
It became the only country in the Balkans to resist pressure from Moscow to join the Warsaw Pact and remained "socialist, but independent" right up until the collapse of Soviet socialism in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Throughout his time in office, Josip Broz Tito and party leadership took pride in Yugoslavia's independence from the Soviet Bloc,[150] with Yugoslavia never accepting full membership of the Comecon and his open rejection of many aspects of Stalinism as the most obvious manifestations of this.[151]
Hồ Chí Minh with East German sailors in Stralsund harbor during his 1957 visit to East Germany
Ho Chi Minh Thought (Vietnamese: Tư tưởng Hồ Chí Minh) is a political philosophy that builds upon Marxism–Leninism and the ideology of Ho Chi Minh. It was developed and codified by the Communist Party of Vietnam and formalised in 1991.[153][154] The term is used to cover political theories and policies considered as representing a form of Marxism–Leninism that has been adapted to Vietnamese circumstances and history.[155] Whilst the ideology is named after the Vietnamese revolutionary and President, it does not necessarily reflect the personal ideologies of Ho Chi Minh but rather the official ideology of the Communist Party of Vietnam.[156][157][158]
As with Maoism, the core of Ho Chi Minh Thought is the belief that the peasantry is the revolutionary vanguard in pre-industrial societies rather than the proletariat.[159] Ho Chi Minh Thought is rooted in:[160]
Castroism refers to the politics followed and enacted by the Communist Party of Cuba under the leadership of Fidel Castro, following a Marxist and a Leninist stance.[165] Castro's political thought was influenced by the Cuban anti-imperialist revolutionary José Martí, Marx, and Hispanidad, a movement that criticized Anglo-Saxon material values and admired the moral values of Spanish and Spanish American culture.[166][167][168] Besides Castro's personal thought, the theory of Che Guevara and Jules Régis Debray have also been important influences on Castroism.[169] The Socialist Workers Party in the United States follows a Castroist position.[170]
Guevarism is a theory of communist revolution and a military strategy of guerrilla warfare associated with Ernesto "Che" Guevara, who believed in the idea of Marxism–Leninism and embraced its principles.[171] From his own experience he developed the foco theory of guerrilla warfare, that took inspiration from the Maoist notion of a "protracted people's war", combined with Guevara's experiences in the Cuban Revolution. When there were "objective conditions" for a revolution in a country, a small "focus" guerrilla as a vanguard could create the "subjective conditions" and unleash a general popular uprising.[172] Guevara provided the details of the guerilla warfare used in Cuba with discussion in his book Guerilla Warfare.[173] Guevara explained that in certain contexts the armed struggle had no place so it was necessary to use peaceful mechanisms such as participation within representative democracy. Although Che stated that this line should be peaceful but "very combative, very brave" and that it could only be abandoned if its orientation in favor of representative democracy was undermined within the population.[174] It was once such means have been exhausted that guerilla warfare should be considered and prepared.[175]
Sankarism is a description of the policies enacted and positions held by the government of Thomas Sankara in Burkina Faso.[176] Ideologically, Sankara was a pan-Africanist, anti-imperialist and a communist who studied the works of Marx and Lenin, who sought to reclaim the African identity of his nation and opposed neocolonialism.[177] During his time in power he attempted to bring about what he called the "Democratic and Popular Revolution" (French: Révolution démocratique et populaire), a radical transformation of society with a focus on self-sufficiency.[178] A number of organizations were formed to implement this revolution, among them the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution, the Popular Revolutionary Tribunals and the Pioneers of the Revolution. A vast number of reforms were enacted in Burkina Faso between 1983 and 1987, including mass vaccination programs,[179][180][181] reforestation,[182] elimination of slums through new housing developments,[183] and the development of national infrastructure such as railway networks.[181]
There is a strong political dissonance between the movements in modern Burkina Faso which ascribe to Sankara's political legacy and ideals, a fact which the Burkinabé opposition politician Bénéwendé Stanislas Sankara (no relation) described in 2001 as being "due to a lack of definition of the concept."[184] The "Sankarists" range from communists and socialists[185] to nationalists and populists.[186] The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) of South Africa, founded in 2013 by Julius Malema, claim to take significant inspiration from Sankara in terms of both style and ideology.[186]
Khrushchevism was a form of Marxism–Leninism which consisted of the theories and policies of Nikita Khrushchev and his administration in the Soviet Union,[187][188][189] through de-Stalinisation,[190] liberal tolerance of some cultural dissent and deviance, and a more welcoming international relations policy and attitude towards foreigners.[191]
Kadarism (Hungarian: kádárizmus), also commonly called Goulash Communism or the Hungarian Thaw, is the variety of socialism in Hungary following the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. János Kádár and the Hungarian People's Republic imposed policies with the goal to create high-quality living standards for the people of Hungary coupled with economic reforms.[193] These reforms fostered a sense of well-being and relative cultural freedom in Hungary with the reputation of being "the happiest barracks"[194] of the Eastern Bloc during the 1960s to the 1970s. With elements of regulated market economics as well as an improved human rights record, it represented a quiet reform and deviation from the Stalinist principles applied to Hungary in the previous decade. This period of "pseudo-consumerism" saw an increase of foreign affairs and consumption of consumer goods as well.[194]
Kadarism came from a background of Imre Nagy's "Reform Communism" (1955–1956), where he argues that Marxism is a "science that cannot remain static but must develop and become more perfect".[195] Official policy employed different methods of administering the collectives in Hungarian society, leaving the pace of mechanization up to each separately.[196] Additionally, rather than enforcing the system of compulsory crop deliveries and of workdays credit the collectivizers used monthly cash wages.[196] Later in the 1960s, cooperatives were permitted to enter into related and then general auxiliary businesses such as food processing, light industry and service industry.[196]
Kaysone Phomvihane Thought (Lao: ແນວຄິດ ໄກສອນ ພົມວິຫານ) builds upon Marxism–Leninism and Ho Chi Minh Thought with the political philosophy developed by Kaysone Phomvihane, the first leader of the Communist Lao People's Revolutionary Party (LPRP). It was formalised by the LPRP at its 10th National Congress in 2016.[201]
Libertarian Marxism is a broad scope of economic and political philosophies that emphasize the anti-authoritarian and libertarian aspects of Marxism.[203] Early currents of libertarian Marxism such as left communism[204] emerged in opposition to Marxism–Leninism.[205] Libertarian Marxism is often critical of reformist positions such as those held by social democrats.[206] Libertarian Marxist currents often draw from Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels' later works, specifically the Grundrisse and The Civil War in France;[207] emphasizing the Marxist belief in the ability of the working class to forge its own destiny without the need for state or vanguard party to mediate or aid its liberation.[208] Along with anarchism, libertarian Marxism is one of the main currents of libertarian socialism.[209]
Austro-Marxism was a school of Marxist thought centered in Vienna that existed from the beginning of the 20th century until the 1930s. Its most eminent proponents were Max Adler, Otto Bauer, Rudolf Hilferding and Karl Renner.[223] It was influenced by contemporaneous intellectual trends, including the prominence of neo-Kantianism and positivism in philosophy and the emergence of marginalism in economics.[224] The group confronted issues such as the problem of the National Question within the Austro-Hungarian Empire,[225]:295–298[226] the rise of the interventionist state and the changing class-structure of early 20th century capitalist societies.[227]
Left communism, or the communist left, is a position held by the left-wing of communism, which criticises the political ideas and practices espoused by Marxist–Leninists and social democrats.[228] Left communists assert positions which they regard as more authentically Marxist than the views of Marxism–Leninism espoused by the Communist International after its Bolshevisation by Joseph Stalin and during its second congress.[205][229][230]
