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The history of communism encompasses a wide variety of ideologies and
political movement A political movement is a collective attempt by a group of people to change government policy or social values. Political movements are usually in opposition to an element of the status quo, and are often associated with a certain ideology. Some t ...
s sharing the core theoretical values of
common ownership Common ownership refers to holding the assets of an organization, enterprise or community indivisibly rather than in the names of the individual members or groups of members as common property. Forms of common ownership exist in every economi ...
of
wealth Wealth is the abundance of Value (economics), valuable financial assets or property, physical possessions which can be converted into a form that can be used for financial transaction, transactions. This includes the core meaning as held in the ...
, economic enterprise, and
property Property is a system of rights that gives people legal control of valuable things, and also refers to the valuable things themselves. Depending on the nature of the property, an owner of property may have the right to consume, alter, share, r ...
. Most modern forms 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 ...
are grounded at least nominally in
Marxism Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...
, a theory and method conceived 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 ...
during the 19th century. Marxism subsequently gained a widespread following across much of Europe and throughout the late 1800s its militant supporters were instrumental in a number of failed revolutions on that continent. During the same era, there was also a proliferation of communist parties which rejected armed revolution, but embraced the Marxist ideal of collective property and a
classless society The term classless society refers to a society in which no one is born into a social class. Distinctions of wealth, income, education, culture, or social network might arise and would only be determined by individual experience and achievement ...
. Although Marxist theory suggested that the places ripest for
social revolution Social revolutions are sudden changes in the structure and nature of society. These revolutions are usually recognized as having transformed society, economy, culture, philosophy, and technology along with but more than just the political syst ...
, either through peaceful transition or by force of arms, were industrial societies, communism was mostly successful in underdeveloped countries with endemic poverty such as the
Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...
and the
Republic of China Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the northeast ...
. In 1917, the Bolshevik Party seized power during the
Russian Revolution The Russian Revolution was a period of Political revolution (Trotskyism), political and social revolution that took place in the former Russian Empire which began during the First World War. This period saw Russia abolish its monarchy and ad ...
and in 1922 created the
Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
, the world's first
self-declared Self-proclaimed describes a legal title that is recognized by the declaring person but not necessarily by any recognized legal authority. It can be the status of a noble title or the status of a nation. The term is used informally for anyone declari ...
socialist state A socialist state, socialist republic, or socialist country, sometimes referred to as a workers' state or workers' republic, is a Sovereign state, sovereign State (polity), state constitutionally dedicated to the establishment of socialism. The ...
. The Bolsheviks thoroughly embraced the concept of
proletarian internationalism Proletarian internationalism, sometimes referred to as international socialism, is the perception of all communist revolutions as being part of a single global class struggle rather than separate localized events. It is based on the theory that ...
and world revolution, seeing their struggle as an international rather than a purely regional cause. This was to have a phenomenal impact on the spread of communism during the 20th century as the Soviet Union installed new
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 ...
governments in Central and Eastern Europe following
World War II 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 ...
and indirectly backed the ascension of others in the Americas, Asia and Africa. Pivotal to this policy was the Communist International, also known as the Comintern, formed with the perspective of aiding and assisting communist parties around the world and fostering revolution. This was one major cause of tensions during 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 ...
as the
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
and its military allies equated the global spread of communism with Soviet expansionism by proxy. By 1985, one-third of the world's population lived under a Marxist–Leninist system of government in one form or another. However, there was significant debate among communist and Marxist ideologues as to whether most of these countries could be meaningfully considered Marxist at all since many of the basic components of the Marxist system were altered and revised by such countries. The failure of these governments to live up to the ideal of a communist society, their general trend towards increasing authoritarianism and the inherent inefficiencies in their economies has been linked to the decline of communism in the late 20th century. With 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 ...
in 1991, several
Marxist–Leninist state A communist state, also known as a Marxist–Leninist state, is a one-party state that is administered and governed by a communist party guided by Marxism–Leninism. Marxism–Leninism was the state ideology of the Soviet Union, the Comint ...
s repudiated or abolished the ideology altogether. As of the 21st century, only a small number of Marxist–Leninist states remain, namely
China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
,
Cuba Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribbea ...
,
Laos Laos (, ''Lāo'' )), officially the Lao People's Democratic Republic ( Lao: ສາທາລະນະລັດ ປະຊາທິປະໄຕ ປະຊາຊົນລາວ, French: République démocratique populaire lao), is a socialist ...
,
North Korea North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the northern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and shares borders with China and Russia to the north, at the Yalu River, Y ...
and
Vietnam Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making i ...
. All of these states have started allowing more economic competition while maintaining one-party rule.


Origins of communism


Communism in antiquity

Many historical groups have been considered as following forms 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 ...
.
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 other early communist theorists believed that
hunter-gatherer A traditional hunter-gatherer or forager is a human living an ancestrally derived lifestyle in which most or all food is obtained by foraging, that is, by gathering food from local sources, especially edible wild plants but also insects, fungi, ...
societies as were found in the
Paleolithic The Paleolithic or Palaeolithic (), also called the Old Stone Age (from Greek: παλαιός ''palaios'', "old" and λίθος ''lithos'', "stone"), is a period in human prehistory that is distinguished by the original development of stone too ...
through to horticultural societies as found in the
Chalcolithic The Copper Age, also called the Chalcolithic (; from grc-gre, χαλκός ''khalkós'', "copper" and  ''líthos'', "stone") or (A)eneolithic (from Latin '' aeneus'' "of copper"), is an archaeological period characterized by regular ...
were essentially egalitarian and he, therefore, termed their ideology to be primitive communism. One of the first writers to espouse a belief in the primitive communism of the past was the
Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a letter ...
Stoic philosopher
Seneca Seneca may refer to: People and language * Seneca (name), a list of people with either the given name or surname * Seneca people, one of the six Iroquois tribes of North America ** Seneca language, the language of the Seneca people Places Extrat ...
who stated," How happy was the primitive age when the bounties of nature lay in common...They held all nature in common which gave them secure possession of the public wealth." Because of this he believed that such primitive societies were the richest as there was no poverty. Other
Greco-Roman The Greco-Roman civilization (; also Greco-Roman culture; spelled Graeco-Roman in the Commonwealth), as understood by modern scholars and writers, includes the geographical regions and countries that culturally—and so historically—were di ...
writers that believed in a prehistoric humanity that practiced communism include
Diodorus Siculus Diodorus Siculus, or Diodorus of Sicily ( grc-gre, Διόδωρος ;  1st century BC), was an ancient Greek historian. He is known for writing the monumental universal history ''Bibliotheca historica'', in forty books, fifteen of which su ...
,
Virgil Publius Vergilius Maro (; traditional dates 15 October 7021 September 19 BC), usually called Virgil or Vergil ( ) in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He composed three of the most famous poems in Latin literature: t ...
, and
Ovid Pūblius Ovidius Nāsō (; 20 March 43 BC – 17/18 AD), known in English as Ovid ( ), was a Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a contemporary of the older Virgil and Horace, with whom he is often ranked as one of the th ...
. Similarly the early
Church Fathers The Church Fathers, Early Church Fathers, Christian Fathers, or Fathers of the Church were ancient and influential Christian theologians and writers who established the intellectual and doctrinal foundations of Christianity. The historical per ...
, like their pagan predecessors, maintained that humans society had declined to its current state from a now lost egalitarian social order. Around the late 5th century BC in
Ancient Greece Ancient Greece ( el, Ἑλλάς, Hellás) was a northeastern Mediterranean civilization, existing from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th–9th centuries BC to the end of classical antiquity ( AD 600), that comprised a loose collection of cult ...
, ideas similar to communism were becoming widespread to the extent that they were parodied by the dramatist
Aristophanes Aristophanes (; grc, Ἀριστοφάνης, ; c. 446 – c. 386 BC), son of Philippus, of the deme In Ancient Greece, a deme or ( grc, δῆμος, plural: demoi, δημοι) was a suburb or a subdivision of Athens and other city-states ...
in his comedy
The Assemblywomen ''Assemblywomen'' ( grc-gre, Ἐκκλησιάζουσαι ''Ekklesiazousai''; also translated as, ''Congresswomen'', ''Women in Parliament'', ''Women in Power'', and ''A Parliament of Women'') is a comedy written by the Greek playwright Aristo ...
in which the women of Athens seize control of the ''
Ecclesia Ecclesia (Greek: ἐκκλησία ''ekklēsia'') may refer to: Organizations * Ecclesia (ancient Greece) or Ekklēsia, the principal assembly of ancient Greece during its Golden Age * Ecclesia (Sparta), the citizens' assembly of Sparta, often w ...
'' or city government and abolish all private property while making the sharing of women and the collective rearing of children mandatory. Over a decade later in Plato's Republic
Socrates Socrates (; ; –399 BC) was a Greek philosopher from Athens who is credited as the founder of Western philosophy and among the first moral philosophers of the ethical tradition of thought. An enigmatic figure, Socrates authored no te ...
declares that an ideal state would eliminate all forms of private property among the elite of society to the extent that even children and wives are shared. He asserts that such practices would prevent internal conflict within a society and promote a sense of unity and common identity. Around AD 500 in
Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
, the
Zoroastrian Zoroastrianism is an Iranian religion and one of the world's oldest organized faiths, based on the teachings of the Iranian-speaking prophet Zoroaster. It has a dualistic cosmology of good and evil within the framework of a monotheistic on ...
priest and reformist
Mazdak Mazdak ( fa, مزدک, Middle Persian: 𐭬𐭦𐭣𐭪, also Mazdak the Younger; died c. 524 or 528) was a Zoroastrian ''mobad'' (priest), Iranian reformer, prophet and religious reformer who gained influence during the reign of the Sasanian empe ...
purportedly founded a movement preaching religious communism while under the patronage of the Sassanian
King King is the title given to a male monarch in a variety of contexts. The female equivalent is queen, which title is also given to the consort of a king. *In the context of prehistory, antiquity and contemporary indigenous peoples, the tit ...
Kavad I who initially supported the priest and his reforms, but later had the Mazdakians repressed and Mazdak executed.


