A communist party is a
political party
A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular country's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific political ideology ...
that seeks to realize the
socio-economic
Socioeconomics (also known as social economics) is the social science that studies how economic activity affects and is shaped by social processes. In general it analyzes how modern societies progress, stagnate, or regress because of their local ...
goals of
communism
Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...
. The term ''communist party'' was popularized by the title of ''
The Manifesto of the Communist Party
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...
'' (1848) by
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...
and
Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels ( ,["Engels"](_blank)
'' vanguard party
Vanguardism in the context of Leninist revolutionary struggle, relates to a strategy whereby the most class-conscious and politically "advanced" sections of the proletariat or working class, described as the revolutionary vanguard, form organ ...
, the communist party guides the political education and development of the
working class
The working class (or labouring class) comprises those engaged in manual-labour occupations or industrial work, who are remunerated via waged or salaried contracts. Working-class occupations (see also " Designation of workers by collar colo ...
(proletariat). As a ruling party, the communist party exercises power through the
dictatorship of the proletariat
In Marxist philosophy, the dictatorship of the proletariat is a condition in which the proletariat holds state power. The dictatorship of the proletariat is the intermediate stage between a capitalist economy and a communist economy, whereby the ...
.
Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. ( 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin,. was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 19 ...
developed the idea of the communist party as the revolutionary vanguard, when the
socialist movement
The history of socialism has its origins in the 1789 French Revolution and the changes which it brought, although it has precedents in earlier movements and ideas. ''The Communist Manifesto'' was written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in 1847-4 ...
in
Imperial Russia was divided into ideologically opposed factions, the
Bolshevik
The Bolsheviks (russian: Большевики́, from большинство́ ''bol'shinstvó'', 'majority'),; derived from ''bol'shinstvó'' (большинство́), "majority", literally meaning "one of the majority". also known in English ...
faction ("of the majority") and the
Menshevik
The Mensheviks (russian: меньшевики́, from меньшинство 'minority') were one of the three dominant factions in the Russian socialist movement, the others being the Bolsheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries.
The factions eme ...
faction ("of the minority"). To be politically effective, Lenin proposed a small vanguard party managed with
democratic centralism which allowed centralized command of a disciplined
cadre
Cadre may refer to:
*Cadre (military), a group of officers or NCOs around whom a unit is formed, or a training staff
*Cadre (politics), a politically controlled appointment to an institution in order to circumvent the state and bring control to th ...
of professional
revolutionaries
A revolutionary is a person who either participates in, or advocates a revolution. The term ''revolutionary'' can also be used as an adjective, to refer to something that has a major, sudden impact on society or on some aspect of human endeavor.
...
. Once a policy was agreed upon, realizing political goals required every Bolshevik's total commitment to the agreed-upon policy.
In contrast, the Menshevik faction, which initially included
Leon Trotsky
Lev Davidovich Bronstein. ( – 21 August 1940), better known as Leon Trotsky; uk, link= no, Лев Давидович Троцький; also transliterated ''Lyev'', ''Trotski'', ''Trotskij'', ''Trockij'' and ''Trotzky''. (), was a Russian ...
, emphasized that the party should not neglect the importance of mass populations in realizing a communist revolution. In the course of the revolution, the Bolshevik party which became the
Communist Party of the Soviet Union
"Hymn of the Bolshevik Party"
, headquarters = 4 Staraya Square, Moscow
, general_secretary = Vladimir Lenin (first) Mikhail Gorbachev (last)
, founded =
, banned =
, founder = Vladimir Lenin
, newspaper ...
(CPSU) assumed government power in Russia after the
October Revolution
The October Revolution,. officially known as the Great October Socialist Revolution. in the Soviet Union, also known as the Bolshevik Revolution, was a revolution in Russia led by the Bolshevik Party of Vladimir Lenin that was a key mome ...
in 1917. With the creation of the
Communist International
The Communist International (Comintern), also known as the Third International, was a Soviet-controlled international organization founded in 1919 that advocated world communism. The Comintern resolved at its Second Congress to "struggle by ...