In general, there are two currents of left communism, namely the Italian and Dutch–German left. The communist left in Italy was formed during World War I in organizations like the Italian Socialist Party and the Communist Party of Italy. The Italian left considers itself to be Leninist in nature, but denounces Marxism–Leninism as a form of bourgeois opportunism materialized in the Soviet Union under Stalin. The Italian left is currently embodied in organizations such as the Internationalist Communist Party and the International Communist Party. The Dutch–German left split from Lenin prior to Stalin's rule and supports a firmly council communist and libertarian Marxist viewpoint as opposed to the Italian left which emphasised the need for an international revolutionary party.[231]
Although she lived before left communism became a distinct tendency, Luxemburg has been heavily influential for most left communists, both politically and theoretically. Proponents of left communism have included Herman Gorter, Antonie Pannekoek, Otto Rühle, Karl Korsch, Amadeo Bordiga and Paul Mattick.[205] Later prominent theorists are shared with other tendencies such as Antonio Negri, a founding theorist of the autonomist tendency.[232] Prominent left communist groups existing today include the International Communist Current and the Internationalist Communist Tendency.[233] Specific currents that can be labelled part of left communism include Bordigism, Luxemburgism, and Communization.[234]
The term ultra-leftism in English, when used among Marxist groups, is often a pejorative for certain types of positions on the far-left that are extreme or uncompromising,[235] such as a particular current of Marxist communism, where the Comintern rejected social democratic parties and all other progressive groupings outside of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.[236]
The French ultra-gauche, has a stronger meaning in that language and is used to define a movement that still exists today: a branch of left communism developed from theorists such as Bordiga, Rühle, Pannekoek, Gorter, and Mattick, and continuing with more recent writers, such as Jacques Camatte and Gilles Dauvé. This standpoint includes two main traditions, a Dutch-German tradition including Rühle, Pannekoek, Gorter, and Mattick, and an Italian tradition following Bordiga. These traditions came together in the 1960s French ultra-gauche.[237][238]
Antonio Negri, a leading theorist of Italian autonomism.
Autonomism is a Marxist-based anti-capitalist left-wing political and social movement and theory.[239][240][241] As a theoretical system, it first emerged in Italy in the 1960s from workerism (operaismo). Later, post-Marxist and anarchist tendencies became significant after influence from the Situationists, the failure of Italian far-left movements in the 1970s, and the emergence of a number of important theorists including Antonio Negri,[232] who had contributed to the 1969 founding of Potere Operaio as well as Mario Tronti, Paolo Virno, Sergio Bologna and Franco "Bifo" Berardi. These early theorists developed notions of "immaterial" and "social labour", which broaden the definition of the working-class to include salaried and unpaid labour, such as skilled professions and housework, this extended the Marxist concept of labour to all society. They suggested that modern society's wealth was produced by unaccountable collective work, which in advanced capitalist states as the primary force of change in the construct of capital, and that only a little of this was redistributed to the workers in the form of wages. Other theorists including Mariarosa Dalla Costa and Silvia Federici emphasised the importance of feminism and the value of unpaid female labour to capitalist society, adding these to the theory of Autonomism.[242][243] Negri and Michael Hardt argue that network power constructs are the most effective methods of organization against the neoliberal regime of accumulation and predict a massive shift in the dynamics of capital into a 21st century empire.[244]Harry Cleaver is an autonomist and Marxist theoretician, who authored Reading Capital Politically, an autonomist reading of Marx's Capital.[245]
Eurocommunism was a revisionist trend in the 1970s and 1980s within various western European communist parties[145] which said they had developed a theory and practice of social transformation more relevant for western Europe. During the Cold War, they sought to undermine the influence of the Soviet Union and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in western Europe. It was especially prominent in France, Italy and Spain.[256][145]
Since the early 1970s, the term Eurocommunism was used to refer to the ideology of moderate, reformist communist parties in western Europe, where they emphasised the importance of democracy and personal freedoms.[145] These parties did not support the Soviet Union and denounced its policies. Such parties were politically active and electorally significant in France, Italy and Spain.[257]
Luxemburgism is a specific revolutionary theory within Marxism and communism-based on the writings of Rosa Luxemburg.[258][259] Luxemburg was critical of undemocratic tendencies present in the Leninist schools of thought[260] as well as being critical of the reformist Marxism that emerged from the work of Eduard Bernstein's informal faction of the Social Democratic Party of Germany. According to Rosa Luxemburg, under reformism "[capitalism] is not overthrown, but is on the contrary strengthened by the development of social reforms".[261] Luxemburgism sees spontaneism as a natural and important force, where organisation is not a product of scientific-theoretic insight to historical imperatives, but is product of the working classes' struggles, which emerges response to mounting contradictions between the productive forces and social relations of society. This was built from Luxemburg's analysis of mass strikes seen in Germany and Russia in the early 20th century.[262][263] Though she also wrote of the failings in trade unionism at the time due to the conservative function of trade-union bureaucracy hampering trade-unionist socialist potential.[264]Ernest Mandel, a Marxian economist, has been characterised as Luxemburgist due to his commitment to socialist democracy.[265]
Council communism is a movement originating from Germany and the Netherlands in the 1920s.[266] The Communist Workers Party of Germany (KAPD) was the primary organization that espoused council communism. Council communism continues today as a theoretical and activist position within both Marxism and libertarian socialism, through a few groups in Europe and North America.[267] As such, it is referred to as anti-authoritarian and anti-Leninist Marxism.[268]
In contrast to reformist social democracy and to Leninism, the central argument of council communism is that democratic workers councils arising in factories and municipalities are the natural form of working class organisation and governmental power.[269][266] The government and the economy should be managed by workers' councils[270] composed of delegates elected at workplaces and recallable at any moment. As such, council communists oppose authoritarian socialism, and command economies such as state socialism and state capitalism. They also oppose the idea of a revolutionary party since council communists believe that a party-led revolution will necessarily produce a party dictatorship. This view is also opposed to the social democratic and Marxist–Leninist ideologies, with their stress on parliaments and institutional government (i.e. by applying social reforms) on the one hand[271] and vanguard parties and participative democratic centralism on the other.[269][272] Council communists see the mass strike and new yet to emerge forms of mass action as revolutionary means to achieve a communist society.[273][274][275] Where the network of worker councils would be the main vehicle for revolution, acting as the apparatus by which the dictatorship of the proletariat forms and operates.[276] Council communism and other types of libertarian Marxism such as autonomism are often viewed as being similar to anarchism due to similar criticisms of Leninist ideologies for being authoritarian and the rejection of the idea of a vanguard party.[269][277]