Developments in Christian communism

Early Christianity Early Christianity (up to the First Council of Nicaea in 325) spread from the Levant, across the Roman Empire, and beyond. Originally, this progression was closely connected to already established Jewish centers in the Holy Land and the Jewish ...
supported a form of common ownership based on the teachings in the
New Testament The New Testament grc, Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη, transl. ; la, Novum Testamentum. (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events in first-century Christ ...
which emphasised sharing. For example, in the
Book of Acts The Acts of the Apostles ( grc-koi, Πράξεις Ἀποστόλων, ''Práxeis Apostólōn''; la, Actūs Apostolōrum) is the fifth book of the New Testament; it tells of the founding of the Christian Church and the spread of its message ...
the passages and state all believers held their possessions communally and would distribute goods based on need. Additionally, the related Jewish sect known as the Essenes was committed to, "social and material egalitarianism." Despite these practices falling into decline even before the era of
Constantine Constantine most often refers to: * Constantine the Great, Roman emperor from 306 to 337, also known as Constantine I * Constantine, Algeria, a city in Algeria Constantine may also refer to: People * Constantine (name), a masculine given na ...
, the principles of sharing property and holding goods in common continued within the Christian traditions of
monasticism Monasticism (from Ancient Greek , , from , , 'alone'), also referred to as monachism, or monkhood, is a religious way of life in which one renounces worldly pursuits to devote oneself fully to spiritual work. Monastic life plays an important role ...
. From the
High Middle Ages The High Middle Ages, or High Medieval Period, was the periodization, period of European history that lasted from AD 1000 to 1300. The High Middle Ages were preceded by the Early Middle Ages and were followed by the Late Middle Ages, which ended ...
to the early modern period in Europe, various groups supporting
Christian communist Christian communism is a theological view that the teachings of Jesus Christ compel Christians to support religious communism. Although there is no universal agreement on the exact dates when communistic ideas and practices in Christianity beg ...
and communalist ideas were occasionally adopted by reformist Christian sects. An early 12th century
proto-Protestant Proto-Protestantism, also called pre-Protestantism, refers to individuals and movements that propagated ideas similar to Protestantism before 1517, which historians usually regard as the starting year for the Reformation era. The relationship be ...
group originating in
Lyon Lyon,, ; Occitan: ''Lion'', hist. ''Lionés'' also spelled in English as Lyons, is the third-largest city and second-largest metropolitan area of France. It is located at the confluence of the rivers Rhône and Saône, to the northwest of t ...
,
Kingdom of Burgundy-Arles The Kingdom of Burgundy, known from the 12th century as the Kingdom of Arles, also referred to in various context as Arelat, the Kingdom of Arles and Vienne, or Kingdom of Burgundy-Provence, was a realm established in 933 by the merger of the king ...
known as the
Waldensians The Waldensians (also known as Waldenses (), Vallenses, Valdesi or Vaudois) are adherents of a church tradition that began as an ascetic movement within Western Christianity before the Reformation. Originally known as the "Poor Men of Lyon" in ...
held their property in common in accordance with the Book of Acts, but were persecuted by the Catholic Church and retreated to the
Piedmont it, Piemontese , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = , demographics1_footnotes = , demographics1_title1 = , demographics1_info1 = , demographics1_title2 ...
. With the rise of the Mendicant Orders in the 13th century groups such as the
Franciscans , image = FrancescoCoA PioM.svg , image_size = 200px , caption = A cross, Christ's arm and Saint Francis's arm, a universal symbol of the Franciscans , abbreviation = OFM , predecessor = , ...
began challenging the concept of private property to the extent it had to be defended by
Pope John XXII Pope John XXII ( la, Ioannes PP. XXII; 1244 – 4 December 1334), born Jacques Duèze (or d'Euse), was head of the Catholic Church from 7 August 1316 to his death in December 1334. He was the second and longest-reigning Avignon Pope, elected by ...
in his 1328 papal bull ''Quia vir reprobus'', in which he ruled that because God had gifted Adam with the Earth as his domain, the ownership of property was divinely sanctioned. Also beginning in the 13th century a lay order known as the Beghards, originating in the
Low Countries The term Low Countries, also known as the Low Lands ( nl, de Lage Landen, french: les Pays-Bas, lb, déi Niddereg Lännereien) and historically called the Netherlands ( nl, de Nederlanden), Flanders, or Belgica, is a coastal lowland region in N ...
, started to spread among the underprivileged groups of society, taking in members who renounced private property and dedicated themselves to communal living and pious, frugal lifestyles as artisans. Although the practices were successful enough to spread to other areas on the continent such as France and Germany, the Beghards were later repeatedly condemned by the Catholic Church. Around 1300 the
Apostolic Brethren The Apostolic Brethren (sometimes referred to as Apostolici, Apostoli, Apostles) were a Christianity, Christian sect founded in northern Italy in the latter half of the 13th century by Gerard Segarelli, a native of Alzano in the territory of Parma. ...
in northern Italy were taken over by
Fra Dolcino Fra Dolcino (c. 1250 – 1307) was the second leader of the Dulcinian reformist movement who was burned at the stake in Northern Italy in 1307. He had taken over the movement after its founder, Gerard Segarelli, had also been executed in 1300 on ...
who formed a sect known as the
Dulcinians {{no footnotes, date=July 2018 The Dulcinians were a religious sect of the Late Middle Ages, originating within the Apostolic Brethren. The Dulcinians, or Dulcinites, and Apostolics were inspired by Franciscan ideals and influenced by the Joachimi ...
which advocated ending feudalism, dissolving hierarchies in the church, and holding all property in common. The 14th century
English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...
scholastic and founder of Lollardy, John Wycliffe, preached of an idealized Christian state with collective ownership and disapproved of those rejecting the, "common charity and common property of Christian men." Around the same time the revolutionary priest John Ball, who was later executed for his prominent role in the doomed Wat Tyler Rebellion allegedly declared, "things cannot go well in England, nor ever will, until all goods are held in common." In
Tábor Tábor (; german: Tabor) is a town in the South Bohemian Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 33,000 inhabitants. The town centre is well preserved and is protected by law as an urban monument reservation. Administrative parts The followi ...
,
Bohemia Bohemia ( ; cs, Čechy ; ; hsb, Čěska; szl, Czechy) is the westernmost and largest historical region of the Czech Republic. Bohemia can also refer to a wider area consisting of the historical Lands of the Bohemian Crown ruled by the Bohem ...
during the 15th century
Hussite Wars The Hussite Wars, also called the Bohemian Wars or the Hussite Revolution, were a series of civil wars fought between the Hussites and the combined Catholic forces of Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund, the Papacy, European monarchs loyal to the Cat ...
, the radical
Taborites The Taborites ( cs, Táborité, cs, singular Táborita), known by their enemies as the Picards, were a faction within the Hussite movement in the medieval Lands of the Bohemian Crown. Although most of the Taborites were of rural origin, they ...
attempted to institute a system they called a "community of goods" where, "there is no mine or thine but all is held in common", but once initiated the scheme was quickly abandoned. After Taborite power was broken at Lipany their successors fled to
Moravia Moravia ( , also , ; cs, Morava ; german: link=yes, Mähren ; pl, Morawy ; szl, Morawa; la, Moravia) is a historical region in the east of the Czech Republic and one of three historical Czech lands, with Bohemia and Czech Silesia. The me ...
forming the
Moravian Church The Moravian Church ( cs, Moravská církev), or the Moravian Brethren, formally the (Latin: "Unity of the Brethren"), is one of the oldest Protestantism, Protestant Christian denomination, denominations in Christianity, dating back to the Bohem ...
under the
pacifist Pacifism is the opposition or resistance to war, militarism (including conscription and mandatory military service) or violence. Pacifists generally reject theories of Just War. The word ''pacifism'' was coined by the French peace campaign ...
spiritual leader Petr Chelčický who harbored both Christian communist and
Christian anarchist Christian anarchism is a Christian movement in political theology that claims anarchism is inherent in Christianity and the Gospels. It is grounded in the belief that there is only one source of authority to which Christians are ultimately an ...
beliefs. The extent to which Chelčický's followers, also known as the ''Bohemian Brethren'', adhered to his ideals, namely the abstinence from property, trade, and government, is disputed, and by the 16th century the Brethren definitely no longer embraced them. During the
Protestant Reformation The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and in ...
of the 16th century the
radical Radical may refer to: Politics and ideology Politics *Radical politics, the political intent of fundamental societal change *Radicalism (historical), the Radical Movement that began in late 18th century Britain and spread to continental Europe and ...
Anabaptists, who originated in
Switzerland ). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...
, endorsed the communalization of goods as practiced in the Book of Acts. The most notable Anabaptist groups were the
Hutterites Hutterites (german: link=no, Hutterer), also called Hutterian Brethren (German: ), are a communal ethnoreligious group, ethnoreligious branch of Anabaptism, Anabaptists, who, like the Amish and Mennonites, trace their roots to the Radical Refor ...
, founded by Jacob Hutter, who settled in Moravia in the 1520s and the Münster Anabaptists who were eradicated in battle during their attempt in 1535 to forcibly convert the city of
Münster Münster (; nds, Mönster) is an independent city (''Kreisfreie Stadt'') in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is in the northern part of the state and is considered to be the cultural centre of the Westphalia region. It is also a state distr ...
into a theocratic
New Jerusalem In the Book of Ezekiel in the Hebrew Bible, New Jerusalem (, ''YHWH šāmmā'', YHWH sthere") is Ezekiel's prophetic vision of a city centered on the rebuilt Holy Temple, the Third Temple, to be established in Jerusalem, which would be the c ...
. Various groups on the side of the Roundheads during the
English Civil War The English Civil War (1642–1651) was a series of civil wars and political machinations between Parliamentarians (" Roundheads") and Royalists led by Charles I ("Cavaliers"), mainly over the manner of England's governance and issues of re ...
in the mid-17th century propagated the redistribution of wealth on an egalitarian basis, namely the
Levellers The Levellers were a political movement active during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms who were committed to popular sovereignty, extended suffrage, equality before the law and religious tolerance. The hallmark of Leveller thought was its populis ...
and the
Diggers The Diggers were a group of religious and political dissidents in England, associated with agrarian socialism. Gerrard Winstanley and William Everard, amongst many others, were known as True Levellers in 1649, in reference to their split from ...
although only the latter group under
Gerrard Winstanley Gerrard Winstanley (19 October 1609 – 10 September 1676) was an English Protestant religious reformer, political philosopher, and activist during the period of the Commonwealth of England. Winstanley was the leader and one of the founde ...
promoted a propertyless, communist society. European writers began depicting idealized communist societies in utopian fiction from the 16th century onward. Inspired by largely fictional accounts of
native Native may refer to: People * Jus soli, citizenship by right of birth * Indigenous peoples, peoples with a set of specific rights based on their historical ties to a particular territory ** Native Americans (disambiguation) In arts and entert ...
communities in the
New World The term ''New World'' is often used to mean the majority of Earth's Western Hemisphere, specifically the Americas."America." ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'' (). McArthur, Tom, ed., 1992. New York: Oxford University Press, p. 3 ...
, the English humanist and future
Lord Chancellor The lord chancellor, formally the lord high chancellor of Great Britain, is the highest-ranking traditional minister among the Great Officers of State in Scotland and England in the United Kingdom, nominally outranking the prime minister. The ...
Thomas More, wrote the utopian novel ''
Utopia A utopia ( ) typically describes an imaginary community or society that possesses highly desirable or nearly perfect qualities for its members. It was coined by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book ''Utopia (book), Utopia'', describing a fictional ...
'' (1516) in which the main character decries private property after traveling to an idyllic island without money or private property and where, "everything is under state control." More coined the term ''utopia'' as a name for his idealized community, which means "nowhere" in Latin, evincing the fact that More did not consider such a society attainable in reality. Tommaso Campanella's 1601 work ''
The City of the Sun ''The City of the Sun'' ( it, La città del Sole; la, Civitas Solis) is a philosophical work by the Italians, Italian Dominican Order, Dominican philosopher Tommaso Campanella. It is an important early utopian work. The work was written in Ita ...
'' propagated the concept of a society where the products of society should be shared equally. In Campanella's utopia all people are well educated, there is only a four-hour work day, there is no private property, the population practices
eugenics Eugenics ( ; ) is a fringe set of beliefs and practices that aim to improve the genetic quality of a human population. Historically, eugenicists have attempted to alter human gene pools by excluding people and groups judged to be inferior or ...
to improve mental and physical fitness, most time is devoted to either leisure or self improvement, and society is managed by a ruling scientist who bases his administration on scientific principles all in the interest of benefiting society as a whole. Utopian communist societies were also described by the French writers
François Fénelon François de Salignac de la Mothe-Fénelon (), more commonly known as François Fénelon (6 August 1651 – 7 January 1715), was a French Catholic archbishop, theologian, poet and writer. Today, he is remembered mostly as the author of '' Th ...
and
Denis Vairasse Denis Vairasse d' Allais (c.1630–1672) was a French Huguenot writer, especially known for his Utopian novel, '' History of Sevarambes''. Biography Vairasse was born in a Protestant lower-middle-class family in France, and belonged to the roy ...
while English writer
Francis Bacon Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Alban (; 22 January 1561 – 9 April 1626), also known as Lord Verulam, was an English philosopher and statesman who served as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England. Bacon led the advancement of both ...
wrote of a utopia that merely had a "communism in knowledge."