(Comintern) in 1919, the concept of communist party leadership was adopted by many revolutionary parties, worldwide. In an effort to standardize the international communist movement ideologically and maintain central control of the member parties, the Comintern required that its members use the term "communist party" in their names.
Under the leadership of the CPSU, the interpretations of
orthodox Marxism were applied to Russia and led to the emergence of
Leninist
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 establishm ...
and
Marxist–Leninist
Marxism is a left-wing to far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand class relations and social conflict and a dialect ...
political parties throughout the world. After the death of Lenin, the Comintern's official interpretation of Leninism was the book ''
Foundations of Leninism
''Foundations of Leninism'' is a 1924 collection by Joseph Stalin of nine lectures he delivered at Sverdlov University that year. It was published by the Soviet newspaper, ''Pravda''.
Background
After the January 1924 death of Vladimir Lenin, ...
'' (1924) by
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secretar ...
.
Mass organizations
As the membership of a communist party was to be limited to active
cadres in Lenin's theory, there was a need for networks of separate organizations to mobilize mass support for the party. Typically, communist parties built up various
front organizations
A front organization is any entity set up by and controlled by another organization, such as intelligence agencies, organized crime groups, terrorist organizations, secret societies, banned organizations, religious or political groups, advocacy ...
whose membership was often open to non-communists. In many countries, the single most important front organization of the communist parties was its youth wing. During the time of the
Communist International
The Communist International (Comintern), also known as the Third International, was a Soviet-controlled international organization founded in 1919 that advocated world communism. The Comintern resolved at its Second Congress to "struggle by ...
, the youth leagues were explicit communist organizations, using the name '
Young Communist League
The Young Communist League (YCL) is the name used by the youth wing of various Communist parties around the world. The name YCL of XXX (name of country) originates from the precedent established by the Communist Youth International.
Examples of Y ...
'. Later the youth league concept was broadened in many countries, and names like 'Democratic Youth League' were adopted.
Some
trade union
A trade union (labor union in American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers intent on "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment", ch. I such as attaining better wages and benefits ( ...
s and students', women's, peasants', and cultural organizations have been connected to communist parties. Traditionally, these mass organizations were often politically subordinated to the political leadership of the party. After the fall of communist party regimes in the 1990s, mass organizations sometimes outlived their communist party founders.
![HanoiPropagandaPoster](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3d/HanoiPropagandaPoster.JPG)
At the international level, the Communist International organized various international front organizations (linking national mass organizations with each other), such as the
Young Communist International
The Young Communist International was the parallel international youth organization affiliated with the Communist International (Comintern).
History
International socialist youth organization before World War I
After failed efforts to form an i ...
,
Profintern
The Red International of Labor Unions (russian: Красный интернационал профсоюзов, translit=Krasnyi internatsional profsoyuzov, RILU), commonly known as the Profintern, was an international body established by the Comm ...
,
Krestintern
The Peasant International (russian: Крестьянский Интернационал), known most commonly by its Russian abbreviation Krestintern (Крестинтерн), was an international peasants' organization formed by the Communist ...
,
International Red Aid
International Red Aid (also commonly known by its Russian acronym MOPR ( ru , МОПР, for: ''Междунаро́дная организа́ция по́мощи борца́м револю́ции'' - Mezhdunarodnaya organizatsiya pomoshchi bor ...
,
Sportintern, etc. Many of these organizations were disbanded after the dissolution of the Communist International. After the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
new international coordination bodies were created, such as the
World Federation of Democratic Youth
The World Federation of Democratic Youth (WFDY) is an international youth organization, and has historically characterized itself as left-wing and anti-imperialist. WFDY was founded in London in 1945 as a broad international youth movement, ...
,
International Union of Students
The International Union of Students (IUS) was a worldwide nonpartisan association of university student organizations.
The IUS was the umbrella organization for 155 such students' organizations across 112 countries and territories representing a ...
,
World Federation of Trade Unions
The World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) is an international federation of trade unions established in 1945. Founded in the immediate aftermath of World War Two, the organization built on the pre-war legacy of the International Federation o ...