De Leonism lies outside the Leninist tradition of communism. The highly decentralized and democratic nature of the proposed De Leonist government is in contrast to the democratic centralism of Marxism–Leninism and what they see as the dictatorial nature of the Soviet Union.[283] The success of the De Leonist plan depends on achieving majority support among the people both in the workplaces and at the polls,[284][285] in contrast to the Leninist notion that a small vanguard party should lead the working class to carry out the revolution. De Leonism believes that the revolution will be brought about through revolutionary industrial action, organised through industrial unionism, and that the political efforts of a workers party should be subservient to the industrial action of the union.[285] De Leon and other De Leonist writers have issued frequent polemics against democratic socialist movements—especially the Socialist Party of America—and consider them to be reformist or bourgeois socialist. De Leonism spread with the idea of industrial unionism to various countries including Ireland (via James Connolly), the UK, and South Africa.[286][287]
De Leonists have traditionally refrained from any activity or alliances viewed by them as trying to reform capitalism,[285] though the Socialist Labor Party in De Leon's time was active during strikes.[citation needed]
The Situationist International was an international organization of social revolutionaries made up of avant-garde artists, intellectuals, and political theorists. It was prominent in Europe from its formation in 1957 to its dissolution in 1972.[288] The intellectual foundations of the Situationist International were derived primarily from libertarian Marxism and the avant-garde art movements of the early 20th century, particularly Dada and Surrealism.[288][289] Guy Debord was a key theorist in the development of situationism.[290] Overall, situationist theory represented an attempt to synthesize this diverse field of theoretical disciplines into a modern and comprehensive critique of mid-20th century advanced capitalism.[288][291]
Essential to situationist theory was the concept of the spectacle,[290][292] a unified critique of advanced capitalism of which a primary concern was the progressively increasing tendency towards the expression and mediation of social relations through objects.[288][293] The situationists believed that the shift from individual expression through directly lived experiences, or the first-hand fulfillment of authentic desires, to individual expression by proxy through the exchange or consumption of commodities, or passive second-hand alienation,[293] inflicted significant and far-reaching damage to the quality of human life for both individuals and society.[288] Another important concept of situationist theory was the primary means of counteracting the spectacle; the construction of situations, moments of life deliberately constructed for the purpose of reawakening and pursuing authentic desires, experiencing the feeling of life and adventure, and the liberation of everyday life.[288][294]
The situationists recognized that capitalism had changed since Marx's formative writings, but maintained that his analysis of the capitalist mode of production remained fundamentally correct; they rearticulated and expanded upon several classical Marxist concepts, such as his theory of alienation.[288] In their expanded interpretation of Marxist theory, the situationists asserted that the misery of social alienation and commodity fetishism were no longer limited to the fundamental components of capitalist society,[293][295] but had now in advanced capitalism spread themselves to every aspect of life and culture.[288] They rejected the idea that advanced capitalism's apparent successes—such as technological advancement, increased productive capacity, and a raised general quality of life when compared to previous systems, such as feudalism—could ever outweigh the social dysfunction and degradation of everyday life that it simultaneously inflicted.[288]
Impossibilism is a Marxist theory that stresses the limited value of political, economic, and social reforms under capitalism. As a doctrine, impossibilism views the pursuit of such reforms as counterproductive to the goal of achieving socialism as they stabilize, and therefore strengthen, support for capitalism. Impossibilism holds that reforms to capitalism are irrelevant or outright counter-productive to the goal of achieving socialism and should not be a major focus of socialist politics.[296]
Impossibilists insist that socialists should primarily or solely focus on structural changes (sometimes termed "revolutionary changes") to society as opposed to advancing social reforms. Impossibilists argue that spontaneous revolutionary action is the only viable method of instituting the structural changes necessary for the construction of socialism; impossibilism is thus held in contrast to reformist socialist parties that aim to rally support for socialism through the implementation of popular social reforms (such as a welfare state).[297][298] It is also held in contrast to those who believe that socialism can emerge through gradual economic reforms implemented by an elected social democratic political party, as well as being held in contrast to possibilism, where socialists who followed possibilism sounded and acted little different from non-socialist reformers in practice.[299][297]
Marxist feminism is a philosophical variant of feminism that incorporates and extends Marxist theory, focusing on the dismantling of capitalism as a way to liberate women. Marxist feminism analyzes the ways in which women are exploited through capitalism and the individual ownership of private property,[300] stating that these give rise to economic inequality as well as dependence, political confusion and ultimately unhealthy social relations between men and women, which are the root of women's oppression. According to Marxist feminists, women's liberation can only be achieved by dismantling the capitalist systems in which they contend much of women's labor is uncompensated.[301] Marxist feminists extend traditional Marxist analysis by applying it to unpaid domestic labor and sex relations.[302]
According to Marxist theory, in capitalist societies the individual is shaped by class relations[303]—that is people's capacities, needs and interests are seen to be determined by the mode of production that characterises the society they inhabit.[304] Marxist feminists see gender inequality as determined ultimately by the capitalist mode of production, with gender oppression and women's subordination seen as class oppression[305] which is maintained (like racism) because it serves the interests of capital and the ruling class.[301] Because of its foundation in historical materialism, Marxist feminism is similar to socialist feminism and, to a greater degree, materialist feminism. The latter two place greater emphasis on what they consider the "reductionist limitations"[306] of Marxist theory but, as Martha E. Gimenez notes in her exploration of the differences between Marxist and materialist feminism, "clear lines of theoretical demarcation between and within these two umbrella terms are somewhat difficult to establish."[306]
Marxist humanism is an international body of thought and political action rooted in an interpretation of Marx's earlier writings. It is an investigation into "what human nature consists of and what sort of society would be most conducive to human thriving"[307] from a critical perspective rooted in Marxist philosophy. Marxist humanists argue that Marx himself was concerned with investigating similar questions.[308]
Marxist humanism was born in 1932 with the publication of Marx's Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 and reached a degree of prominence in the 1950s and 1960s. Marxist humanists contend that there is continuity between the early philosophical writings of Marx, in which he develops his theory of alienation, and the structural description of capitalist society found in his later works such as Das Kapital.[309][310] They hold that it is necessary to grasp Marx's philosophical foundations to understand his later works properly.[311] Marxist humanism was opposed by Louis Althusser's "antihumanism", who qualified it as a revisionist movement.[312]
Primitive communism is a way of describing the gift economies of hunter-gatherers throughout history, where resources and property hunted and gathered are shared with all members of a group, in accordance with individual needs. In political sociology and anthropology, it is also a concept often credited to Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels for originating, who wrote that hunter-gatherer societies were traditionally based on egalitarian social relations and common ownership.[314][315][316] A primary inspiration for both Marx and Engels were Morgan's descriptions of "communism in living" as practised by the Haudenosaunee of North America.[317] In Marx's model of socioeconomic structures, societies with primitive communism had no hierarchical social class structures or capital accumulation.[318]
1917 election poster of the General Jewish Labour Bund. Heading: "Where we live, there is our country!" Inside frame: "Vote List 9, Bund". Bottom: "A democratic republic! Full national and political rights for Jews!"