Communism during the Enlightenment

During the
Age of Enlightenment The Age of Enlightenment or the Enlightenment; german: Aufklärung, "Enlightenment"; it, L'Illuminismo, "Enlightenment"; pl, Oświecenie, "Enlightenment"; pt, Iluminismo, "Enlightenment"; es, La Ilustración, "Enlightenment" was an intel ...
in 18th century France, some liberal writers increasingly began to criticize the institution of private property even to the extent they demanded its abolition. One of the first secular visions for a communist society is contained within the French Catholic
abbé ''Abbé'' (from Latin ''abbas'', in turn from Greek , ''abbas'', from Aramaic ''abba'', a title of honour, literally meaning "the father, my father", emphatic state of ''abh'', "father") is the French word for an abbot. It is the title for lowe ...
Jean Meslier Jean Meslier (; also Mellier; 15 June 1664 – 17 June 1729) was a French Catholic priest (abbé) who was discovered, upon his death, to have written a book-length philosophical essay promoting atheism and materialism. Described by the author as ...
's posthumously published ''Testament'' (1729). Similarly the
Abbé de Mably Gabriel Bonnot de Mably ( Grenoble, 14 March 1709 – 2 April 1785 in Paris), sometimes known as Abbé de Mably, was a French philosopher, historian, and writer, who for a short time served in the diplomatic corps. He was a popular 18th-centur ...
, also a French philosopher wrote that the individual ownership of land was the source of all mischief and that wealthy inequality brought about social ruin that could only be reversed by adopting a society based on collective ownership." He did however temper his views by surmising that any attempts at enacting true equality and communal ownership would prove to be too costly and destructive to be worth implementing. Another French thinker,
Étienne-Gabriel Morelly Étienne-Gabriel Morelly (; 1717–1778) was a French utopian thinker, philosopher and novelist. An otherwise "obscure tax official",Michael Sonenscher, ''Sans-Culottes: An Eighteenth-Century Emblem in the French Revolution'', Princeton University ...
also contended that private property was the source of all vice in society and developed the basic principles for a communist society namely, the abolition of property, the right to live and work for all, and the duty of all citizens to work for the common good. The French philosopher
Jean Jacques Rousseau Jean-Jacques Rousseau (, ; 28 June 1712 – 2 July 1778) was a Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer. His political philosophy influenced the progress of the Age of Enlightenment throughout Europe, as well as aspects of the French Revolu ...
in his hugely influential ''
The Social Contract ''The Social Contract'', originally published as ''On the Social Contract; or, Principles of Political Right'' (french: Du contrat social; ou, Principes du droit politique), is a 1762 French-language book by the Genevan philosopher Jean-Jacques ...
'' (1762) outlined the basis for a political order based on popular sovereignty rather than the rule of monarchs, and in his '' Discourse on Inequality'' (1755) inveighed against the corrupting effects of private property claiming that the invention of private property had led to the," crimes, wars, murders, and suffering" that plagued civilization. In 1785 the popular French novelist
Restif de la Bretonne Nicolas Restif de la Bretonne, born Nicolas-Edme Rétif or Nicolas-Edme Restif (; 23 October 1734 – 3 February 1806), also known as Rétif, was a French novelist. The term '' retifism'' for shoe fetishism was named after him (an early nov ...
wrote a book review on Victor d'Hupay's 1779 book ''
Project for a Philosophical Community A project is any undertaking, carried out individually or collaboratively and possibly involving research or design, that is carefully planned to achieve a particular goal. An alternative view sees a project managerially as a sequence of even ...
'' which described a plan for a
communal experiment An intentional community is a voluntary residential community which is designed to have a high degree of social cohesion and teamwork from the start. The members of an intentional community typically hold a common social, political, religious, ...
in Marseille where all private property was banned and which could be considered," the first full blueprint for a secular communist society in the world." In the review Restif noted that d'Hupay had referred to himself as a communiste, the French form of the word "communist", in a 1782 letter, the first recorded instance of that term. Restif himself wrote many novels centered around the idea of eliminating private property, first using the term "community of goods" in 1783 and then the term "communism" in 1793, rendered in French as
communisme ''Communisme'' is a French multidisciplinary academic journal in the field of communist studies, focusing in particular on the history of communism, founded in 1982 by Annie Kriegel and Stéphane Courtois. The starting objective of the journal ha ...
. These currents of thought in
French philosophy French philosophy, here taken to mean philosophy in the French language, has been extremely diverse and has influenced Western philosophy as a whole for centuries, from the medieval scholasticism of Peter Abelard, through the founding of modern ...
proved influential during the
French Revolution The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are considere ...
of 1789 in which various anti-monarchists, particularly the Jacobins, supported the idea of redistributing wealth equally among the people, including
Jean-Paul Marat Jean-Paul Marat (; born Mara; 24 May 1743 – 13 July 1793) was a French political theorist, physician, and scientist. A journalist and politician during the French Revolution, he was a vigorous defender of the ''sans-culottes'', a radical ...
and Gracchus Babeuf. The latter was involved in the
Conspiracy of the Equals The Conspiracy of the Equals (french: Conjuration des Égaux) of May 1796 was a failed coup d'Etat during the French Revolution. It was led by François-Noël Babeuf, who wanted to overthrow the Directory and replace it with an egalitarian and p ...
of 1796 intending to establish a revolutionary regime based on communal ownership, egalitarianism and the redistribution of property. Babeuf was directly influenced by Morelly's anti-property utopian novel ''The Code of Nature'' and quoted it extensively, although he was under the erroneous impression it was written by
Diderot Denis Diderot (; ; 5 October 171331 July 1784) was a French philosopher, art critic, and writer, best known for serving as co-founder, chief editor, and contributor to the ''Encyclopédie'' along with Jean le Rond d'Alembert. He was a prominen ...
.Also during the revolution the publisher
Nicholas Bonneville Nicohlas Bonneville (born Nicolas de Bonneville; 13 March 1760 — 9 November 1828) was a French bookseller, printer, journalist, and writer. He was also a political figure of some relevance at the time of the French Revolution and into the early ...
, the founder of the Parisian revolutionary
Social Club A social club may be a group of people or the place where they meet, generally formed around a common interest, occupation, or activity. Examples include: book discussion clubs, chess clubs, anime clubs, country clubs, charity work, criminal ...
used his printing press to spread the communist treatises of Restif and
Sylvain Maréchal Sylvain Maréchal (15 August 1750 – 18 January 1803) was a French essayist, poet, philosopher and political theorist, whose views presaged utopian socialism and communism. His views on a future golden age are occasionally described as ''utopian ...
. Maréchal, who later joined Babeuf's conspiracy, would state it his '' Manifesto of the Equals'' (1796)," we aim at something more sublime and more just, the COMMON GOOD or the COMMUNITY OF GOODS" and "The French Revolution is just a precursor of another revolution, far greater, far more solemn, which will be the last." Restif also continued to write and publish books on the topic of communism throughout the Revolution. Accordingly, through their egalitarian programs and agitation Restif, Maréchal, and Babeuf became the progenitors of modern communism. Babeuf's plot was detected, however, and he and several others involved were arrested and executed. Because of his views and methods, Babeuf is sometimes referred to as the first revolutionary communist, although at the time Babeuf himself used the term "communitist". Despite this setback, the example of the
French Revolutionary The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are consider ...
regime and Babeuf's doomed insurrection was an inspiration for French socialist thinkers such as Henri de Saint-Simon, Louis Blanc,
Charles Fourier François Marie Charles Fourier (;; 7 April 1772 – 10 October 1837) was a French philosopher, an influential early socialist thinker and one of the founders of utopian socialism. Some of Fourier's social and moral views, held to be radical in ...
and
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (, , ; 15 January 1809, Besançon – 19 January 1865, Paris) was a French socialist,Landauer, Carl; Landauer, Hilde Stein; Valkenier, Elizabeth Kridl (1979) 959 "The Three Anticapitalistic Movements". ''European Socia ...
. Proudhon, the founder of modern anarchism and libertarian socialism would later famously declare " property is theft!" a phrase first invented by the French revolutionary Brissot de Warville.


