Communism

Communism

Communism in Russia and the USSR during the 1800's to the 1900's comes from an ideology known as Marxism. The philosophy of Marxism was first constructed and written down by Karl Marx and Freiderish Engels in the Communist Manifesto. The idea contains three main points:

1. The History of Class Struggle - Throughout history, areas and regions of the world have undergone struggles throughout society beginning with domination, which evolved through the ranks to slavery, feudalism, and finally capitalism. It is argued that the next step of evolution is universal communism, a global step towards the better for all.

2. Capitalism as a step behind - Capitalism is seen through communist eyes as a minority of the nation, usually known as the bourgeoisie, who dominate the country's economy, and those who can't make their own, usually the majority of the population, are stuck with what they can earn. The idea is you need to work for yourself, and towards a self benefit, while communism argues that you need to work for the better of the state.

3. Proletarian Revolution - in order to transform the corrupted world into this idea of communism, there needs to be a leader to guide the country into the safety of communism, someone or a a group of people to help make decisions for the better of the whole until the country can make these decisions itself.

Unfortunately for those countries overrun by communism, the leaders put into place to guide the country on the path of communism usually don't want to resign their title when the time comes for total equality. This is where the misconception of communism in the Communist Manifesto as Marx and Engels envisioned it, is equated to a totalitarian or dictatorial rule.

Communism in Russia

The Bolsheviks were the communist supporters in Russia at the time of the Russian Revolution of 1917, and thus when the Bolshevik finally won power in 1918, communism came into power, known as the Communist Party. Lenin was the leader of this Communist Party and ruled over Russia, and later the USSR, for a full 6 years before falling ill, and then the regime was taken up by the hand of Joseph Stalin. Stalin turned the equality described by Karl Marx into a totalitarian regime from hell, thus giving communism the stereotypical image of being horrible. Although in the modern day we have come to learn communism is better written on paper than put into practice.

​ Communism in China

Communism in China was led by Mao Zedong. Communism was not prevalent until Jiang Jieshi became the President of the Republic of China. He filled the peasants' heads with hope and promises of democracy, but didn't keep his promises, and the peasants turned to communism.

China- could you give me a bit more about features of communism in China? Russian Rev- should have touched on the different factions of communism before and during the revolution (maybe it's on a different page- i'll check) USSR- I wish there was more about the actual features of communism there. maybe later on?