World communism, also known as global communism, is the ultimate form of
communism which of necessity has a universal or global scope. The long-term goal of world communism is an unlimited worldwide
communist society that is classless (lacking any exploitation of man by man), moneyless (lacking a need for currency to regulate human behavior), and
stateless (lacking any violent compulsion of man by man), which may be achieved through an intermediate-term goal of either a
voluntary association of
sovereign states (a global
alliance) or a
world government (a single worldwide state).
A series of internationals have worked toward world communism and they have included the
First International, the
Second International, the Third International (the
Communist International or Comintern), the
Fourth International, the
Revolutionary Internationalist Movement,
Maoist Internationalist Movement, the
World Socialist Movement, and variant offshoots. The methods and political theories of each International remain quite heterogeneous in their pursuit of the global communist society.
During the
Stalinist era, the novel theory of
socialism in one country, flew in the face of the generally accepted practice of Marxism at the time, and became part of the
ideology of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Justifying the innovation,
Joseph Stalin and his supporters concluded that it was naive to think that
world revolution was imminent in the 1920s–1930s after Germany's
Bavarian Soviet Republic failed to produce the anticipated socialist vanguard state to lead the world in revolution; instead descending into
fascism and the murder of
Rosa Luxemburg
Rosa Luxemburg (; ; pl, Róża Luksemburg or ; 5 March 1871 – 15 January 1919) was a Polish and naturalised-German revolutionary socialist, Marxist philosopher and anti-war activist. Successively, she was a member of the Proletariat party, ...
. This caused great disillusionment among many socialists worldwide, who agreed with
Karl Marx and
Vladimir Lenin's analysis that an international scope was vital to communist success but could not at the time explain the fascist deviation in world affairs. Currents of
national communism, especially after
World War II, broke the prewar hegemonic popularity of internationalist communism in view of standing nations in the Stalinist mold.
The end of the
Cold War
The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...
, with the
Revolutions of 1989 and the
dissolution of the Soviet Union
The dissolution of the Soviet Union, also negatively connoted as rus, Разва́л Сове́тского Сою́за, r=Razvál Sovétskogo Soyúza, ''Ruining of the Soviet Union''. was the process of internal disintegration within the Sov ...
, is often called the fall of communism in the Stalinist mold. Nevertheless, the international communist tendencies remain among
Maoists,
Trotskyist,
left communists
Left communism, or the communist left, is a position held by the left wing of communism, which criticises the political ideas and practices espoused by Marxist–Leninists and social democrats. Left communists assert positions which they rega ...
, and some
present-day Russian communists among others seeking to further refine and revise the theory of dialectical materialism.
Early era (1917–1944)
Marxist philosophy
Marxist philosophy or Marxist theory are works in philosophy that are strongly influenced by Karl Marx's materialist approach to theory, or works written by Marxists. Marxist philosophy may be broadly divided into Western Marxism, which drew fro ...
observed that because capitalism had begun to exhaust the low hanging fruit of domestic exploitation, it had to become
Imperialist and seek the global exploitation of both markets by extraction/
colonialism and workers by the
exploitation of labour. This need for profit as the sole motivating force of the capitalist class acts like an invisible hand to compel class solidarity among the now international capitalist class of the world against any attempt to unify in solidarity by the (now also international) workers of the world. The capitalist class' goal to maintain profitability and thus their class' dominance is the engine and reason for the
class conflict
Class conflict, also referred to as class struggle and class warfare, is the political tension and economic antagonism that exists in society because of socio-economic competition among the social classes or between rich and poor.
The forms ...
).
Recognition by man of the pain of this exploitation by capitalists inexorably unites the
proletariat
The proletariat (; ) is the social class of wage-earners, those members of a society whose only possession of significant economic value is their labour power (their capacity to work). A member of such a class is a proletarian. Marxist philo ...
of the world and necessitates international cooperation to halt the suffering of mankind. This
proletarian internationalism has as its aim the end of continuous subjugation via
divide and rule by the comparatively few capitalists who seek to stop the development of
class consciousness in their workers lest they too form
trade unions to counter the capitalists
monopolies; (thus the rallying cry of all true socialists "
Workers of the world, unite!"). In this view, after a transitional period of international socialism the terminal stage of development of the (future)
history of communism would likewise be replaced by world communism.