Bundism was a secular Jewish socialist movement whose organizational manifestation was the General Jewish Labour Bund in Lithuania, Poland and Russia (Yiddish: אַלגעמײַנער ײדישער אַרבעטער בּונד אין ליטע פוילין און רוסלאַנד, romanized:Algemeyner Yidisher Arbeter Bund in Liteh, Poyln un Rusland), founded in the Russian Empire in 1897.[331] The Jewish Labour Bund was an important component of the social democratic movement in the Russian Empire until the 1917 Russian Revolution;[331] the Bundists initially opposed the October Revolution, but ended up supporting it due to pogroms committed by the Volunteer Army of the anti-communist White movement during the Russian Civil War. Split along communist and social democratic lines throughout the Civil War, where the communist faction supported the Bolsheviks[332][333][334] and eventually was absorbed by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Similar splits occurred in the Bundist organisations of other eastern European countries, where the revolutionary communist factions formed the Kombund,[335][336] and supported organising with other communist groups.[335]
Bundism opposed Zionism,[337] arguing that emigration to Palestine was a form of escapism. Bundism focused on culture, rather than a state or a place, as the glue of Jewish "nationalism."[338] In this they borrowed extensively from the Austro-Marxist school.[339] It also promoted the use of Yiddish as a Jewish national language and to some extent opposed the Zionist project of reviving Hebrew.[340][341] Bundism was an influential strain that found a place in the socialist and communist movements of other countries as far away as South Africa.[342]
Religious communism is a form of communism that incorporates religious principles. Scholars have used the term to describe a variety of social or religious movements throughout history that have favored the common ownership of property.[343][344]
Christian communism is a form of religious communism centered on Christianity. It is a theological and political theory based upon the view that the teachings of Jesus Christ urge Christians to support communism as the ideal social system.[345][346][347] Christian communists trace the origins of their practice to teachings in the New Testament, such as this one from Acts of the Apostles at chapter 2 and verses 42, 44 and 45:[348][349][350]
42. And they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and in fellowship [...] 44. And all that believed were together, and had all things in common; 45. And sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need. (King James Version)
Christian communism can be seen as a radical form of Christian socialism and because many Christian communists have formed independent stateless communes in the past, there is also a link between Christian communism and Christian anarchism. Christian communists may or may not agree with various parts of Marxism.[351] Christian communists also share some of the political goals of Marxists, for example replacing capitalism with socialism, which should in turn be followed by communism at a later point in the future. However, Christian communists sometimes disagree with Marxists (and particularly with Leninists) on the way a socialist or communist society should be organized.[352]
Researchers have commented on the communistic nature of the society built by the Qarmatians[360] around Al-Ahsa from the 9th to 10th centuries.[361][362][363]
Islamic Marxism attempts to apply Marxist economic, political, and social teachings within an Islamic framework. An affinity between Marxist and Islamic ideals of social justice has led some Muslims to embrace their own forms of Marxism since the 1940s. Islamic Marxists believe that Islam meets the needs of society and can accommodate or guide the social changes Marxism hopes to accomplish. Islamic Marxists are also dismissive of traditional Marxist views on materialism and religion.[364]
Subcomandante Marcos has offered some clues as to the origins of neozapatismo. For example, he states:
Zapatismo was not Marxist-Leninist, but it was also Marxist-Leninist. It was not university Marxism, it was not the Marxism of concrete analysis, it was not the history of Mexico, it was not the fundamentalist and millenarian indigenous thought and it was not the indigenous resistance. It was a mixture of all of this, a cocktail which was mixed in the mountain and crystallized in the combat force of the EZLN…[368]
In 1998, Michael Löwy identified five "threads" of what he referred to as the Zapatismo "carpet":[369]
In 1992, Juche replaced Marxism-Leninism in the revised North Korean constitution as the official state ideology. Juche is claimed to be based on Marxism-Leninism, with Kim Jong Il stating, "the world outlook of the materialistic dialectics is the premise for the Juche philosophy."[370] Though many critics point out the lack of Marxist-Leninist theory within the writings and practice of Juche in North Korea.[371] After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 (North Korea's greatest economic benefactor), all reference to Marxism-Leninism was dropped in the revised 1992 constitution.[372] The establishment of the Songun doctrine in the mid-1990s then formally designated the military, not the proletariat or working class, as the main revolutionary force in North Korea.[373]
In the 1965 speech "On Socialist Construction in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and the South Korean Revolution" given on 14 April 1965, Kim Il Sung outlined the three fundamental principles of Juche:[374]
Political independence (Korean:자주;RR:jaju;MR:chaju)
Nkrumaism is a pan-African socialist theory which aims to adapt Marxist–Leninist theory to the social context of the African continent. Nkrumah defined his belief system as "the ideology of a New Africa, independent and absolutely free from imperialism, organized on a continental scale, founded upon the conception of one and united Africa, drawing its strength from modern science and technology and from the traditional African belief that the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all."[376] Important influences on Nkrumah's work were different sources from within Africa, the canon of Western philosophy, the works of Marx, Lenin, and black intellectuals in North America and Europe, like Marcus Garvey, George Padmore, C. L. R. James, W. E. B. Du Bois and Father Divine.[377] Aside from the Marxist–Leninist framework, this blending of ideas largely only took bits and pieces of other philosophical systems and even its use of traditional African cultural concepts were often stretched to fit into the larger theory.[378][379] While a major focus of the ideology was ending colonial relationships on the African continent, many of the ideas were utopian, diverting the scientific nature of the Marxist political analysis which it claims to support.[378]
Like other African political ideologies at the time, the central focus of Nkrumaism was on decolonization across Africa. Nkrumah rejected the idealized view of pre-colonial African societies that were classless or non-hierarchical, but accepted that Africa had a spirit of communalism and humanism. Nkrumaism then argued that a return to these values through socialist political structures would both heal the disruption caused by colonial structures and allow further development of African societies.[380] The pan-African aspects of Nkrumah's ideology were justified by a claim that all African societies had a community of economic life and that in contradiction to the neocolonial structures that replaced formal colonies, only African unity would create real autonomy.[381][382] While Nkrumah believed in the materialism and economic determinism of Marxism, he argued that focusing on the economic system was only appropriate after achieving independence throughout Africa and that the political struggle was the first order in colonial and neocolonial contexts.[383]
Theoretical publications, some published by Verso Books, include The Idea of Communism, edited by Costas Douzinas and Žižek;[392] Badiou's The Communist Hypothesis; and Bosteels's The Actuality of Communism.[391] The defining common ground is the contention that "the crises of contemporary liberal capitalist societies—ecological degradation, financial turmoil, the loss of trust in the political class, exploding inequality—are systemic, interlinked, not amenable to legislative reform, and require "revolutionary" solutions".[390][392]
Other non-communist thinkers and theorists have also had an effect on communist theory and the new generation of communists in the 21st century, such as the economist Guy Standing and the anthropologist and anarchist David Graeber.[391]
↑ The K-Gruppen originally referred to the mainly Maoist-oriented small parties and other associations that had emerged in the 1960s with the disintegration of the Socialist German Student Union (SDS) and the associated decline of the West German student movement. The term "K group" has been used primarily by competing left groups as well as in the media. It served as a collective name for the numerous, often violently divided groups and alluded to their common self-image as communist cadre organizations. The German term Kader denotes the civil servants or party functionaries in autocratic state systems, especially in socialist states (today, among others, People's Republic of China, Cuba). In the Soviet sphere of influence, cadres were a group of people in the party and ideology sector with political and technical knowledge and skills ("party cadres", "leadership cadres", "leadership cadres", "junior cadres", "cadre policy", "cadre management"). In particular, they included the functionaries of the parties and mass organizations (executives) and university and technical college graduates (experts), but not normal working people. The personnel department of a company was called "Kaderabteilung" in the GDR, the head of this department was called "Kaderleiter".