Post-French Revolution communism

Importantly because one of Babeuf's co-conspirators,
Philippe Buonarroti :''See also Filippo Buonarroti (1661–1733).'' Filippo Giuseppe Maria Ludovico Buonarroti, more usually referred to under the French version Philippe Buonarroti (11 November 1761 – 16 September 1837), was an Italian utopian socialist, wri ...
, survived the crackdown on the Conspiracy of the Equals he was able, later in his life, to write the influential book ''Babeuf's Conspiracy for Equality'' first published in 1828 which chronicled and popularized Babeouf's beliefs. In it Buonarroti asserted that in society," burdens, productions, and advantages ought to be equally divided," and believed that this division would lead to," the greatest possible happiness of all." Bournatti's writings led to a revival of Babeuf's thought in France and the dissemination of political theories referred to as
Neo-Babouvism Neo-Babouvism is a revolutionary socialist current in French political theory and action in the 19th century. It hearkened back to the Conspiracy of the Equals of Gracchus Babeuf and his associates, who tried to overthrow the Directory at the en ...
. According to Bournatti's Neo-Babouvism a revolutionary elite of "wise and courageous" citizens who cared only for "ensuring the triumph of equality" would be needed to uplift the masses and establish a new society based on egalitarian principles. By the 1830s and 1840s, the egalitarian concepts of communism and the related ideas of
socialism Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the e ...
had become widely popular in French revolutionary circles thanks to the writings of social critics and philosophers such as
Pierre Leroux Pierre Henri Leroux (7 April 1797 – 12 April 1871), was a French philosopher and political economist. He was born at Bercy, now a part of Paris, the son of an artisan. Life His education was interrupted by the death of his father, which com ...
and
Théodore Dézamy Alexandre Théodore Dézamy (4 March 1808 – 24 July 1850) was a French socialist, a representative of the Neo-Babouvist tendency in early French communism, along with Albert Laponneraye, Richard Lahautière, Jacques Pillot and others. He w ...
, whose critiques of bourgeoisie
liberalism Liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based on the rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed, political equality and equality before the law."political rationalism, hostility to autocracy, cultural distaste for c ...
and
individualism Individualism is the moral stance, political philosophy, ideology and social outlook that emphasizes the intrinsic worth of the individual. Individualists promote the exercise of one's goals and desires and to value independence and self-reli ...
led to a widespread intellectual rejection of ''
laissez-faire ''Laissez-faire'' ( ; from french: laissez faire , ) is an economic system in which transactions between private groups of people are free from any form of economic interventionism (such as subsidies) deriving from special interest groups. ...
''
capitalism Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for Profit (economics), profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, pric ...
on economic, philosophical and moral grounds. According to Leroux writing in 1832, "To recognise no other aim than individualism is to deliver the lower classes to brutal exploitation. The proletariat is no more than a revival of antique slavery." He also asserted that private ownership of the means of production allowed for the exploitation of the lower classes and that private property was a concept divorced from human dignity. Dézamy would assert in his 1842 book that what was needed was a," complete and unrestricted society of communal property" in which all activity was centralized. The systematic, historical and materialist analysis of the nature of communism in Dézamy's work led Marx to consider him among the first scientific socialists along with
Jules Gay Jules is the French form of the Latin "Julius" (e.g. Jules César, the French name for Julius Caesar). It is the given name of: People with the name *Jules Aarons (1921–2008), American space physicist and photographer *Jules Abadie (1876–195 ...
. It was only in the year 1840 that proponents of common ownership in France, including the socialists Théodore Dézamy, Étienne Cabet, and
Jean-Jacques Pillot Jean-Jacques Pillot (9 August 1808 – 13 June 1877) was a French revolutionary and republican communist. He participated in the Revolution of 1848 and in the Paris Commune of 1871. Early life Jean-Jacques Pillot was born in Vaux-Lavalet ...
began to widely adopt the word "communism" as a term for their belief system. A landmark event that established the popularity of the communist movement in France occurred in 1840 when Dézamy along with Pillot and
Albert Laponneraye Albert Laponneraye (8 May 1808 – 1 September 1849) was a French republican socialist and a journalist, popular historian, educator and editor of Robespierre's writings. He was a representative of the Neo-Babouvist tendency in the 1840s, alo ...
organized a pro-communist banquet in Belleville, France, the "first public manifestation of the communist party" in France which proved so successful that further planned communist banquets had to be outlawed by the French government. Also in 1840 a society of "Egalitarian Workers" following a communist program was founded in Paris and a general strike was called whose leaders were reportedly inspired by communist ideals. During the 1840s Étienne Cabet had a following of between 100,000 and 200,000 French workers and was considered by
Friedrich Engels Friedrich Engels ( ,"Engels"
'' Auguste Blanqui who was notable for his belief that violent revolutionary action should be used to overthrow the bourgeosie dominated state. In Blanqui's estimation a revolution would be most successful if it was executed by a small, secretive group which could then install a "dictatorship of the proletariat." Dézamy disagreed with any program endorsing a dictatorship, believing instead that the chief focus should be on cultivating proletarian unity through propaganda and education. The works and teachings of these French writers, many now self identifying as communists, went on to inspire new communist groups such as the League of the Just, an organization founded in Paris in 1836 by the Christian communist German émigrés
Wilhelm Weitling Wilhelm Christian Weitling (October 5, 1808 – January 25, 1871) was a German tailor, inventor, radical political activist and one of the first theorists of communism. Weitling gained fame in Europe as a social theorist before he emigrated t ...
and Karl Schapper. A second group, the
Communist Correspondence Committee The Communist Correspondence Committee (German: Kommunistisches Korrespondenz-Komitee) was an association of communists founded by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels with committees in Brussels, London, Cologne and Paris with the aim of politically and ...
, was formed in Brussels in 1846 by another pair of German émigrés
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"
''
The two groups were merged in 1847 to form the
Communist League The Communist League (German: ''Bund der Kommunisten)'' was an international political party established on 1 June 1847 in London, England. The organisation was formed through the merger of the League of the Just, headed by Karl Schapper, and the ...
which was headed by Schapper who then proceeded to task the co-founding members Marx and Engels with writing a manifesto laying out the principles of the new political party.


Marxism


Karl Marx

In the 1840s, German philosopher and sociologist
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 ...
, who was living in England after fleeing the authorities in
Prussia Prussia, , Old Prussian: ''Prūsa'' or ''Prūsija'' was a German state on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It formed the German Empire under Prussian rule when it united the German states in 1871. It was ''de facto'' dissolved by an em ...
, where he was considered a political threat, began publishing books in which he outlined his theories for a variety of communism now known as
Marxism Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...
. Marx was financially aided and supported by another German émigré,
Friedrich Engels Friedrich Engels ( ,"Engels"
'' Utopian socialist Saint-Simonist school. Politically, they were influenced by
Maximilien Robespierre Maximilien François Marie Isidore de Robespierre (; 6 May 1758 – 28 July 1794) was a French lawyer and statesman who became one of the best-known, influential and controversial figures of the French Revolution. As a member of the Esta ...
and several other radical figures of the French Revolution whilst economically they were influenced by
David Ricardo David Ricardo (18 April 1772 – 11 September 1823) was a British Political economy, political economist. He was one of the most influential of the Classical economics, classical economists along with Thomas Robert Malthus, Thomas Malthus, Ad ...
. Philosophically, they were influenced by
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (; ; 27 August 1770 – 14 November 1831) was a German philosopher. He is one of the most important figures in German idealism and one of the founding figures of modern Western philosophy. His influence extends ...
. Engels regularly met Marx at
Chetham's Library Chetham's Library in Manchester, England, is the oldest free public reference library in the English-speaking world.Nicholls (2004), p. 20. Chetham's Hospital, which contains both the library and Chetham's School of Music, was established in ...
in
Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...
, England from 1845 and the alcove where they met remains identical to this day. It was here that Engels relayed his experiences of industrial Manchester, chronicled in the '' Condition of the Working Class in England'', highlighting the struggles of the working class. Marx stated that "the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of
class struggles 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 o ...
", something that he believed was happening between the
bourgeoisie The bourgeoisie ( , ) is a social class, equivalent to the middle or upper middle class. They are distinguished from, and traditionally contrasted with, the proletariat by their affluence, and their great cultural and financial capital. They ...
(the select few upper class and upper middle class) who then controlled society and 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 ...
(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 colou ...
masses) who toiled to produce everything, but who had no political control. He advanced the idea that human society moved through a series of progressive stages from primitive communism through to
slavery Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...
,
feudalism Feudalism, also known as the feudal system, was the combination of the legal, economic, military, cultural and political customs that flourished in medieval Europe between the 9th and 15th centuries. Broadly defined, it was a way of structur ...
and then capitalism; and that this, in turn, would be replaced by communism. For Marx, communism was seen as inevitable yet uncertain and desirable. Marx founded the
Communist Correspondence Committee The Communist Correspondence Committee (German: Kommunistisches Korrespondenz-Komitee) was an association of communists founded by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels with committees in Brussels, London, Cologne and Paris with the aim of politically and ...
in 1846 through which the various communists,
socialists Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the eco ...
and other leftists across Europe could keep in contact with one another in the face of political repression. He then published ''The Communist Manifesto'' in 1848, which would prove to be one of the most influential communist texts ever written. He subsequently began work on a multi-volume epic that would examine and criticise the capitalist economy and the effect that it had upon politics, society and philosophy—the first volume of the work which was known as '' Capital: Critique of Political Economy'' was published in 1869. However, Marx and Engels were not only interested in writing about communism, as they were also active in supporting revolutionary activity that would lead to the creation of communist governments across Europe. They helped to found the International Workingmen's Association which would later become known as the First International to unite various communists and socialists, with Marx being elected to the Association's General Council. Marx summarized his system with the slogan, "
From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" (german: Jeder nach seinen Fähigkeiten, jedem nach seinen Bedürfnissen) is a slogan popularised by Karl Marx in his 1875 ''Critique of the Gotha Programme''. The principle refe ...
." This phrasing used to formulate the principles of communism is borrowed from earlier socialist political activists such as
August Becker August Becker (17 August 1900 – 31 December 1967) was a mid-ranking functionary in the SS of Nazi Germany and chemist in the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA). He helped design the vans with a gas chamber built into the back compartment u ...
and Louis Blanc.


Early development of Marxism

During the latter half of the 19th century, various left-wing organisations across Europe continued to campaign against the many autocratic right-wing regimes that were then in power. In France, socialists set up a government known as the
Paris Commune The Paris Commune (french: Commune de Paris, ) was a revolutionary government that seized power in Paris, the capital of France, from 18 March to 28 May 1871. During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71, the French National Guard had defended ...
after the fall of
Napoleon III Napoleon III (Charles Louis Napoléon Bonaparte; 20 April 18089 January 1873) was the first President of France (as Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte) from 1848 to 1852 and the last monarch of France as Emperor of the French from 1852 to 1870. A nephew ...
in 1871, but they were soon overthrown and many of their members executed by counter-revolutionaries. Meanwhile, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels joined the German Social-Democratic Party which had been created in 1875, but which was outlawed in 1879 by the German government, then led by Chancellor
Otto von Bismarck Otto, Prince of Bismarck, Count of Bismarck-Schönhausen, Duke of Lauenburg (, ; 1 April 1815 – 30 July 1898), born Otto Eduard Leopold von Bismarck, was a conservative German statesman and diplomat. From his origins in the upper class of J ...
, who deemed it to be a political threat due to its revolutionary nature and increasing number of supporters. In 1890, the party was re-legalised and by this time it had fully adopted Marxist principles. It subsequently achieved a fifth of the vote in the German elections and some of its leaders, such as
August Bebel Ferdinand August Bebel (22 February 1840 – 13 August 1913) was a German socialist politician, writer, and orator. He is best remembered as one of the founders of the Social Democratic Workers' Party of Germany (SDAP) in 1869, which in 1875 mer ...
and Wilhelm Liebknecht, became well-known public figures. At the time, Marxism took off not only in Germany, but it also gained popularity in
Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia a ...
, the
Habsburg monarchy The Habsburg monarchy (german: Habsburgermonarchie, ), also known as the Danubian monarchy (german: Donaumonarchie, ), or Habsburg Empire (german: Habsburgerreich, ), was the collection of empires, kingdoms, duchies, counties and other polities ...
and the
Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...
, although it did not achieve such success in other European nations like the
United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...
, where Marx and Engels had been based. Nonetheless, the new political ideology had gained sufficient support that an organisation was founded known as the
Second International The Second International (1889–1916) was an organisation of socialist and labour parties, formed on 14 July 1889 at two simultaneous Paris meetings in which delegations from twenty countries participated. The Second International continued th ...
to unite the various Marxist groups around the world. As Marxism took off, it also began to come under criticism from other European intellectuals, including fellow socialists and leftists. For instance, the Russian
collectivist anarchist Collectivist anarchism, also called anarchist collectivism and anarcho-collectivism, Buckley, A. M. (2011). ''Anarchism''. Essential Libraryp. 97 "Collectivist anarchism, also called anarcho-collectivism, arose after mutualism." . is an anarchis ...
Mikhail Bakunin criticised what he believed were the flaws in the Marxian theory that the state would eventually dissolve under a Marxist government, instead he believed that the state would gain in power and become
authoritarian Authoritarianism is a political system characterized by the rejection of political plurality, the use of strong central power to preserve the political ''status quo'', and reductions in the rule of law, separation of powers, and democratic votin ...
. Criticism also came from other sociologists such as the German
Max Weber Maximilian Karl Emil Weber (; ; 21 April 186414 June 1920) was a German sociologist, historian, jurist and political economist, who is regarded as among the most important theorists of the development of modern Western society. His ideas profo ...
, who whilst admiring Marx disagreed with many of his assumptions on the nature of society. Some Marxists tried to adapt to these criticisms and the changing nature of capitalism and
Eduard Bernstein Eduard Bernstein (; 6 January 1850 – 18 December 1932) was a German social democratic Marxist theorist and politician. A member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), Bernstein had held close association to Karl Marx and Friedric ...
emphasised the idea of Marxists bringing legal challenges against the current administrations over the treatment of the working classes rather than simply emphasising violent revolution as more orthodox Marxists did. Other Marxists opposed Bernstein and other revisionists, with many including
Karl Kautsky Karl Johann Kautsky (; ; 16 October 1854 – 17 October 1938) was a Czech-Austrian philosopher, journalist, and Marxist theorist. Kautsky was one of the most authoritative promulgators of orthodox Marxism after the death of Friedrich Engels in ...
, Otto Bauer, Rudolf Hilferding,
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, ...
,
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 ...
and
Georgi Plekhanov Georgi Valentinovich Plekhanov (; rus, Гео́ргий Валенти́нович Плеха́нов, p=ɡʲɪˈorɡʲɪj vəlʲɪnˈtʲinəvʲɪtɕ plʲɪˈxanəf, a=Ru-Georgi Plekhanov-JermyRei.ogg; – 30 May 1918) was a Russian revoluti ...
sticking steadfast to the concept of violently overthrowing what they saw as the bourgeoisie-controlled government and instead establishing a dictatorship of the proletariat.