Theoreticians differ on whether world communism may be achieved peacefully despite the clear class conflict. Those who believe the capitalist class would not put down their property rights to become workers again believe the transition to world communism must be more contentious. World communism as the utopian final goal of the class conflict can only be achieved by
world revolution as "
injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere" in the words of noted socialist,
Martin Luther King Jr.
As such, World communism is ultimately incompatible with the permanent existence of the
nation state formation as a means of organizing people and property. To be a socialist is to believe that people are people everywhere, even within
nations and they must unite to end their own exploitation by the would be elitists of capitalism. Whether the people unite in a
supranational union
A supranational union is a type of international organization that is empowered to directly exercise some of the powers and functions otherwise reserved to states. A supranational organization involves a greater transfer of or limitation of ...
s of sovereign states or a world government to progress through the socialist phase of human development is guided by the desire to end this capitalist exploitation of mankind.
This transitional period of
Socialism shall then continue to develop the
productive forces
Productive forces, productive powers, or forces of production (German: ''Produktivkräfte'') is a central idea in Marxism and historical materialism.
In Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels' own critique of political economy, it refers to the combinat ...
and alleviate drudgery until such time as either the state becomes irrelevant to organizing human activity and the people agree to the
abolition of the state or the now useless state undergoes what Marx and Engels call the
withering away of the state. When
governance no longer requires state
institution
Institutions are humanly devised structures of rules and norms that shape and constrain individual behavior. All definitions of institutions generally entail that there is a level of persistence and continuity. Laws, rules, social conventions a ...
s or
state power no one would desire it nor wield it. In other words, the people of a utopian communist society would be
self-governing via
direct democracy
Direct democracy or pure democracy is a form of democracy in which the Election#Electorate, electorate decides on policy initiatives without legislator, elected representatives as proxies. This differs from the majority of currently establishe ...
so direct that the state would not even exist.
Abolition of the state is not in itself a distinctively
Marxist doctrine
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 dialectical ...
. It was sometime it was happened by any of the country held by various
socialist and
anarchist
Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that is skeptical of all justifications for authority and seeks to abolish the institutions it claims maintain unnecessary coercion and hierarchy, typically including, though not neces ...
thinkers of the nineteenth century as well as some present-day anarchists (
libertarians are
anti-statist typically in a subtly different sense, in that they support
small government although not absence of
government or
state). The crux here is a text of the
Friedrich Engels, from his ''
Anti-Dühring
''Anti-Dühring'' (german: Herrn Eugen Dührings Umwälzung der Wissenschaft, "Herr Eugen Dühring's Revolution in Science") is a book by Friedrich Engels, first published in German in 1878. It had previously been serialised in the newspaper ''V ...
''. It is often cited as "The state is not 'abolished,' it withers away".
This is from the pioneer work of
historical materialism, a formulation of Marx's idea of a
materialist conception of history. The withering away of the state is a graphic formulation, that has passed into cliché. The translation (Engels was writing in German) is also given as: "The state is not 'abolished'. It dies out".
Reference to the whole passage shows that this happens only after the proletariat has seized the
means of production. The schematic is therefore revolution, transitional period, ultimate period. Although the ultimate period sounds like a
utopia, Marx and Engels did not consider themselves
utopian socialists, but rather
scientific socialists. They considered violence necessary for resistance of
wage slavery.
Whereas for Engels the transitional period was reduced to a single act, for Lenin thirty to forty years later it had become extended and "obviously lengthy".
In the same place, he argues strongly that Marx's conception of communist society is not utopian, but takes into account the heritage of what came before.
This gives at least roughly the position on world communism as the Comintern was set up in 1919: world revolution is necessary for the setting up of world communism, but not as an immediate or clearly sufficient event.