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Leninism is a political ideology developed by Russian Marxist revolutionary Vladimir Lenin that proposes the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat led by a revolutionary vanguard party as the political prelude to the establishment of communism. Lenin's ideological contributions to the Marxist ideology relate to his theories on the party, imperialism, the state, and revolution. The function of the Leninist vanguard party is to provide the working classes with the political consciousness and revolutionary leadership necessary to depose capitalism.
Marxism–Leninism is a communist ideology that became the largest faction of the communist movement in the world in the years following the October Revolution. It was the predominant ideology of most communist governments throughout the 20th century. It was developed in Russia by Joseph Stalin and drew on elements of Bolshevism, Leninism, Marxism, and the works of Karl Kautsky. It was the state ideology of the Soviet Union, Soviet satellite states in the Eastern Bloc, and various countries in the Non-Aligned Movement and Third World during the Cold War, as well as the Communist International after Bolshevization.
Trotskyism is the political ideology and branch of Marxism developed by Russian revolutionary and intellectual Leon Trotsky along with some other members of the Left Opposition and the Fourth International. Trotsky described himself as an orthodox Marxist, a revolutionary Marxist, and a Bolshevik–Leninist as well as a follower of Karl Marx, Frederick Engels, Vladimir Lenin, Karl Liebknecht, and Rosa Luxemburg. His relations with Lenin have been a source of intense historical debate. However, on balance, scholarly opinion among a range of prominent historians and political scientists such as E.H. Carr, Isaac Deutscher, Moshe Lewin, Ronald Suny, Richard B. Day and W. Bruce Lincoln was that Lenin’s desired “heir” would have been a collective responsibility in which Trotsky was placed in "an important role and within which Stalin would be dramatically demoted ".
Bolshevism is a revolutionary socialist current of Soviet Leninist and later Marxist–Leninist political thought and political regime associated with the formation of a rigidly centralized, cohesive and disciplined party of social revolution, focused on overthrowing the existing capitalist state system, seizing power and establishing the "dictatorship of the proletariat".
The Marxist–Leninist Party of Germany is a communist political party in Germany. It was founded in 1982 by members of the Communist Workers Union of Germany and is one of the minor parties in Germany.
Marxism is a political philosophy and method of socioeconomic analysis. It uses a dialectical and materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to analyse class relations, social conflict, and social transformation. Marxism originates with the works of 19th-century German philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Marxism has developed over time into various branches and schools of thought, and as a result, there is no single, definitive "Marxist theory". Marxism has had a profound effect in shaping the modern world, with various left-wing and far-left political movements taking inspiration from it in varying local contexts.
In Marxist theory, a new democratic society will arise through the organised actions of an international working class, enfranchising the entire population and freeing up humans to act without being bound by the labour market. There would be little, if any, need for a state, the goal of which was to enforce the alienation of labor; as such, the state would eventually wither away as its conditions of existence disappear. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels stated in The Communist Manifesto and later works that "the first step in the revolution by the working class, is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class, to win the battle of democracy" and universal suffrage, being "one of the first and most important tasks of the militant proletariat". As Marx wrote in his Critique of the Gotha Program, "between capitalist and communist society there lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. Corresponding to this is also a political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat". He allowed for the possibility of peaceful transition in some countries with strong democratic institutional structures, but suggested that in other countries in which workers can not "attain their goal by peaceful means" the "lever of our revolution must be force", stating that the working people had the right to revolt if they were denied political expression. In response to the question "What will be the course of this revolution?" in Principles of Communism, Friedrich Engels wrote:
Above all, it will establish a democratic constitution, and through this, the direct or indirect dominance of the proletariat.
Communism is a sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology within the socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a socioeconomic order centered around common ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange that allocates products to everyone in the society based on need. A communist society would entail the absence of private property and social classes, and ultimately money and the state.
Before the perestroika Soviet era reforms of Gorbachev that promoted a more liberal form of socialism, the formal ideology of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) was Marxism–Leninism, a form of socialism consisting of a centralised command economy with a vanguardist one-party state that aimed to realize the dictatorship of the proletariat. The Soviet Union's ideological commitment to achieving communism included the national communist development of socialism in one country and peaceful coexistence with capitalist countries while engaging in anti-imperialism to defend the international proletariat, combat the predominant prevailing global system of capitalism and promote the goals of Russian Communism. The state ideology of the Soviet Union—and thus Marxism–Leninism—derived and developed from the theories, policies, and political praxis of Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Stalin.
Marxism is a method of socioeconomic analysis that originates in the works of 19th century German philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Marxism analyzes and critiques the development of class society and especially of capitalism as well as the role of class struggles in systemic, economic, social and political change. It frames capitalism through a paradigm of exploitation and analyzes class relations and social conflict using a materialist interpretation of historical development – materialist in the sense that the politics and ideas of an epoch are determined by the way in which material production is carried on.
State socialism is a political and economic ideology within the socialist movement that advocates state ownership of the means of production. This is intended either as a temporary measure, or as a characteristic of socialism in the transition from the capitalist to the socialist mode of production or to a communist society. State socialism was first theorised by Ferdinand Lassalle. It advocates a planned economy controlled by the state in which all industries and natural resources are state-owned.