Periodisation of international communism of 1993

The historical existence of the Communist International (Comintern) and the broader communist movement is divided among periods, regarding changes in the general policy it followed. * The War Communism period (1918–1921) which saw the forming of the International, the
Russian Civil War , date = October Revolution, 7 November 1917 – Yakut revolt, 16 June 1923{{Efn, The main phase ended on 25 October 1922. Revolt against the Bolsheviks continued Basmachi movement, in Central Asia and Tungus Republic, the Far East th ...
, a general revolutionary upheaval 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 moment ...
resulting in the formation of the first communist parties across the world and the defeat of workers' revolutionary movements in
Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
,
Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia a ...
,
Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...
and
Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...
. * The New Economic Policy period (1921–1929) which marked the end of the civil war in Russia and new economic measures taken by the Bolshevik government, the toning down of the revolutionary wave in Europe and internal struggles within the Bolshevik Party and the Comintern after Lenin's death and before Stalin's absolute consolidation of power. * The Third Period (1929–1934), an ultra-left turn which saw rapid
industrialization Industrialisation ( alternatively spelled industrialization) is the period of social and economic change that transforms a human group from an agrarian society into an industrial society. This involves an extensive re-organisation of an econo ...
and collectivization in the Soviet Union under Stalin's rule, the refusal by communists to cooperate with social democrats in other countries (labeling them social fascists) and the ultimate rise of
Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...
in Germany which led to the abandonment of the hard-line policy of this period. These years also saw the complete subordination of all communist parties across the world to the directives of the
All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) "Hymn of the Bolshevik Party" , headquarters = 4 Staraya Square, Moscow , general_secretary = Vladimir Lenin (first) Mikhail Gorbachev (last) , founded = , banned = , founder = Vladimir Lenin , newspaper ...
, making the Comintern more or less an organ 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 ...
. * The Popular Front period (1934–1939) which marked the call by Comintern to all popular and democratic forces (not just communist) to unite in popular fronts against fascism. Products of this period were the popular front governments in the
French Third Republic The French Third Republic (french: Troisième République, sometimes written as ) was the system of government adopted in France from 4 September 1870, when the Second French Empire collapsed during the Franco-Prussian War, until 10 July 1940 ...
and the
Second Spanish Republic The Spanish Republic (), commonly known as the Second Spanish Republic (), was the form of government in Spain from 1931 to 1939. The Republic was proclaimed on 14 April 1931, after the deposition of Alfonso XIII, King Alfonso XIII, and was di ...
. However, this period was also marked by widespread purges of anyone suspected as an enemy of the Stalinist regime, both in the Soviet Union and abroad. These mass purges resulted in the breaking up of the Popular Front in Spain amidst the
Spanish Civil War The Spanish Civil War ( es, Guerra Civil Española)) or The Revolution ( es, La Revolución, link=no) among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War ( es, Cuarta Guerra Carlista, link=no) among Carlists, and The Rebellion ( es, La Rebelión, lin ...
and the fall of Spain to
Francisco Franco Francisco Franco Bahamonde (; 4 December 1892 – 20 November 1975) was a Spanish general who led the Nationalist faction (Spanish Civil War), Nationalist forces in overthrowing the Second Spanish Republic during the Spanish Civil War ...
. * The period of advocating peace (1939–1941), a result of the signing of the
Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact , long_name = Treaty of Non-Aggression between Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , image = Bundesarchiv Bild 183-H27337, Moskau, Stalin und Ribbentrop im Kreml.jpg , image_width = 200 , caption = Stalin and Ribbentrop shaking ...
which resulted in the
Soviet invasion of Poland The Soviet invasion of Poland was a military operation by the Soviet Union without a formal declaration of war. On 17 September 1939, the Soviet Union invaded Poland from the east, 16 days after Nazi Germany invaded Poland from the west. Subse ...
. In this period, communists were advocating non-participation in
World War II 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 ...
, labeling the war as imperialist. The term revolutionary defeatism was used by Comintern in this period to refer to anti-war propaganda by communists in Western Europe against their national governments. * The Eastern Front period, sometimes called the Second Popular Front (1941–1943), was the last period of the Comintern, starting immediately after the German invasion of the Soviet Union, with Stalin's 3 July 1941 call to the entire free world to unite and fight
Nazism Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Na ...
by all means. This was a period of
militant anti-fascism Anti-fascism is a political movement in opposition to fascist ideologies, groups and individuals. Beginning in European countries in the 1920s, it was at its most significant shortly before and during World War II, where the Axis powers were ...
, the emergence of national liberation movements all across occupied Europe and ultimately the dissolution of the Comintern in 1943. * The Early Cold War (1947–1960) in which the Soviet Union and the
Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army (Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and, after ...
installed the
Eastern Bloc The Eastern Bloc, also known as the Communist Bloc and the Soviet Bloc, was the group of socialist states of Central and Eastern Europe, East Asia, Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America under the influence of the Soviet Union that existed du ...
communist regimes in most of
Eastern Europe Eastern Europe is a subregion of the Europe, 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 Russ ...
(except for Yugoslavia and Albania, which had independent communist regimes). A major effort to support communist party activity in Western democracies, especially the Italian Communist Party and the
French Communist Party The French Communist Party (french: Parti communiste français, ''PCF'' ; ) is a political party in France which advocates the principles of communism. The PCF is a member of the Party of the European Left, and its MEPs sit in the European Unit ...
, fell short of gaining positions in the government. * The Late Cold War (1960–1970s) in which China turned against the Soviet Union and organized alternative communist parties in many countries. Intense attention was given to revolutionary movements in the
Third World The term "Third World" arose during the Cold War to define countries that remained non-aligned with either NATO or the Warsaw Pact. The United States, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Western European nations and their allies represented the " First ...
which were successful in some places such as Cuba and Vietnam. Communism was decisively defeated in other states, including
Malaya Malaya refers to a number of historical and current political entities related to what is currently Peninsular Malaysia in Southeast Asia: Political entities * British Malaya (1826–1957), a loose collection of the British colony of the Straits ...
and
Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...
. In 1972–1979, there was
détente Détente (, French: "relaxation") is the relaxation of strained relations, especially political ones, through verbal communication. The term, in diplomacy, originates from around 1912, when France and Germany tried unsuccessfully to reduc ...
between the Soviet Union and the United States. * The end of communism in Europe (1980–1992) in which Soviet client states were heavily on the defensive as in
Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bordere ...
and
Nicaragua Nicaragua (; ), officially the Republic of Nicaragua (), is the largest country in Central America, bordered by Honduras to the north, the Caribbean to the east, Costa Rica to the south, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. Managua is the cou ...
. The United States escalated the conflict with very heavy military spending. After a series of short-lived leaders,
Mikhail Gorbachev Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (2 March 1931 – 30 August 2022) was a Soviet politician who served as the 8th and final leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 to dissolution of the Soviet Union, the country's dissolution in 1991. He served a ...
came to power in the Kremlin and began a policy of
glasnost ''Glasnost'' (; russian: link=no, гласность, ) has several general and specific meanings – a policy of maximum openness in the activities of state institutions and freedom of information, the inadmissibility of hushing up problems, ...
and
perestroika ''Perestroika'' (; russian: links=no, перестройка, p=pʲɪrʲɪˈstrojkə, a=ru-perestroika.ogg) was a political movement for reform within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) during the late 1980s widely associated wit ...
, designed to revive the stagnating Soviet economy. European satellites led by Poland grew increasingly independent and in 1989 they all expelled the communist leadership.
East Germany East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR; german: Deutsche Demokratische Republik, , DDR, ), was a country that existed from its creation on 7 October 1949 until its dissolution on 3 October 1990. In these years the state ...
merged into
West Germany West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 O ...
with Moscow's approval. At the end of 1991, the Soviet Union itself was dissolved into non-communist independent states. Many communist parties around the world either collapsed, or became independent non-communist entities. However, China, North Korea, Laos, Vietnam and Cuba maintained communist regimes. After 1980, China adopted a market oriented economy that welcomed large-scale trade and friendly relations with the United States.