Stalinist and Cold War era (1947–1991)
During the Stalinist era, the idea of socialism in one country, which many internationalists considered unworkable, became part of the ideology of 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 ...
as Stalin and his supporters concluded that the transitional period would indeed be very long and complicated. Advocates of socialism in one country had not abandoned the goal of ultimate world communism, but they considered it naive to think world revolution was imminent. Thus the
Soviet Union dissolved the Third International during World War II. However, Stalin did not intend to implement
isolationism
Isolationism is a political philosophy advocating a national foreign policy that opposes involvement in the political affairs, and especially the wars, of other countries. Thus, isolationism fundamentally advocates neutrality and opposes entang ...
despite this one-country approach.
Despite retaining the earlier
Bolshevik terminology equating
imperialism
Imperialism is the state policy, practice, or advocacy of extending power and dominion, especially by direct territorial acquisition or by gaining political and economic control of other areas, often through employing hard power (economic and ...
with
capitalism and thus decrying
empire, the Soviet Union instead pursued a ''de facto''
empire of
satellite states, similar in ways to the
czarist Russian Empire although Soviet ideology could not admit that, to counter the influence of capitalist countries. It also supported
revolutionary socialism around the world to continue to work toward world communism, however distant it might be. Thus it backed the
26th of July Movement
The 26th of July Movement ( es, Movimiento 26 de Julio; M-26-7) was a Cuban vanguard revolutionary organization and later a political party led by Fidel Castro. The movement's name commemorates its 26 July 1953 attack on the army barracks on San ...
in the
Cuban Revolution, the
North Vietnamese in the
Vietnam War and the
MPLA in the
Angolan Civil War. The
domino theory of the Cold War was driven by this intent as
anti-communists feared that isolationism by capitalist countries would lead to the collapse of their
self-defense.
Collapse and survival
Socialism survived in China, North Korea, Vietnam, Laos and Cuba, after severe internal crises. In 1989-1991 the party control collapsed in other Communist states, which then entered into
Post-communism
Post-communism is the period of political and economic transformation or transition in former communist states located in Eastern Europe and parts of Africa and Asia in which new governments aimed to create free market-oriented capitalist economi ...
. Yugoslavia plunged into a long complex series of wars between ethnic groups. Soviet-oriented Communist movements collapsed in countries where it was not in control.
International communism has not reappeared. Nevertheless, some international communists remain among some factions of Maoists, left communists, some present-day Russian communists and others.
See also
*
Communist nostalgia
Communist nostalgia, also called communism nostalgia or socialist nostalgia, is the nostalgia in various post-communist states of Central and Eastern Europe and Russia for the prior communist states. Bartmanski, DominikSuccessful icons of failed ti ...
*
Dissolution of the Soviet Union
The dissolution of the Soviet Union, also negatively connoted as rus, Разва́л Сове́тского Сою́за, r=Razvál Sovétskogo Soyúza, ''Ruining of the Soviet Union''. was the process of internal disintegration within the Sov ...
*
Fall of communism in Albania
The fall of Communism in Albania, the last such event in Europe outside the Soviet Union, started in December 1990 with student demonstrations in the capital, Tirana, although protests started in January that year in other cities like Shkodra ...
*
*
*
Post-communism
Post-communism is the period of political and economic transformation or transition in former communist states located in Eastern Europe and parts of Africa and Asia in which new governments aimed to create free market-oriented capitalist economi ...
*
Predictions of the collapse of the Soviet Union
There were people and organizations who predicted that the USSR would dissolve before the eventual Dissolution of the Soviet Union, dissolution of the USSR in 1991.
Authors often credited with having predicted the dissolution of the Soviet Union i ...
*
Revolutions of 1989
References
Further reading
* Bown, Archie. ''The Rise and Fall of Communism'' (2009).
* Kotkin, Stephen. ''Armageddon Averted: The Soviet Collapse, 1970-2000'' (2nd ed. 2008
excerpt*
**
** Fürst, Juliane, Silvio Pons and Mark Selden, eds. ''The Cambridge History of Communism (Volume 3): Endgames? Late Communism in Global Perspective, 1968 to the Present'' (2017
excerpt* Pons, Silvio, and Robert Service, eds. ''A Dictionary of 20th-Century Communism'' (2010).
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:World Communism
Communism
Communist theory
Marxist theory
World government