Types of socialism include a range of economic and social systems characterised by social ownership and democratic control of the means of production and organizational self-management of enterprises as well as the political theories and movements associated with socialism. Social ownership may refer to forms of public, collective or cooperative ownership, or to citizen ownership of equity in which surplus value goes to the working class and hence society as a whole. There are many varieties of socialism and no single definition encapsulates all of them, but social ownership is a common element shared by its various forms. Socialists disagree about the degree to which social control or regulation of the economy is necessary, how far society should intervene, and whether government, particularly existing government, is the correct vehicle for change.
Revolutionary socialism is a political philosophy, doctrine, and tradition within socialism that stresses the idea that a social revolution is necessary to bring about structural changes in society. More specifically, it is the view that revolution is a necessary precondition for transitioning from a capitalist to a socialist mode of production. Revolution is not necessarily defined as a violent insurrection; it is defined as a seizure of political power by mass movements of the working class so that the state is directly controlled or abolished by the working class as opposed to the capitalist class and its interests.
World revolution is the Marxist concept of overthrowing capitalism in all countries through the conscious revolutionary action of the organized working class. For theorists, these revolutions will not necessarily occur simultaneously, but where and when local conditions allow a revolutionary party to successfully replace bourgeois ownership and rule, and install a workers' state based on social ownership of the means of production. In many Marxist schools, such as Trotskyism and Communist Left, the essentially international character of the class struggle and the necessity of global scope are critical elements and a chief explanation of the failure of socialism in one country.
Orthodox Marxism is the body of Marxist thought which emerged after the deaths of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in the late 19th century, expressed in its primary form by Karl Kautsky. Kautsky's views of Marxism dominated the European Marxist movement for two decades, and orthodox Marxism was the official philosophy of the majority of the socialist movement as represented in the Second International until the First World War in 1914, whose outbreak caused Kautsky's influence to wane and brought to prominence the orthodoxy of Vladimir Lenin. Orthodox Marxism aimed to simplify, codify and systematize Marxist method and theory by clarifying perceived ambiguities and contradictions in classical Marxism. It overlaps significantly with Instrumental Marxism.
A socialist state, socialist republic, or socialist country, sometimes referred to as a workers' state or workers' republic, is a sovereign state constitutionally dedicated to the establishment of socialism. The term communist state is often used synonymously in the West, specifically when referring to one-party socialist states governed by Marxist–Leninist communist parties, despite these countries being officially socialist states in the process of building socialism and progressing toward a communist society. These countries never describe themselves as communist nor as having implemented a communist society. Additionally, a number of countries that are multi-party capitalist states make references to socialism in their constitutions, in most cases alluding to the building of a socialist society, naming socialism, claiming to be a socialist state, or including the term people's republic or socialist republic in their country's full name, although this does not necessarily reflect the structure and development paths of these countries' political and economic systems. Currently, these countries include Algeria, Bangladesh, Guyana, India, Nepal, Nicaragua, Sri Lanka and Tanzania.
Proletarian internationalism, sometimes referred to as international socialism, is the perception of all proletarian revolutions as being part of a single global class struggle rather than separate localized events. It is based on the theory that capitalism is a world-system and therefore the working classes of all nations must act in concert if they are to replace it with communism.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to Marxism:
Foundations of Leninism was a 1924 collection made by Joseph Stalin that consisted of nine lectures he delivered at Sverdlov University that year. It was published by the Soviet newspaper, Pravda.
1 2 Wolff, Richard; Resnick, Stephen (August 1987). Economics: Marxian versus Neoclassical. The Johns Hopkins University Press. p.130. ISBN978-0-8018-3480-6. The German Marxists extended the theory to groups and issues Marx had barely touched. Marxian analyses of the legal system, of the social role of women, of foreign trade, of international rivalries among capitalist nations, and the role of parliamentary democracy in the transition to socialism drew animated debates. [...] Marxian theory (singular) gave way to Marxian theories (plural).
↑ Engels, Friedrich (1847). "Section 18". Principles of Communism– via Marxists Internet Archive. Finally, when all capital, all production, all exchange have been brought together in the hands of the nation, private property will disappear of its own accord, money will become superfluous, and production will so expand and man so change that society will be able to slough off whatever of its old economic habits may remain
↑ O'Hara, Phillip[in German] (September 2003). Encyclopedia of Political Economy, Volume 2. Routledge. p.107. ISBN978-0-415-24187-8. Marxist political economists differ over their definitions of capitalism, socialism and communism. These differences are so fundamental, the arguments among differently persuaded Marxist political economists have sometimes been as intense as their oppositions to political economies that celebrate capitalism.
↑ Marx, Karl (1859). "Introduction". A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy. At a certain stage of development, the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production or—this merely expresses the same thing in legal terms—with the property relations within the framework of which they have operated hitherto. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters. Then begins an era of social revolution.
↑ Cohen, G. A.; Veryard, R.; Mellor, D. H.; Last, A. G. M.; Quirk, Randolph; Mason, John (8 September 1986). "Historical Inevitability and Human Agency in Marxism [and Discussion]". Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series A, Mathematical and Physical Sciences. 07 (1832). Royal Society: 65–87. JSTOR2397783.
↑ Burkett, Paul (2012). "Marx's Vision of Sustainable Human Development". In Ollman, Bertell; Anderson, Kevin B. (eds.). Karl Marx (1sted.). London: Routledge. ISBN9781315251196.
↑ Lukács, Georg (1967) [1919]. "What is Orthodox Marxism?". History & Class Consciousness. Translated by Livingstone, Rodney. Merlin Press– via Marxists Internet Archive. Orthodox Marxism, therefore, does not imply the uncritical acceptance of the results of Marx's investigations. It is not the 'belief' in this or that thesis, nor the exegesis of a 'sacred' book. On the contrary, orthodoxy refers exclusively to method.
↑ Sterling-Folker, Jennifer (2011). "International Relations Theory". In Kurian, George Thomas (ed.). The Encyclopedia of Political Science. Vol.3. CQ Press. pp.829–831. doi:10.4135/9781608712434. ISBN9781933116440.
↑ Gunnell, John G. (2011). "Political Science, History of". In Kurian, George Thomas (ed.). The Encyclopedia of Political Science. Vol.4. CQ Press. pp.1278–1286. ISBN978-1-933116-44-0.
↑ Laberge, Yves (2011). "Protest Music". In Kurian, George Thomas (ed.). The Encyclopedia of Political Science. Vol.4. CQ Press. pp.1374–1375. ISBN978-1-933116-44-0.
↑ Morgan, W. John (2015). "Marxism–Leninism: The Ideology of Twentieth-Century Communism". In Wright, James D. (ed.). International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences (2nded.). Oxford: Elsevier. pp.657, 659. ISBN9780080430768. Lenin argued that power could be secured on behalf of the proletariat through the so-called vanguard leadership of a disciplined and revolutionary communist party, organized according to what was effectively the military principle of democratic centralism. ... The basics of Marxism–Leninism were in place by the time of Lenin's death in 1924. ... The revolution was to be accomplished in two stages. First, a 'dictatorship of the proletariat,' managed by the élite 'vanguard' communist party, would suppress counterrevolution, and ensure that natural economic resources and the means of production and distribution were in common ownership. Finally, communism would be achieved in a classless society in which Party and State would have 'withered away.'