Early socialist states (1917–1944)


Russian Revolution, Leninism, and formation of the Soviet Union

At the start of the 20th century, the
Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...
was an
autocracy Autocracy is a system of government in which absolute power over a state is concentrated in the hands of one person, whose decisions are subject neither to external legal restraints nor to regularized mechanisms of popular control (except perh ...
controlled by Tsar Nicholas II, with millions of the country's largely agrarian population living in abject
poverty Poverty is the state of having few material possessions or little income. Poverty can have diverse social, economic, and political causes and effects. When evaluating poverty in ...
. The
anti-communist Anti-communism is Political movement, political and Ideology, ideological opposition to communism. Organized anti-communism developed after the 1917 October Revolution in the Russian Empire, and it reached global dimensions during the Cold War, w ...
historian Robert Service noted that "poverty and oppression constituted the best soil for Marxism to grow in". The man most responsible for introducing the ideology into the country was
Georgi Plekhanov Georgi Valentinovich Plekhanov (; rus, Гео́ргий Валенти́нович Плеха́нов, p=ɡʲɪˈorɡʲɪj vəlʲɪnˈtʲinəvʲɪtɕ plʲɪˈxanəf, a=Ru-Georgi Plekhanov-JermyRei.ogg; – 30 May 1918) was a Russian revoluti ...
, although the movement itself was largely organised by
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 ...
, who had for a time been exiled to a prison camp in
Siberia Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a part of ...
by the Tsarist government for his beliefs. A Marxist group known as the
Russian Social Democratic Labour Party The Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP; in , ''Rossiyskaya sotsial-demokraticheskaya rabochaya partiya (RSDRP)''), also known as the Russian Social Democratic Workers' Party or the Russian Social Democratic Party, was a socialist pol ...
was formed in the country, although it soon divided into two main factions, namely the
Bolsheviks 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 ...
led by Lenin and the Mensheviks led by
Julius Martov Julius Martov or L. Martov (Ма́ртов; born Yuliy Osipovich Tsederbaum; 24 November 1873 – 4 April 1923) was a politician and revolutionary who became the leader of the Mensheviks in early 20th-century Russia. He was arguably the closes ...
. In 1905, there was a revolution against the Tsar's rule in which
workers' council A workers' council or labor council is a form of political and economic organization in which a workplace or municipality is governed by a council made up of workers or their elected delegates. The workers within each council decide on what thei ...
s known as
soviets Soviet people ( rus, сове́тский наро́д, r=sovyétsky naród), or citizens of the USSR ( rus, гра́ждане СССР, grázhdanye SSSR), was an umbrella demonym for the population of the Soviet Union. Nationality policy in th ...
were formed in many parts of the country and the Tsar was forced to implement democratic reform, introducing an elected government, the
Duma A duma (russian: дума) is a Russian assembly with advisory or legislative functions. The term ''boyar duma'' is used to refer to advisory councils in Russia from the 10th to 17th centuries. Starting in the 18th century, city dumas were for ...
. In 1917, with further social unrest against the Duma and its part in involving Russia in
World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
, the Bolsheviks took power in 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 moment ...
. They began remodelling the country by nationalizing various industries and confiscating land from wealthy aristocrats and redistributing it amongst the peasants. They subsequently pulled out of the war against Germany by signing the
Treaty of Brest-Litovsk The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (also known as the Treaty of Brest in Russia) was a separate peace, separate peace treaty signed on 3 March 1918 between Russian SFSR, Russia and the Central Powers (German Empire, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Kingdom of ...
which was unpopular amongst many in Russia, for it gave away large areas of land to Germany. From the outset, the new government faced resistance from a myriad of forces with differing perspectives, including anarchists, social democrats, who took power in the Democratic Republic of Georgia,
Socialist-Revolutionaries The Socialist Revolutionary Party, or the Party of Socialist-Revolutionaries (the SRs, , or Esers, russian: эсеры, translit=esery, label=none; russian: Партия социалистов-революционеров, ), was a major politi ...
, who formed the
Komuch The Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly was an anti-Bolshevik government that operated in Samara, Russia, during the Russian Civil War of 1917–1922. It formed on June 8, 1918, after the Czechoslovak Legion had occupied the city. ...
in
Samara, Russia Samara ( rus, Сама́ра, p=sɐˈmarə), known from 1935 to 1991 as Kuybyshev (; ), is the largest city and administrative centre of Samara Oblast. The city is located at the confluence of the Volga and the Samara rivers, with a population of ...
, scattered tsarist resistance forces known as the White Guard as well as Western powers. This led to the events of the
Russian Civil War , date = October Revolution, 7 November 1917 – Yakut revolt, 16 June 1923{{Efn, The main phase ended on 25 October 1922. Revolt against the Bolsheviks continued Basmachi movement, in Central Asia and Tungus Republic, the Far East th ...
which the Bolsheviks won and subsequently consolidated their power over the entire country, centralising power from the
Kremlin The Kremlin ( rus, Московский Кремль, r=Moskovskiy Kreml', p=ˈmɐˈskofskʲɪj krʲemlʲ, t=Moscow Kremlin) is a fortified complex in the center of Moscow founded by the Rurik dynasty, Rurik dynasty. It is the best known of th ...
in the capital city of
Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...
. In the early 1920s, Lenin began recruiting black workers, accusing American political parties of not doing more to campaign for black civil rights. A handful of
African American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...
activists were fascinated by communism, and
Cyril Briggs Cyril Valentine Briggs (May 28, 1888 – October 18, 1966) was an African-Caribbean American writer and communist political activist. Briggs is best remembered as founder and editor of ''The Crusader,'' a seminal New York magazine of the New Neg ...
led an organization called African Blood Brotherhood. In 1922, the
Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Russian SFSR or RSFSR ( rus, Российская Советская Федеративная Социалистическая Республика, Rossíyskaya Sovétskaya Federatívnaya Soci ...
was officially redesignated to lead the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, simply known as the
Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
. In 1924, Lenin resigned as leader of the Soviet Union due to poor health and soon died, with
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 Secreta ...
subsequently taking over control.


Comintern, Mongolian invasion, and communist uprisings in Europe

In 1919, the
Bolshevik government Under the leadership of Russian communist Vladimir Lenin, the Bolshevik Party seized power in the Russian Republic during a coup known as the October Revolution. Overthrowing the pre-existing Provisional Government, the Bolsheviks established a new ...
in Russia instigated the creation of an international communist organisation that would act as the Third International after the collapse of the
Second International The Second International (1889–1916) was an organisation of socialist and labour parties, formed on 14 July 1889 at two simultaneous Paris meetings in which delegations from twenty countries participated. The Second International continued th ...
in 1916. This was known as the Communist International, although it was commonly abbreviated as the Comintern. Throughout its existence, the Comintern would be dominated by the Kremlin despite its internationalist stance. Meanwhile, in 1921, the Soviet Union invaded its neighboring
Mongolia Mongolia; Mongolian script: , , ; lit. "Mongol Nation" or "State of Mongolia" () is a landlocked country in East Asia, bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south. It covers an area of , with a population of just 3.3 million, ...
to aid a popular uprising against the Chinese who then controlled the country, instituting a pro-Soviet government which declared the nation to be the Mongolian People's Republic in 1924. The Comintern and other such Soviet-backed communist groups soon spread across much of the world, though particularly in Europe, where the influence of the recent Russian Revolution was still strong. In
Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
, the Spartacist uprising took place in 1919 when armed
Spartacus League The Spartacus League (German: ''Spartakusbund'') was a Marxism, Marxist revolutionary movement organized in Germany during World War I. It was founded in August 1914 as the "International Group" by Rosa Luxemburg, Karl Liebknecht, Clara Zetkin, ...
communists supported rioting workers, but the government put the rebellion down violently with the use of a right-wing paramilitary group, the
Freikorps (, "Free Corps" or "Volunteer Corps") were irregular German and other European military volunteer units, or paramilitary, that existed from the 18th to the early 20th centuries. They effectively fought as mercenary or private armies, regar ...
, with many noted German communists such as
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, ...
being killed. Within a few months, a group of communists seized power amongst public unrest in the German region of
Bavaria Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total lan ...
, forming the Bavarian Soviet Republic, although once more this was put down violently by the Freikorps, who historians believe killed around 1,200 communists and their sympathisers. That same year, political turmoil in
Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia a ...
following their defeat in World War I led to a coalition government of the
Social Democratic Party The name Social Democratic Party or Social Democrats has been used by many political parties in various countries around the world. Such parties are most commonly aligned to social democracy as their political ideology. Active parties For ...
and the
Communist Party A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term ''communist party'' was popularized by the title of ''The Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. A ...
taking control. The Hungarian Communist Party led by Béla Kun soon became dominant and instituted various communist reforms in the country, but the country itself was subsequently invaded by its neighbouring
Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern, and Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, S ...
within a matter of months who overthrew the government, with its leaders either escaping abroad or being executed. In 1921, a communist revolt against the
Kingdom of Italy The Kingdom of Italy ( it, Regno d'Italia) was a state that existed from 1861, when Victor Emmanuel II of Kingdom of Sardinia, Sardinia was proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy, proclaimed King of Italy, until 1946, when civil discontent led to ...
occurred whilst supportive factory workers were on strike in
Turin Turin ( , Piedmontese language, Piedmontese: ; it, Torino ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in Northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital ...
and
Milan Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...
in
northern Italy Northern Italy ( it, Italia settentrionale, it, Nord Italia, label=none, it, Alta Italia, label=none or just it, Nord, label=none) is a geographical and cultural region in the northern part of Italy. It consists of eight administrative regions ...
, but the government acted swiftly and put down the rebellion. That same year, a further communist rebellion took place in the Weimar Republic only to be crushed, but another occurred in 1923 which once again was also defeated by the government. The Bulgarian Communist Party had also attempted an uprising in 1923, but like most of their counterparts across Europe they were defeated.


Front organisations

Communist parties were tight knit organizations that exerted tight control over the members. To reach sympathisers unwilling to join the party, front organizations were created that advocated party-approved positions. Under the leadership of
Grigory Zinoviev Grigory Yevseyevich Zinoviev, . Transliterated ''Grigorii Evseevich Zinov'ev'' according to the Library of Congress system. (born Hirsch Apfelbaum, – 25 August 1936), known also under the name Ovsei-Gershon Aronovich Radomyslsky (russian: Ов ...
in the Kremlin, the Comintern established fronts in many countries in the 1920s and after. To coordinate their activities, the Comintern set up various international umbrella organizations (linking groups across national borders) such as the Young Communist International (youth), Profintern (trade unions),
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 ...
(peasants), International Red Aid (humanitarian aid), and Red Sport International (organized sports), among others. In Europe, front organizations were especially influential in Italy and France which became the base for Communist front organizer
Willi Münzenberg Wilhelm "Willi" Münzenberg (14 August 1889, Erfurt, Germany – June 1940, Saint-Marcellin, France) was a German Communist political activist and publisher. Münzenberg was the first head of the Young Communist International in 1919–20 and est ...
in 1933. These organizations were dissolved by the late 1930s or early 1940s. The
Pan-Pacific Trade Union Secretariat The Pan-Pacific Trade Union Secretariat (PPTUS) was a regional subdivision of the Profintern, Red International of Labor Unions (RILU, commonly known as the Profintern), the trade union organization associated with the Communist International. Est ...
(PPTUS) was set up in 1927 by the Profintern (the Comintern's trade union arm) with the mission of promoting communist trade unions in China, Japan, Korea, the Philippines, Australia, New Zealand and other nations in the western Pacific. Trapeznik (2009) says the PPTUS was a "Communist-front organization" and "engaged in overt and covert political agitation in addition to a number of clandestine activities". There were numerous communist front organizations in Asia, many oriented to students and youth. According to one historian, in the labor union movement of the 1920s in
Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
, the " Hyogikai never called itself a communist front but in effect, this was what it was". He points out it was repressed by the government "along with other communist front groups". In the 1950s, Scalapino argues: "The primary Communist-front organization was the Japan Peace Committee". It was founded in 1949.