,
Women's International Democratic Federation
Women's International Democratic Federation (WIDF) is an international organization with the stated goal of working for women's rights. It was established in 1945 and was most active during the Cold War. It initially focussed on anti-fascism, worl ...
and the
World Peace Council
The World Peace Council (WPC) is an international organization with the self-described goals of advocating for universal disarmament, sovereignty and independence and peaceful co-existence, and campaigns against imperialism, weapons of mass ...
. The Soviet Union unified many of the Comintern's original goals among its East European allies under the aegis of a new organization, the
Cominform
The Information Bureau of the Communist and Workers' Parties (), commonly known as Cominform (), was a co-ordination body of Marxist-Leninist communist parties in Europe during the early Cold War that was formed in part as a replacement of the ...
.
Historically, in countries where communist parties were struggling to attain state power, the formation of wartime alliances with non-communist parties and wartime groups was enacted (such as the
National Liberation Front of Albania
The National Liberation Movement ( sq, Lëvizja Nacional-Çlirimtare; or ''Lëvizja Antifashiste Nacional-Çlirimtare'' (LANÇ)), also translated as National Liberation Front, was an Albanian communist resistance organization that fought in World ...
). Upon attaining state power these Fronts were often transformed into nominal (and usually electoral) "National" or "Fatherland" Fronts in which non-communist parties and organizations were given token representation (a practice known as ''
Blockpartei''), the most popular examples of these being the
National Front of East Germany (as a historical example) and the
United Front of the People's Republic of China (as a modern-day example). Other times the formation of such Fronts were undertaken without the participation of other parties, such as the
Socialist Alliance of Working People of Yugoslavia and the
National Front of Afghanistan
The National Front of Afghanistan (NFA; fa, جبهه ملی افغانستان, Jabhe Melli; also Afghanistan National Front, ANF), or Jabh-e Melli, was established in late 2011 by Ahmad Zia Massoud, Haji Mohammad Mohaqiq and Abdul Rashid Dost ...
, though the purpose was the same: to promote the communist party line to generally non-communist audiences and to mobilize them to carry out tasks within the country under the aegis of the Front.
Recent scholarship has developed the comparative political study of global communist parties by examining similarities and differences across historical geographies. In particular, the rise of revolutionary parties, their spread internationally, the appearance of charismatic revolutionary leaders and their ultimate demise during the decline and fall of communist parties worldwide have all been the subject of investigation.
Naming
A uniform naming scheme for communist parties was adopted by the
Communist International
The Communist International (Comintern), also known as the Third International, was a Soviet-controlled international organization founded in 1919 that advocated world communism. The Comintern resolved at its Second Congress to "struggle by ...
. All parties were required to use the name 'Communist Party of (''name of the country'')', resulting in separate communist parties in some countries operating using (largely) homonymous party names (e.g.
in India
IN, In or in may refer to:
Places
* India (country code IN)
* Indiana, United States (postal code IN)
* Ingolstadt, Germany (license plate code IN)
* In, Russia, a town in the Jewish Autonomous Oblast
Businesses and organizations
* Indepen ...
). Today, there are a few cases where the original sections of the Communist International have retained those names. But throughout the twentieth century, many parties changed their names. Common causes for these shifts in naming were either moves to avoid state repression or as measures to generate greater acceptance by local populations.
An important example of the latter was the renaming of many
East European
Eastern Europe is a subregion of the European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic connotations. The vast majority of the region is covered by Russia, whi ...
communist parties after the Second World War, sometimes as a result of mergers with the local
social democratic and
democratic socialist
Democratic socialism is a left-wing political philosophy that supports political democracy and some form of a socially owned economy, with a particular emphasis on economic democracy, workplace democracy, and workers' self-management within ...
parties. New names in the post-war era included "
Socialist Party
Socialist Party is the name of many different political parties around the world. All of these parties claim to uphold some form of socialism, though they may have very different interpretations of what "socialism" means. Statistically, most of t ...
", "
Socialist Unity Party", "
People's (or Popular) Party", "
Workers' Party" and "
Party of Labour".