↑ Busky, Donald F. (2002). Communism in History and Theory: From Utopian Socialism to the Fall of the Soviet Union. Greenwood Publishing. pp.163–165. ISBN978-0275977481.
↑ Ellman, Michael (2007). "The Rise and Fall of Socialist Planning". In Estrin, Saul; Kołodko, Grzegorz W.; Uvalić, Milica (eds.). Transition and Beyond: Essays in Honour of Mario Nuti. New York City: Palgrave Macmillan. p.22. ISBN978-0-230-54697-4. In the USSR in the late 1980s the system was normally referred to as the 'administrative-command' economy. What was fundamental to this system was not the plan but the role of administrative hierarchies at all levels of decision making; the absence of control over decision making by the population ... .
↑ Hey, Patrizia (2010). Die sowjetische Polenpolitik Anfang der 1980er Jahre und die Verhängung des Kriegsrechts in der Volksrepublik Polen. Tatsächliche sowjetische Bedrohung oder erfolgreicher Bluff?[The Soviet policy towards Poland in the early 1980s and the imposition of martial law in the People's Republic of Poland. Actual Soviet threat or successful bluff?]. Studien zu Konflikt und Kooperation im Osten (in German). Vol.19. Münster: LIT. ISBN9783643107718.
↑ Alexander 1991, p.159–175, Trotskyism in Ceylon/Sri Lanka: The Rise of the Lanka Sama Samaja Party.
1 2 Camfield, David (2014). "10 - Radical Working-Class Socialism in the Early 21st Century". In Brincat, Shannon (ed.). Communism in the 21st Century. Vol.2. Praeger. p.255. ISBN978-1-4408-0126-6.
↑ Trotsky, Leon (1931). The Permanent Revolution. The Permanent Revolution is Not a 'Leap' by the Proletariat, but the Reconstruction of the Nation under the Leadership of the Proletariat.
↑ "25th of March: 97th anniversary of the foundation of the Communist Party of Brazil". A Nova Democracia (in Portuguese). No.207. 25 March 2019. Archived from the original on 15 January 2021. Partido Comunista do Brasil na clandestinidade, desenvolve há 20 anos, liderado por sua Fração Vermelha, por meio de duras lutas de duas linhas, o processo de sua reconstituição enquanto verdadeiro e autêntico partido comunista marxista-leninista-maoista, partido comunista militarizado.[The Communist Party of Brazil in hiding, has been developing for 20 years, led by its Red Fraction, through tough two-line struggles, the process of its reconstitution as a true and authentic Marxist-Leninist-Maoist communist party, a militarized communist party.]
↑ "Interview With Chairman Gonzalo". El Diario. Archived from the original on 5 February 2020. This whole process takes us to the second period, that of the Reconstitution of the Party. This is, in sum, a struggle against revisionism. It is a period that we can clearly see beginning to unfold with a certain intensity in the beginning of the '60s. This process leads the members of the Party to unite against the revisionist leadership and, as I have said before, to expel them in the IVth Conference of January 1964. The process of reconstitution continues to unfold in the Party until 1978–1979, when it ends and a third period begins, the period of Leading the People's War, which is the one we are living in now.
↑ Alvarez, Marta Elena (1 January 1984). Ho Chi Minh - Politica[Ho Chi Minh - Politics] (in Brazilian Portuguese). Editora Atica. pp.20–21. ISBN978-8508050253.
↑ Son, Bui Ngoc (2013). "The Confucian Foundations of Hổ Chí Minh's Vision of Government / 胡志明政治思想中的儒學基礎". Journal of Oriental Studies. 46 (1): 35–59. JSTOR43498666.
↑ Hansing, Katrin (2002). Rasta, Race and Revolution: The Emergence and Development of the Rastafari Movement in Socialist Cuba. LIT Verlag Münster. pp.41–42. ISBN3-8258-9600-5.
↑ Miklossy, Katalin (2011). "Khrushchevism after Khrushchev: The rise of national interest in the Eastern Bloc". In Smith, Jeremy (ed.). Khrushchev in the Kremlin: policy and government in the Soviet Union, 1953-1964. Oxon, England, UK; New York, New York, USA: Routledge. p.150.
↑ Stokes, Gale, ed. (1996). From Stalinism to Pluralism: A Documentary History of Eastern Europe Since 1945. Oxford. pp.81–93.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
1 2 3 Stokes, Gale (1993). The Walls Came Tumbling Down: The Collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe. Oxford. pp.81–87.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
↑ Johnson, Walker & Gray 2014, p.92, Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (CPCZ) / Komunistická Strana Československá (KSČ).
↑ Frucht, Richard, ed. (2000). "Communist Party of Czechoslovakia". Encyclopedia of Eastern Europe: From the Congress of Vienna to the Fall of Communism. New York & London: Garland Publishing, Inc. p.128. ISBN0-203-80109-1.
↑ Yamada, Norihiko (2018). "Legitimation of the Lao People's Revolutionary Party: Socialism, Chintanakan Mai (New Thinking) and Reform". Journal of Contemporary Asia. 58 (5): 732.
↑ Martin, Jim. Orgone Addicts: Wilhelm Reich Versus The Situationists. Archived from the original on 25 February 2021. I will also discuss other left-libertarians who wrote about Reich, as they bear on the general discussion of Reich's ideas...In 1944, Paul Goodman, author of Growing Up Absurd, The Empire City, and co-author of Gestalt Therapy, began to discover the work of Wilhelm Reich for his American audience in the tiny libertarian socialist and anarchist milieu.
↑ Howard, Dick (1975). "Introduction to Castoriadis". Telos (23): 118.
↑ Berry, D. (2017). "The search for a libertarian communism: Daniel Guérin and the 'synthesis' of marxism and anarchism". In Prichard, A.; Kinna, R.; Pinta, S.; Berry, D. (eds.). Libertarian Socialism: Politics in Black and Red. London: PM Press. pp.187–209.
↑ Berry, David (2019). The Search for a Libertarian Communism: Daniel Guerin and the 'synthesis' of Marxism and Anarchism. PM Press.
↑ Thompson, E. P.; Ilot, Terry (1979). "Recovering the Libertarian Tradition". Connexions Information Sharing Services, Toronto, Canada. Archived from the original on 8 December 2023. Retrieved 13 September 2024. I do not accept the view that the marxist tradition is anti-libertarian. I've argued at length that the first marxists in this country, of whom William Morris was, in a sense, one, were profoundly libertarian.
↑ Cole, Daniel H. (12 December 2011). ""An Unqualified Human Good": E.P. Thompson and the Rule of Law". Journal of Law and Society. 28: 177. Archived from the original on 13 September 2024. Retrieved 13 September 2024. E.P. Thompson... resurrected 'a libertarian Marxist tradition' that stemmed from Marx's own early writings... [a] tradition long forgotten by many on the left
1 2 Negri, Antonio (1991). Marx beyond Marx: Lessons on the Grundrisse. Translated by Ryan, Michael. New York: Autonomedia.
