Communism is a political ideal that is often associated with cruel regimes in world history. Cruel regimes in the former U.S.S.R, Germany, and Yugoslavia as well as current regimes in China, North Korea and Cuba are often thought of negatively when communism is brought up. Additionally communism is often associated with limited personal freedoms, government control and a police state that curtails civil liberties. While it is true that communism has been tried and failed, this is often because of the person or people trying to institute it and the methods they have used. Even though history has shown that communist countries have used brutal tactics, communism at its core is not about cruelty or denial, it is simply a political ideal that emphasizes equality for all, nobody regardless of any factor should have more or less than anyone else.
The basic ideology of communism is simple. Everyone is equal, there is no poor or rich and wealth gained is evenly distributed to all. Karl Marx created ten tenets of communism that included government control of all labor, industry and education, abolition of private property and property rights and heavy but equal taxation on all. He believed along with many other communist leaders that worldwide adoption must be achieved in order for communism to succeed. History dates communism back many centuries but it was in the 19th century when Robert Owen attempted to enact communist ideas on his cotton mill that it started to take foothold in modern industrialized nations. It wasn't until the early 20th century when Vladimir Lenin instituted Marxist communism in Russia and used brutal means to enforce it that the world took notice. Joseph Stalin took over when Lenin died and further ...
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...argely communist though it is leaning towards capitalism. The Communist Party USA fights for individual rights regardless of any classification of the individual. While it is yet to be seen where communism will stand in history, it can be said that as a political ideology communism does stand for equality for all.
Works Referenced
Gascoigne, Bamber. “History of Communism” From 2001, ongoing. HistoryWorld.net. 29 July 2010.
Hoyt, Alia. "How Communism Works." 25 February 2008. HowStuffWorks.com. 29 July 2010.
Ryan, John Augustine. "Communism." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 4. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1908. 29 Jul. 2010 29 July 2010
Communism is a political theory derived from Karl Marx, advocating class war and leading to a society in which all property is publicly owned and each person works and is paid according to their abilities and needs.
Since the end of World War II until the mid- eighties , most Americans could agree that communism was the enemy. Communism wanted to destroy our way of life and corrupt the freest country in the world. Communism is an economic system in which a person or group of persons who are in control. The main purpose of communism is to make social and economic status of all individuals of the same . Deletes inequalities in property ownership and wealth distributed equally to everyone . The main problem with this is that a person who is rich can be stripped of most of his fortune to someone else can have more material goods and be his equal .
Kovaly says "It is often said that power corrupts, but I think that what corrupted people in our country was not the power alone but the fear that accompanied it." (p.71) Communist nation's ruling class tend to be greedy since it is impossible for classes that are beneath them to gain any insight into how the nation truly works. One last underlying cause of why post-war victims disliked the idea of communism was because there was no personal freedom. Capitalist societies often take for granted many personal freedoms that are completely eliminated under Communist regimes. Freedom of speech is completely taken away, and those who criticize any workings of their government are often subject to severe and very harsh punishments.
The right for an individual to exercise his or her own economic rights was created, allowing anyone to handle their own economic issues. You are allowed to earn as much money as possible from your products. The Bourgeoisie owned the factories and earned all of the money from the products that the workers made. Communism is the study of how everyone is at peace and works together. There is no need for competition or armies because no wars are going on.
Ironically, Communism has never existed anywhere. There has never been a system implemented in our entire history by which a society has been utterly classless. Communism would be a type of egalitarian society with no state, no privately owned means of production and no social class (Wikipedia). Today there is a selection of “Communist” states that exist in a variety of locations on our globe. Sadly, all of the claimed Communist states including the late Soviet Union were and are despicable and corrupted examples of the idea of Communism. By using Stalin as an example it is quite possible to portray to the reader a simple and effective example of the flip side of attempted Communism. Stalin took control of a weak government and crafted an illusionary Communist state. Ironically, Stalin had set himself up as the dictator of a completely totalitarian society. By using the people of Russia, he was able to harness the government and use it for his own needs. This is quite similar to 1984 with the concept of Big Brother. Although Big Brother is not a person, the inner society that controls “him” creates a Stalinist nation; this was quite purposefully included by Orwell.