The naming conventions of communist parties became more diverse as the international communist movement was fragmented due to the
Sino-Soviet split
The Sino-Soviet split was the breaking of political relations between the China, People's Republic of China and the Soviet Union caused by Doctrine, doctrinal divergences that arose from their different interpretations and practical applications ...
in the 1960s. Those who sided with China and
Albania
Albania ( ; sq, Shqipëri or ), or , also or . officially the Republic of Albania ( sq, Republika e Shqipërisë), is a country in Southeastern Europe. It is located on the Adriatic and Ionian Seas within the Mediterranean Sea and shares ...
in their criticism of the Soviet leadership, often added words like 'Revolutionary' or '
Marxist-Leninist' to distinguish themselves from the pro-Soviet parties.
Membership
In 1985, approximately 38 percent of the world's population lived under "communist" governments (1.67billion out of 4.4billion). The CPSU's International Department officially recognized 95 ruling and nonruling communist parties. Overall, if one includes the 107 parties with significant memberships, there were approximately 82 million communist party members worldwide. Given its worldwide representation, the communist party may be counted as the principal challenger to the influence of liberal-democratic, catch-all parties in the twentieth century.
In the capitalist counter-revolutions of 1989–1991 in eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, most of these parties either disappeared or were renamed and adopted different goals than their predecessors. In the 21st century, only four ruling parties on the national level still described themselves as Marxist-Leninist parties: the Chinese Communist Party, the Cuban Communist Party, the Communist Party of Vietnam, and the Lao People's Revolutionary Party (North Korea has abandoned Marxism-Leninism from its 2009 constitution but its ideology (
Juche
''Juche'' ( ; ), officially the ''Juche'' idea (), is the state ideology of North Korea and the official ideology of the Workers' Party of Korea. North Korean sources attribute its conceptualization to Kim Il-sung, the country's founder and f ...
) is still considered a variant of Marxism-Leninism). As of 2017, the
Communist Party of China
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), officially the Communist Party of China (CPC), is the founding and sole ruling party of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Under the leadership of Mao Zedong, the CCP emerged victorious in the Chinese Civil ...
was the world's second largest
political party
A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular country's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific political ideology ...
(until now), holding nearly 89.45 million (2017).
Views
Although the historical importance of communist parties is widely accepted, their activities and functions have been interpreted in different ways. One approach, sometimes known as the totalitarian school of communist studies, has implicitly treated all communist parties as the same types of organizations. Scholars such as
Zbigniew Brzezinski
Zbigniew Kazimierz Brzeziński ( , ; March 28, 1928 – May 26, 2017), or Zbig, was a Polish-American diplomat and political scientist. He served as a counselor to President Lyndon B. Johnson from 1966 to 1968 and was President Jimmy Carter' ...
and
Francois Furet have relied upon conceptions of the party emphasizing centralized control, a top-down hierarchical structure,
ideological rigidity, and strict party discipline. In contrast, other studies have emphasized the differences among communist parties. Multi-party studies, such as those by
Robert C. Tucker and A. James McAdams, have emphasized the differences in both these parties' organizational structure and their use of Marxist and Leninist ideas to justify their policies.
Another important question is why communist parties were able to rule for as long as they did. Some scholars have depicted these parties as fatally flawed from their inception and argue they only remained in power because their leaders were willing to use their
monopoly of power to crush all forms of
opposition
Opposition may refer to:
Arts and media
* ''Opposition'' (Altars EP), 2011 EP by Christian metalcore band Altars
* The Opposition (band), a London post-punk band
* '' The Opposition with Jordan Klepper'', a late-night television series on Com ...
. In contrast, other studies have emphasized these parties’ ability to adapt their policies to changing times and circumstances.
[See George Breslauer, ''Five Images of the Soviet Future: A Critical Review and Synthesis'' (Berkeley, CA: Center for International Studies, 1978); Stephen F. Cohen, ''Rethinking the Soviet Experience'' (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986; and Martin K. Dimitrov, ed., ''Why Communism Did Not Collapse: Understanding Authoritarian Regime Resilience in Asia and Europe'' (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013)]
See also
*
Criticism of communist party rule
The actions by governments of communist states have been subject to criticism across the political spectrum. According to the critics, the rule by communist parties leads to totalitarianism, political repression, restrictions of human rights ...
References
External links
*
{{authority control
Communist organizations