Stalinism

In 1924,
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 Secreta ...
, a key Bolshevik follower of Lenin, took power in the Soviet Union. Stalin was supported in his leadership by
Nikolai Bukharin Nikolai Ivanovich Bukharin (russian: Никола́й Ива́нович Буха́рин) ( – 15 March 1938) was a Bolshevik revolutionary, Soviet politician, Marxist philosopher and economist and prolific author on revolutionary theory. ...
, but he had various important opponents in the government, most notably
Lev Kamenev Lev Borisovich Kamenev. (''né'' Rozenfeld; – 25 August 1936) was a Bolshevik revolutionary and a prominent Soviet politician. Born in Moscow to parents who were both involved in revolutionary politics, Kamenev attended Imperial Moscow Uni ...
,
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 ...
, and
Grigory Zinoviev Grigory Yevseyevich Zinoviev, . Transliterated ''Grigorii Evseevich Zinov'ev'' according to the Library of Congress system. (born Hirsch Apfelbaum, – 25 August 1936), known also under the name Ovsei-Gershon Aronovich Radomyslsky (russian: Ов ...
. Stalin initiated his own process of building a communist society, creating a variant of communism known as
Marxism–Leninism Marxism–Leninism is a communist ideology which was the main communist movement throughout the 20th century. Developed by the Bolsheviks, it was the state ideology of the Soviet Union, its satellite states in the Eastern Bloc, and various co ...
. As a part of this, he abandoned some of the capitalist, market policies that had been allowed to continue under Lenin such as the New Economic Policy.
Stalinist Stalinism is the means of governing and Marxist-Leninist policies implemented in the Soviet Union from 1927 to 1953 by Joseph Stalin. It included the creation of a one-party totalitarian police state, rapid industrialization, the theory o ...
policies radically altered much of the Soviet Union's agricultural production, modernising it by introducing tractors and other machinery, forced collectivisation of the farms and forced collection of grains from the peasants in accordance with predecided targets. There was food available for industrial workers, but those peasants who refused to move starved, especially in
Kazakhstan Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country located mainly in Central Asia and partly in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the north and west, China to the east, Kyrgyzstan to the southeast, Uzbeki ...
and
Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...
. The
All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) "Hymn of the Bolshevik Party" , headquarters = 4 Staraya Square, Moscow , general_secretary = Vladimir Lenin (first) Mikhail Gorbachev (last) , founded = , banned = , founder = Vladimir Lenin , newspaper ...
targeted kulaks, who owned a little land. Stalin took control of the Comintern and introduced a policy in the international organisation of opposing all leftists who were not Marxist–Leninists, labelling them to be social fascists, although many communists such as Jules Humbert-Droz disagreed with him on this policy, believing that the left should unite against the rise of right-wing movements like
fascism Fascism is a far-right, authoritarian, ultra-nationalist political ideology and movement,: "extreme militaristic nationalism, contempt for electoral democracy and political and cultural liberalism, a belief in natural social hierarchy an ...
across Europe. In the early 1930s, Stalin reversed course and promoted popular front movements whereby communist parties would collaborate with socialists and other political forces. A high priority was mobilizing wide support for the Republican cause in the
Spanish Civil War The Spanish Civil War ( es, Guerra Civil Española)) or The Revolution ( es, La Revolución, link=no) among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War ( es, Cuarta Guerra Carlista, link=no) among Carlists, and The Rebellion ( es, La Rebelión, lin ...
.


Great Purge

The
Great Purge The Great Purge or the Great Terror (russian: Большой террор), also known as the Year of '37 (russian: 37-й год, translit=Tridtsat sedmoi god, label=none) and the Yezhovshchina ('period of Nikolay Yezhov, Yezhov'), was General ...
mainly operated from December 1936 to November 1938, although the features of arrest and summary trial followed by execution were well entrenched in the Soviet system since the days of Lenin as Stalin systematically destroyed the older generation of pre-1918 leaders. Stalin did so usually under the justification that the accused were enemy spies or deemed " enemies of the people"; in the Red Army, a majority of generals were executed and hundreds of thousands of other "enemies of the people" were sent to the
gulag The Gulag, an acronym for , , "chief administration of the camps". The original name given to the system of camps controlled by the GPU was the Main Administration of Corrective Labor Camps (, )., name=, group= was the government agency in ...
, where inhumane conditions in Siberia led a quick death. The opening of the Soviet archives has vindicated the lower estimates put forth by the "revisionist school" scholars, despite the popular press continuing to use higher estimates and containing serious errors. By 2009, historian
Archie Brown Archibald or Archie Brown may refer to: * Archibald Brown (architect) (1881–1956), American architect * Archibald G. Brown (1844–1922), British minister * Archie Brown (historian) (born 1938), British political scientist and historian * Archie ...
reported that estimates were now lower; about 1.7 million were arrested in 1937–1938 and half were shot.


Pre-war dissident communists

The
International Right Opposition The Right Opposition (, ''Pravaya oppozitsiya'') or Right Tendency (, ''Praviy uklon'') in the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) was a conditional label formulated by Joseph Stalin in fall of 1928 in regards the opposition against certain m ...
and
Trotskyism Trotskyism is the political ideology and branch of Marxism developed by Ukrainian-Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky and some other members of the Left Opposition and Fourth International. Trotsky self-identified as an orthodox Marxist, a rev ...
are examples of dissidents who still claim communism today, but they are not the only ones. In Germany, the split in the SPD had initially led to a variety of Communist unions and parties forming which included the councilist tendencies of the AAU-D, AAU-E and
KAPD The Communist Workers' Party of Germany (german: Kommunistische Arbeiter-Partei Deutschlands; KAPD) was an anti-parliamentarian and left communist party that was active in Germany during the time of the Weimar Republic. It was founded in April 1 ...
. Councilism had a limited impact outside of Germany, but a number of international organisations formed. In Spain, a fusion of left and right dissidents led to the formation of the POUM. Additionally, the Spanish CNT was associated with the development of the FAI political party, a non-Marxist party which stood for revolutionary communism.


Spreading communism (1945–1957)

As 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 ...
took effect around 1947, the Kremlin set up new international coordination bodies including the World Federation of Democratic Youth, the
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 Territory (administrative ...
, the
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 of ...
, the Women's International Democratic Federation 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 d ...
. Malcolm Kennedy says the "Communist 'front' system included such international organizations as the WFTU, WFDY, IUS, WIDF and WPC, besides a host of lesser bodies bringing journalists, lawyers, scientists, doctors and others into the widespread net". The
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 of ...
(WFTU) was established in 1945 to unite trade union confederations across the world and it was based in Prague. While it had non-communist unions it was largely dominated by the Soviets. In 1949 the British, American and other non-Communist unions broke away to form the rival International Confederation of Free Trade Unions. The labor movement in Europe became so polarized between the communists unions and social democratic and Christian labor unions, whereas front operations could no longer hide the sponsorship and they became less important.


Soviet Union after World War II

The devastation of the war resulted in a massive recovery program involving the rebuilding of industrial plants, housing and transportation as well as the demobilization and migration of millions of soldiers and civilians. In the midst of this turmoil during the winter of 1946–1947, the Soviet Union experienced the worst natural famine in the 20th century. There was no serious opposition to Stalin as the
NKVD The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (russian: Наро́дный комиссариа́т вну́тренних дел, Naródnyy komissariát vnútrennikh del, ), abbreviated NKVD ( ), was the interior ministry of the Soviet Union. ...
secret police continued to send possible suspects to the gulag. Relations with the United States and Britain went from friendly to hostile, as they denounced Stalin's political controls over eastern Europe and his
blockade of Berlin The Berlin Blockade (24 June 1948 – 12 May 1949) was one of the first major international crises of the Cold War. During the multinational occupation of post–World War II Germany, the Soviet Union blocked the Western Allies' railway, roa ...
. By 1947, 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 ...
had begun. Stalin himself believed that capitalism was a hollow shell and would crumble under increased non-military pressure exerted through proxies in countries like Italy. However, he greatly underestimated the economic strength of the West and instead of triumph saw the West build up alliances that were designed to permanently stop or contain Soviet expansion. In early 1950, Stalin gave the go-ahead for
North Korea North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the northern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and shares borders with China and Russia to the north, at the Yalu River, Y ...
's invasion of
South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and sharing a Korean Demilitarized Zone, land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed ...
, expecting a short war. He was stunned when the Americans entered and defeated the North Koreans, putting them almost on the Soviet border. Stalin supported
China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
's entry into the
Korean War , date = {{Ubl, 25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953 (''de facto'')({{Age in years, months, weeks and days, month1=6, day1=25, year1=1950, month2=7, day2=27, year2=1953), 25 June 1950 – present (''de jure'')({{Age in years, months, weeks a ...
which drove the Americans back to the prewar boundaries, but which escalated tensions. The United States decided to mobilize its economy for a long contest with the Soviets, built the
hydrogen bomb A thermonuclear weapon, fusion weapon or hydrogen bomb (H bomb) is a second-generation nuclear weapon design. Its greater sophistication affords it vastly greater destructive power than first-generation nuclear bombs, a more compact size, a lowe ...
and strengthened the
NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two No ...
alliance that covered
Western Europe Western Europe is the western region of Europe. The region's countries and territories vary depending on context. The concept of "the West" appeared in Europe in juxtaposition to "the East" and originally applied to the ancient Mediterranean ...
. According to Gorlizki and Khlevniuk (2004), Stalin's consistent and overriding goal after 1945 was to consolidate the nation's superpower status and in the face of his growing physical decrepitude to maintain his own hold on total power. Stalin created a leadership system that reflected historic czarist styles of paternalism and repression, yet was also quite modern. At the top, personal loyalty to Stalin counted for everything. However, Stalin also created powerful committees, elevated younger specialists and began major institutional innovations. In the teeth of persecution, Stalin's deputies cultivated informal norms and mutual understandings which provided the foundations for collective rule after his death.


Eastern Europe

The military success of the
Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army (Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and, after ...
in
Central and Eastern Europe Central and Eastern Europe is a term encompassing the countries in the Baltics, Central Europe, Eastern Europe and Southeast Europe (mostly the Balkans), usually meaning former communist states from the Eastern Bloc and Warsaw Pact in Europe. ...
led to a consolidation of power in communist hands. In some cases, such as Czechoslovakia, this led to enthusiastic support for socialism inspired by the Communist Party and a
Social Democratic Party The name Social Democratic Party or Social Democrats has been used by many political parties in various countries around the world. Such parties are most commonly aligned to social democracy as their political ideology. Active parties For ...
willing to fuse. In other cases, such as Poland or Hungary, the fusion of the Communist Party with the Social Democratic Party was forcible and accomplished through undemocratic means. In many cases, the communist parties of Central Europe were faced with a population initially quite willing to reign in market forces, institute limited nationalisation of industry and supporting the development of intensive social welfare states, whereas broadly the population largely supported socialism. However, the purges of non-communist parties that supported socialism, combined with forced collectivisation of agriculture and a Soviet-bloc wide recession in 1953 led to deep unrest. This unrest first surfaced in Berlin in 1953, where Brecht ironically suggested that "
the Party ought to elect a new People ''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 ...
". However,
Nikita Khrushchev Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (– 11 September 1971) was the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and chairman of the country's Council of Ministers from 1958 to 1964. During his rule, Khrushchev s ...
's " Secret Speech" of 1956 opened up internal debate, even if members were unaware, in both the
Polish Polish may refer to: * Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe * Polish language * Poles, people from Poland or of Polish descent * Polish chicken *Polish brothers (Mark Polish and Michael Polish, born 1970), American twin screenwr ...
and Hungarian communist parties. This led to the Polish crisis of 1956 which was resolved through change in Polish leadership and a negotiation between the Soviet and Polish parties over the direction of the
Polish economy The economy of Poland is an industrialized, mixed economy with a developed market that serves as the sixth-largest in the European Union by nominal GDP and fifth-largest by GDP (PPP). Poland boasts extensive public services characteristic of m ...
.


