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THE COMMUNISM PORTAL

Introduction

Communism (from Latin communis 'common, universal') is a sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology within the socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a socioeconomic order centered on common ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange that allocates products in society based on need. A communist society entails the absence of private property and social classes, and ultimately money and the state.

Communists often seek a voluntary state of self-governance but disagree on the means to this end. This reflects a distinction between a libertarian socialist approach of communization, revolutionary spontaneity, and workers' self-management, and an authoritarian socialist, vanguardist, or party-driven approach to establish a socialist state, which is expected to wither away. Communist parties have been described as radical left or far-left. There are many variants of communism, such as anarchist communism, Marxist schools of thought (including Leninism and its offshoots), and religious communism. These ideologies share the analysis that the current order of society stems from the capitalist economic system and mode of production; they believe that there are two major social classes, that the relationship between them is exploitative, and that it can only be resolved through social revolution. The two classes are the proletariat (working class), who make up most of the population and sell their labor power to survive, and the bourgeoisie (owning class), a minority that derives profit from employing the proletariat through private ownership of the means of production. According to this, a communist revolution would put the working class in power, and establish common ownership of property, the primary element in the transformation of society towards a socialist mode of production.

Modern communism grew out of the aftermath of the French Revolution. In 1848, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels offered a new definition of communism in The Communist Manifesto. In the 20th century, Communist governments espousing Marxism–Leninism came to power, first in the Soviet Union with the 1917 Russian Revolution, then in Eastern Europe, Asia, and other regions after World War II. By the 1920s, communism had become one of the two dominant types of socialism in the world, the other being social democracy. For most of the 20th century, a third of the world's population lived under Communist governments. These were characterized by one-party rule, rejection of private property and capitalism, state control of economic activity and mass media, restrictions on freedom of religion, and suppression of opposition. With the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, many governments abolished Communist rule. Only a few nominally Communist governments remain, such as China, Cuba, Laos, North Korea, and Vietnam. Except North Korea, these have allowed more economic competition while maintaining one-party rule. Communism's decline has been attributed to economic inefficiency and to authoritarianism and bureaucracy within Communist governments.

While the emergence of the Soviet Union as the first nominally Communist state led to communism's association with the Soviet economic model, several scholars argue that in practice this model functioned as a form of state capitalism. Public memory of 20th-century Communist states has been described as a battleground between anti anti-communism and anti-communism. Authors have written about mass killings under communist regimes and mortality rates, which remain controversial, polarized, and debated topics in academia, historiography, and politics when discussing communism and the legacy of Communist states.[page needed][page needed] (Full article...)

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Pin of the flag of the CPSU
The Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Russian: Коммунистическая партия Советского Союза, Kommunisticheskaya partiya Sovetskogo Soyuza; short: КПСС, KPSS) was the only legal, ruling political party in the Soviet Union and one of the largest communist organizations in the world. It lost its dominance in the wake of the failed August 1991 coup d'état attempt led by authoritarian hardliners.

It emerged from the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, under the leadership of Vladimir Lenin. The party led the 1917 October Revolution that overthrew the Russian Provisional Government and established the world's first socialist state. Given the central role under the Constitution of the Soviet Union, the party controlled all tiers of government in the Soviet Union and tolerated no opposition. Its organization was subdivided into communist parties of the constituent Soviet republics as well as the mass youth organization, Komsomol. The party was also the driving force of the Third International (Comintern).

The party ceased to exist after the coup d'état attempt in 1991 and was succeeded by the Communist Party of the Russian Federation in Russia and the communist parties of the now-independent former Soviet republics.

Selected biography

Vinod Mishra (Hindi: विनोद मिश्रा, 24 March 1947, Jabalpur – 18 December 1998, Lucknow) was an Indian communist politician. Mishra served as the General Secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation between 1975 and 1998.

Vinod Mishra was born to Suryakesh Mishra. The family moved to Kanpur in 1955. Mishra studied at Adarsh Banga Vidyalaya Inter College. Later he graduated from Kanyakubja Degree College and was admitted at the Christ Church Degree College for post-graduate studies in Mathematics. He went on to study at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering at the Regional Engineering College in Durgapur in 1966. Mishra became associated with a group of leftwing students, who soon developed linkages to the AICCCR. Mishra led student rallies and a campus strike. By mid-1969 he had become a party wholetimer, leading a campaign of 'red terror' at the campus.

Mishra became the secretary of the Durgapur Local Organising Committee of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) (formed out of the AICCCR) in the early 1970s. However, he was arrested. After having pass a period at Asansol hospital following brutal beatings by the police, he was sent to the Baharampur Central Jail. Mishra continued to conduct political activities inside the prison.

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German Communist Party congress, 1976.

Photo credit: Hubert Link

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In the eighties of the past century, in the period of the struggle between the Marxists and the Narodniks, the proletariat in Russia constituted an insignificant minority of the population, whereas the individual peasants constituted the vast majority of the population. But the proletariat was developing as a class, whereas the peasantry as a class was disintegrating. And just because the proletariat was developing as a class the Marxists based their orientation on the proletariat. And they were not mistaken; for, as we know, the proletariat subsequently grew from an insignificant force into a first-rate historical and political force.

Hence, in order not to err in policy, one must look forward, not backward.

Further, if the passing of slow quantitative changes into rapid and abrupt qualitative changes is a law of development, then it is clear that revolutions made by oppressed classes are a quite natural and inevitable phenomenon.

Hence, the transition from capitalism to socialism and the liberation of the working class from the yoke of capitalism cannot be effected by slow changes, by reforms, but only by a qualitative change of the capitalist system, by revolution.

Hence, in order not to err in policy, one must be a revolutionary, not a reformist.

Further, if development proceeds by way of the disclosure of internal contradictions, by way of collisions between opposite forces on the basis of these contradictions and so as to overcome these contradictions, then it is clear that the class struggle of the proletariat is a quite natural and inevitable phenomenon.

Hence, we must not cover up the contradictions of the capitalist system, but disclose and unravel them; we must not try to check the class struggle but carry it to its conclusion.

Hence, in order not to err in policy, one must pursue an uncompromising proletarian class policy, not a reformist policy of harmony of the interests of the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, not a compromisers' policy of the "growing" of capitalism into socialism.

Such is the Marxist dialectical method when applied to social life, to the history of society.

As to Marxist philosophical materialism, it is fundamentally the direct opposite of philosophical idealism.

— Joseph Stalin (1878-1953)
Dialectical and Historical Materialism , 1938

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