The provided source material offers a detailed examination of communism as a political and economic ideology, drawing from historical texts, academic analyses, and personal accounts. This article synthesises the information from the given sources to explain the core tenets of communism, its historical development, and its practical implementation in various states. The discussion is based exclusively on the provided chunks, which include excerpts from the Communist Manifesto, historical analyses, and a personal narrative from a former resident of a communist state.
Core Ideological Foundations
Communism is defined as an ideology and system of centralised political power in which a single-party dictatorship abolishes private property and controls the means of production and the distribution of goods and services. As asserted in the Communist Manifesto, "The theory of the communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property." Under the pretense of a classless, egalitarian society, communist regimes in practice rely on force, use brutality, and repress speech, religion, assembly, and all other rights and freedoms.
Karl Marx’s comprehensive political, economic, and social theory of communism includes the ideological belief that the struggle between social classes is a fact of history. He predicted a socialist future in which the people collectively own the means and mode of production, and the goods they produce are available for all who need them. However, this theory has proved to be inherently flawed and unattainable. Marx also prescribed revolutionary activism, and his theory became indistinguishable from a radical ideology that mandates state control of its people through violence, repression, and deprivation.
Socialism is presented as an intermediate step between free market capitalism and the ultimate goal of communism. Marx and Engels argued that socialism was the "first," or lower, phase of communist society. Lenin concurred with this view. In a communist system, all property is owned by the state, whereas in some socialist systems, a petty fraction of property may still be privately owned, though the state retains heavy central planning and totalitarian control.
Historical Development and Early Attempts
The ideas that later formed communism have roots in early communal living experiments. Similar motives inspired the formation of monastic orders in which monks took vows of poverty and promised to share their few worldly goods with each other and with the poor. The English humanist Sir Thomas More extended this monastic communism in Utopia (1516), describing an imaginary society where money is abolished and people share meals, houses, and other goods in common.
Other fictional communistic utopias followed, notably City of the Sun (1623) by the Italian philosopher Tommaso Campanella. Attempts to put communist ideas into practice also occurred, though often with notorious outcomes. A significant example was the theocracy of the Anabaptists in the Westphalian city of Münster (1534–35), which ended with the military capture of the city and the execution of its leaders.
During the English Civil Wars (1642–51), the Diggers advocated a kind of agrarian communism in which the Earth would be "a common treasury," as Gerrard Winstanley envisioned in The Law of Freedom (1652) and other works. This vision was not shared by the Protectorate led by Oliver Cromwell, which harshly suppressed the Diggers in 1650.
The impetus and inspiration for modern communism came from a technological and economic revolution—the Industrial Revolution of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. This period highlighted the growing disparities between the working class and the owners of capital, providing fertile ground for Marxist theory.
Principles and Policies from the Communist Manifesto
The Communist Manifesto outlines several specific policies for a communist society. These include: - Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels. - Centralisation of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly. - Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State. - Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan. - Equal liability of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture. - Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the populace over the country. - Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children’s factory labour in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production.
Characteristics of Totalitarian Regimes
Communist states are often classified as totalitarian regimes. The German-American political scientist Carl Friedrich (1901–1984) suggested that totalitarian regimes display six common characteristics: an official ideology; a one-party state; a monopoly on violence; control of all information and mass media (including books, radio, television, movies, and the Internet); a government-planned and centrally controlled economy; and the use of a party-controlled terroristic security service. His contemporary, Hannah Arendt (1906–1975), noted that these regimes maintain one additional element: the identification of an objective enemy.
These regimes denied fundamental human rights to their citizens, imprisoning, sending to labour camps, or simply killing anyone who opposed their rule. The communist ideology is responsible for more than 100 million deaths since its inception in 1917.
Economic Impact and Quality of Life
The economic deprivation in the communist bloc is clear. Throughout the Cold War, the United States’ GDP per capita, an indicator of a nation’s economic productivity per person, consistently and substantially exceeded that of the Soviet Union. In 1950, the USSR’s GDP per capita was $2,834 while the United States was $9,561. By 1990, just before the collapse of the Soviet Union, this gap had expanded, as the American GDP per capita had grown to $23,214 while the Soviet GDP per capita was just $6,871.
Today, over 1.5 billion people live under repressive communist governments in China, Cuba, Laos, Vietnam, and North Korea. These five regimes utilise the same tools as the Soviet Union to maintain state control.
A Personal Account: Life in Communist Romania
A personal narrative from a source who grew up in communist Romania during the Cold War provides a ground-level perspective. The country, officially named the Socialist Republic of Romania prior to the 1989 Revolution to overthrow the Ceausescu regime, was often referred to as a communist country. In school, it was taught as a socialist country. From an economic standpoint, a petty fraction of property was still privately owned. However, the state controlled almost every aspect of life: education, job placement, the time of day for hot water, and what citizens were allowed to say.
Despite Romania being a country rich in resources, there were shortages everywhere. Shortages are one of the consequences of improper allocation of scarce resources. The free market, through the multiple spontaneous interactions of businesses and consumers, directs the allocation of resources via the process of supply and demand. It is precisely due to the profit and loss events that economic efficiency is stimulated.
Capitalism encourages innovation due to its profit incentives, leading to progress and an increase in the standard of living. Progress and a high standard of living cannot be created without capital to transform and turn resources into final products. Capital moves in the direction of less regulation, less government intervention, and less taxation—shortly, to where there’s more economic freedom. In contrast, communism, socialism, fascism, or any government-controlled system lacks the profit incentive. People have no desire to engage in a business where the reward is not attainable, unless it is done in the black markets.
Conclusion
The provided sources present a coherent picture of communism as an ideology centred on the abolition of private property and state control of production and distribution. Its historical roots are traced to early communal and utopian ideas, but its modern form is associated with totalitarian regimes that exhibit characteristics such as a single-party state, control of information, and economic centralisation. The practical implementation of communist policies has consistently led to economic deprivation, shortages of goods, and the denial of fundamental human rights. The personal account from Romania underscores the daily challenges of living under such a system, where state control permeates all aspects of life and economic inefficiency results in scarcity. The contrast drawn between communist systems and free-market economies highlights the role of profit incentives, innovation, and capital allocation in driving economic progress and a higher standard of living.