↑ Bourseiller, Christophe (2003). Histoire générale de l'Ultra-Gauche[General history of the Ultra-Left] (in French). Paris: Editions Denoël. ISBN2207251632.
↑ Althusser, Louis (1970). "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses". Lenin and Philosophy and other Essays (in French). Translated by Brewster, Ben. New York City: Monthly Review Press. pp.121–176. ISBN0-902308-89-0.
↑ Blackledge, Paul (2014). "The Split in the International and the Origins of War". In Brincat, Shannon (ed.). Communism in the 21st Century. Vol.2. Praeger. p.38. ISBN978-1-4408-0126-6.
↑ van der Walt, Lucien; Hirsch, Steven J. (2010). "Rethinking Anarchism and Syndicalism: The Colonial and Postcolonial Experience, 1870–1940". In van der Walt, Lucien; Hirsch, Steven J. (eds.). Anarchism and Syndicalism in the Colonial and Postcolonial World, 1870–1940: The Praxis of National Liberation, Internationalism, and Social Revolution. Leiden and Boston: Brill. pp.lii–liii, lxi. ISBN9789004188495. ISSN1874-6705.
↑ O’Connor, Emmet (2010). "Syndicalism, Industrial Unionism & Nationalism in Ireland". In van der Walt, Lucien; Hirsch, Steven J. (eds.). Anarchism and Syndicalism in the Colonial and Postcolonial World, 1870–1940: The Praxis of National Liberation, Internationalism, and Social Revolution. Leiden and Boston: Brill. p.194. ISBN9789004188495. ISSN1874-6705.
↑ Poli, Francesco (1991). "Sulla scia dei surrealisti" [In the wake of the surrealists]. I Situazionisti e la Loro Storia (in Italian): 63. Nel 1972, quindici anni dopo la sua fondazione ... l'Internazionale Situazionista si scioglie in quanto organizzazione. Durante questi anni, il movimento, caratterizzato da un'ideologia dell'estetico e del politico di matrice marxista e surrealista, produce una quantita' consistente di scritti teorici, opuscoli, libri, film e lavori artistici nel campo della pittura e della progettazione di interventi nella dimensione urbana. Di grande rilievo è il ruolo degli artisti, tra cui in particolare Asger Jorn, Constant e Pinot Gallizio.[In 1972, fifteen years after its foundation [...] the Situationist International dissolves as an organization. During these years, the movement, characterized by an aesthetic and political ideology of a Marxist and Surrealist matrix, produced a substantial amount of theoretical writings, pamphlets, books, films and artistic works in the field of painting and the design of interventions. in the urban dimension. Of great importance is the role of artists, including in particular Asger Jorn, Constant and Pinot Gallizio.]
↑ Levin, Thomas Y. (2002). "Dismantling the Spectacle: The Cinema of Guy Debord". In McDonough, Tom (ed.). Guy Debord and the Situationist International: Texts and Documents. The MIT Press. pp.323–324. ISBN0-262-13404-7.
↑ McDonough, Tom, ed. (2002). "Introduction: Ideology and the Situationist Utopia". Guy Debord and the Situationist International: Texts and Documents. The MIT Press. pp.xvi. ISBN0-262-13404-7.
1 2 Browne, Waldo R., ed. (1921). "Impossiblism, Impossibilist". What's What in the Labor Movement: A Dictionary of Labor Affairs and Labor Terminology. New York: B.W. Heubsch. p.215.
↑ Marx, Karl; Engels, Friedrich (March 1850). "Address of the Central Committee to the Communist League". Marxists Internet Archive. London. Retrieved 5 January 2013. However, the democratic petty bourgeois want better wages and security for the workers, and hope to achieve this by an extension of state employment and by welfare measures; in short, they hope to bribe the workers with a more or less disguised form of alms and to break their revolutionary strength by temporarily rendering their situation tolerable.
↑ "Louis Althusser". The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University. 12 September 2017. Retrieved 25 January 2022.
↑ Medem, V. (1943) [1904]. "Di sotsial-demokratie un di natsionale frage" די סאָציאַל-דעמאָקראַטיע און די נאַשאַנאַל פראַגע[The social democracy and the national question]. Vladimir Medem: Tsum tsvantsikstn yortsaytוולאדימיר מעדעם: צום צוואַנציקסט יאָרצײַט[For the twentieth anniversary] (in Yiddish). New York: Der Amerikaner Reprezentants fun Algemeynem Yidishn Arbeter-Bund (‘Bund’) in Poyln. pp.173–219.
↑ Mantzaris, Evangelos (1981–1982). "From the History of Bundist Activity in South Africa". Bulletin of the Bund Archives of the Jewish Labour Movement. 3 (31): 1–3.
↑ Browning, T.B. (1878). "Communism". The Canadian Monthly and National Review. 13: 577. Retrieved 23 June 2016– via Google Books.
↑ Houlden, Leslie; Minard, Antone (2015). Jesus in History, Legend, Scripture, and Tradition: A World Encyclopedia: A World Encyclopedia. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO. p.357. ISBN9781610698047.
↑ Walton, Steve (April 2008). "Primitive communism in Acts? Does Acts present the community of goods (2:44-45; 4:32-35) as mistaken?". Evangelical Quarterly. 80 (2): 99–111. doi:10.1163/27725472-08002001.
↑ Johnson, Walker & Gray 2014, p.139–140, Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional (ELZN)/Zapatista Army of National Liberation.
↑ Henck, Nick (2016). Insurgent Marcos: The Political-Philosophical Formation of the Zapatista Subcommander. Historia y Ciencias Sociales. Raleigh, NC: A Contracorriente. pp.11–18. ISBN9781945234033. JSTOR10.5149/9781945234279_henck. Zapatismo was not Marxist-Leninist, but it was also Marxist-Leninist. It was not university Marxism, it was not the Marxism of concrete analysis, it was not the history of Mexico, it was not the fundamentalist and millenarian indigenous thought and it was not the indigenous resistance. It was a mixture of all of this, a cocktail which was mixed in the mountain and crystallized in the combat force of the EZLN…
↑ Gitlin, Todd (2001). "The Left's Lost Universalism". In Melzer, Arthur M.; Weinberger, Jerry; Zinman, M. Richard (eds.). Politics at the Turn of the Century. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. pp.3–26.
1 2 Johnson, Alan (May–June 2012). "The New Communism: Resurrecting the Utopian Delusion". World Affairs. 175 (1). SAGE Publications, Inc.: 62–70. JSTOR41638993. A specter is haunting the academy—the specter of "new communism." A worldview recently the source of immense suffering and misery, and responsible for more deaths than fascism and Nazism, is mounting a comeback; a new form of left-wing totalitarianism that enjoys intellectual celebrity but aspires to political power.
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