There is always at least one odd duck, which stands out from the crowd. The same is true when it comes to politics. One of the most controversial political ideas to ever come to power, is communism. Branching from the socialist party, in 1848, extremist Karl Marx expressed his theories in The Communist Manifesto. This is a text that is still debated today. In an article in the Journal of Social Society, William Niemi wrote about Marx’s ideas still present today. “The rethinking about Karl Marx and Marxism continues some 20 years after the fall of the Soviet dictatorship and its satellites.” (Niemi). Within this volume of ideas, Marx expressed many highly debated topics, the most controversial of course, being communism itself. Though many of
Communism was the ideology followed by the Soviet Union. Originally founded by Karl Marx, it said that everything should be owned by the government and then divided up equally among the people who would then all work for it. For the communist party in Russia, their political system was always in danger. From the start of the Russian Revolution there have been dangers to communism. Before World War II most of the western nations ignored Russia simply because it was a communist state and the western nations actually supported Hitler because they believed that Germany would provided a buffer against Communism. The permanent threat against Russia gave the incentive to expand and spread communist influence as much as possible to keep their way of life intact, it was very much Russia against the world. However not only was the Soviet Union communist, they were totalitarian, meaning all the power was with the rulers. While this was effective for keeping the standard average of living the same for everyone and preventing poverty, it also led to a poor work ethic among the working population...
Communism is a system of government, a political ideology that rejects private ownership and promotes a classless, stateless society based on common ownership of all property and the means of production, where all work is shared and all proceeds are commonly owned. Communism is practised in China, North Korea, Vietnam, Laos and Cuba. However, most of the world’s communist governments have been disbanded since the end of World War II. Soon after the Japanese surrendered at the end of World War II, Communist forces began a war against the Kuomintang in China. The Communists gradually gained control of the country and on the 1st October, 1949, Mao Zedong announced the victory of the Communist party and the establishment of the People's Republic of China.
Whether one thinks that the ideas of communism are good or bad, by taking a look a today’s society, we can certainly see the affect The Communist Manifesto and other books of its kind have had. Karl Marx’s ideas have shaped many programs and organizations to attempt following along the lines of equality.
Communism and Socialism are different economic views that were adopted by two very different countries. Adopted first by Russia, communism teaches “the complete merging of the individual in the society to which he belongs. There is no private ownership whatever. (xxx)” On the other hand socialism (first adopted in France) is the belief the economy should be run via a collective ownership of all goods by all the people. However, despite their many differences both had in terms of how to the economy should be run, both also share multiple similarities as well. There are many similarities and differences between socialism and communism include the following: philosophies, centralized ownership, national and global impact, Karl Marx, political
Communism is defined as a political and economical doctrine, the aim which is to abolish private ownership of property and for-profit enterprise and to replace these with public ownership and control of industry, agriculture, and resources (“Communism”). The product of this government is supposed to be a society free of class ranking based on wealth, property, and political power. The Soviet Union was the first country to test these governmental strategies and it did not take long for the regime to collapse. The inevitable collapse of communism led to the fall of the Berlin Wall; this started the domino effect of freedom that ultimately led to the collapse of the Soviet Union.
There were many events that lead up to the Bolshevik Revolution. First off, in 1848, Karl Marx and Fredrich Engels published a thought-provoking book. The Communist Manifesto expressed their support of a world in which there was no difference in class. A world in which the workers and commoners ran the show and there was no high and supreme ruler. Many intellectual Russians began to become aware of this pamphlet as well as the advanced state of the world compared to Russia. Other countries were going through an industrial revolution, while the Czars had made it clear that no industrial surge was about to happen in Russia. The popularity of the Czars further went down hill as Nicolas II’s poor military and political decisions caused mass losses in World War I. Eventually, the citizens could take no more and began a riot in St. Petersburg that led to the first Russian Revolution of 1917.
The second section of The Communist Manifesto is the section in which Karl Marx attempts to offer rebuttals to popular criticisms of his theory of governance. These explanations are based upon the supposition that capitalists cannot make informed observations upon communism as they are unable to look past their capitalist upbringing and that capitalists only seek to exploit others. Though the logic behind these suppositions are flawed, Marx does make some valid points concerning the uprising of the proletariat.
Communism is an original system of society, quite different from Democracy in many ways. While total democracy is not widely spread, many forms of it are prosperous throughout the world today.
He saw communism as a way for all people to be truly free and equal. There would be no more class discrimination and everyone would have resourced based on what is needed. He exclaimed that communism would give individuals the freedoms that the bourgeoisie denied them. While this is what Karl Marx predicted and believed would be successful, the reality over time has taken a much different path proving that Marx’s ideas cannot be accurately applied