Hungarian Revolution of 1956

The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 was a major challenge to Moscow's control of Eastern Europe. This revolution saw general strikes, the formation of independent workers councils, the restoration of the
Social Democratic Party The name Social Democratic Party or Social Democrats has been used by many political parties in various countries around the world. Such parties are most commonly aligned to social democracy as their political ideology. Active parties For ...
as a party for revolutionary communism of a non-Soviet variety and the formation of two underground independent communist parties. The mainstream Communist Party was controlled for a period of about a week by non-Soviet aligned leaders. Two non-communist parties that supported the maintenance of socialism also regained their independence. This flowering of dissenting communism was crushed by a combination of a military invasion supported by heavy artillery and airstrikes; mass arrests, at least a thousand juridical executions and an uncounted number of
summary execution A summary execution is an execution in which a person is accused of a crime and immediately killed without the benefit of a full and fair trial. Executions as the result of summary justice (such as a drumhead court-martial) are sometimes include ...
s; the crushing of the Central Workers Council of Greater Budapest; mass refugee flight; and a worldwide propaganda campaign. The effect of the Hungarian Revolution on other communist parties varied significantly, resulting in large membership losses in Anglophone communist parties.


Prague Spring of 1968

The Czechoslovak Communist Party began an ambitious reform agenda under Alexander Dubček. The plan to limit central control and make the economy more independent of the party threatened bedrock beliefs. On 20 August 1968, Soviet leader
Leonid Brezhnev Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev; uk, links= no, Леонід Ілліч Брежнєв, . (19 December 1906– 10 November 1982) was a Soviet Union, Soviet politician who served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Gener ...
ordered a massive military invasion by
Warsaw Pact The Warsaw Pact (WP) or Treaty of Warsaw, formally the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance, was a collective defense treaty signed in Warsaw, Poland, between the Soviet Union and seven other Eastern Bloc socialist republic ...
forces that destroyed the threat of internal liberalization. At the same time, the Soviets threatened retaliation against the
British-French-Israeli invasion of Egypt The Suez Crisis, or the Second Arab–Israeli war, also called the Tripartite Aggression ( ar, العدوان الثلاثي, Al-ʿUdwān aṯ-Ṯulāṯiyy) in the Arab world and the Sinai War in Israel,Also known as the Suez War or 1956 Wa ...
. The upshot was a collapse of any tendency toward
détente Détente (, French: "relaxation") is the relaxation of strained relations, especially political ones, through verbal communication. The term, in diplomacy, originates from around 1912, when France and Germany tried unsuccessfully to reduc ...
and the resignations of more intellectuals from communist parties in the West.


West Germany

West Germany West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 O ...
and
West Berlin West Berlin (german: Berlin (West) or , ) was a political enclave which comprised the western part of Berlin during the years of the Cold War. Although West Berlin was de jure not part of West Germany, lacked any sovereignty, and was under mi ...
were centers of East–West conflict during the Cold War and numerous communist fronts were established. For example, the
East Germany East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR; german: Deutsche Demokratische Republik, , DDR, ), was a country that existed from its creation on 7 October 1949 until its dissolution on 3 October 1990. In these years the state ...
organization Society for German–Soviet Friendship (GfDSF) had 13,000 members in West Germany, but it was banned in 1953 by some
Länder Länder (singular Land) or Bundesländer (singular Bundesland) is the name for (federal) states in two German-speaking countries. It may more specifically refer to: * States of Austria, the nine federal subdivisions of Austria * States of Germany ...
as a communist front. The Democratic Cultural League of Germany started off as a series of genuinely pluralistic bodies, but in 1950–1951 came under the control of the communists. By 1952, the United States Embassy counted 54 "infiltrated organizations" which started independently as well as 155 "front organizations" which had been communist inspired from their start. The Association of the Victims of the Nazi Regime was set up to rally West Germans under the anti-fascist banner, but it had to be dissolved when Moscow discovered it had been infiltrated by "
Zionist Zionism ( he, צִיּוֹנוּת ''Tsiyyonut'' after ''Zion'') is a nationalist movement that espouses the establishment of, and support for a homeland for the Jewish people centered in the area roughly corresponding to what is known in Je ...
agents".


China


Great Leap Forward

Mao Zedong Mao Zedong pronounced ; also romanised traditionally as Mao Tse-tung. (26 December 1893 – 9 September 1976), also known as Chairman Mao, was a Chinese communist revolutionary who was the founder of the People's Republic of China (PRC) ...
and the
Chinese Communist Party The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), officially the Communist Party of China (CPC), is the founding and One-party state, sole ruling party of the China, People's Republic of China (PRC). Under the leadership of Mao Zedong, the CCP emerged victoriou ...
came to power in China in 1949 as the Nationalists headed by the
Kuomintang The Kuomintang (KMT), also referred to as the Guomindang (GMD), the Nationalist Party of China (NPC) or the Chinese Nationalist Party (CNP), is a major political party in the Republic of China, initially on the Chinese mainland and in Tai ...
fled to the island of Taiwan. In 1950–1953, China engaged in a large-scale, undeclared war with the
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
,
South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and sharing a Korean Demilitarized Zone, land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed ...
and
United Nations forces Peacekeeping comprises activities intended to create conditions that favour lasting peace. Research generally finds that peacekeeping reduces civilian and battlefield deaths, as well as reduces the risk of renewed warfare. Within the United N ...
in the
Korean War , date = {{Ubl, 25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953 (''de facto'')({{Age in years, months, weeks and days, month1=6, day1=25, year1=1950, month2=7, day2=27, year2=1953), 25 June 1950 – present (''de jure'')({{Age in years, months, weeks a ...
. While ended in a military stalemate, it gave Mao the opportunity to identify and purge elements in China that seemed supportive of capitalism. At first, there was close cooperation with Stalin, who sent in technical experts to aid the industrialization process along the line of the Soviet model of the 1930s. After Stalin's death in 1953, relations with Moscow soured—Mao thought Stalin's successors had betrayed the Communist ideal. Mao charged that Soviet leader
Nikita Khrushchev Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (– 11 September 1971) was the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and chairman of the country's Council of Ministers from 1958 to 1964. During his rule, Khrushchev s ...
was the leader of a "revisionist clique" which had turned against Marxism and Leninism was now setting the stage for the restoration of capitalism. The two nations were at sword's point by 1960. Both began forging alliances with communist supporters around the globe, thereby splitting the worldwide movement into two hostile camps. Rejecting the Soviet model of rapid urbanization, Mao Zedong and his top aide
Deng Xiaoping Deng Xiaoping (22 August 1904 – 19 February 1997) was a Chinese revolutionary leader, military commander and statesman who served as the paramount leader of the People's Republic of China (PRC) from December 1978 to November 1989. After CC ...
launched the
Great Leap Forward The Great Leap Forward (Second Five Year Plan) of the People's Republic of China (PRC) was an economic and social campaign led by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from 1958 to 1962. CCP Chairman Mao Zedong launched the campaign to reconstruc ...
in 1957–1961 with the goal of industrializing China overnight, using the peasant villages as the base rather than large cities. Private ownership of land ended and the peasants worked in large collective farms that were now ordered to start up heavy industry operations, such as steel mills. Plants were built in remote locations, despite the lack of technical experts, managers, transportation or needed facilities. Industrialization failed, but the main result was a sharp unexpected decline in agricultural output, which led to mass famine and millions of deaths. The years of the Great Leap Forward in fact saw economic regression, with 1958 through 1961 being the only years between 1953 and 1983 in which China's economy saw negative growth. Political economist Dwight Perkins argues, "Enormous amounts of investment produced only modest increases in production or none at all. ..In short, the Great Leap was a very expensive disaster". Put in charge of rescuing the economy, Deng adopted pragmatic policies that the idealistic Mao disliked. For a while, Mao was in the shadows, but he returned to center stage and purged Deng and his allies in the
Cultural Revolution The Cultural Revolution, formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a sociopolitical movement in the People's Republic of China (PRC) launched by Mao Zedong in 1966, and lasting until his death in 1976. Its stated goal ...
(1966–1969).


Early post-war dissident communists

Following the Second World War,
Trotskyism Trotskyism is the political ideology and branch of Marxism developed by Ukrainian-Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky and some other members of the Left Opposition and Fourth International. Trotsky self-identified as an orthodox Marxist, a rev ...
was wracked by increasing internal divisions over analysis and strategy. This was combined with an industrial impotence that was widely recognised. Additionally, the success of Soviet-aligned parties in Europe and Asia led to the persecution of
Trotskyite Trotskyism is the political ideology and branch of Marxism developed by Ukrainian-Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky and some other members of the Left Opposition and Fourth International. Trotsky self-identified as an Orthodox Marxism, orthod ...
intellectuals such as the infamous purge of
Vietnamese Trotskyists Trotskyism in Vietnam ( vi, Trăng-câu Đệ-tứ Đảng) was represented by those who, in left opposition to the Indochinese Communist Party (PCI) of Nguyen Ai Quoc (Ho Chi Minh), identified with the call by Leon Trotsky to re-found "vanguard ...
. The war had also strained social democratic parties in the West. In some cases, such as Italy, significant bodies of membership of the Social Democratic Party were inspired by the possibility of achieving advanced socialism. In Italy, this group, combined with dissenting communists, began to discuss theory centred on the experience of work in modern factories, leading to
autonomist Marxist Autonomism, also known as autonomist Marxism is an anti-capitalist left-wing political and social movement and theory. As a theoretical system, it first emerged in Italy in the 1960s from workerism (). Later, Post-Marxism, post-Marxist and anar ...
. In the United States, this theoretical development was paralleled by the
Johnson–Forest Tendency The Johnson–Forest Tendency, whose supporters are called the Johnsonites, is a radical left tendency in the United States associated with Marxist humanist theorists C. L. R. James and Raya Dunayevskaya, who used the pseudonyms J. R. Johnson and ...
whereas in France a similar impulse occurred.


Cold War and revisionism (1958–1979)


Maoism and Cultural Revolution in China

The
Cultural Revolution The Cultural Revolution, formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a sociopolitical movement in the People's Republic of China (PRC) launched by Mao Zedong in 1966, and lasting until his death in 1976. Its stated goal ...
was an upheaval that targeted intellectuals and party leaders from 1966 through 1976. Mao's goal was to purify communism by removing pro-capitalists and traditionalists by imposing Maoist orthodoxy within the
Chinese Communist Party The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), officially the Communist Party of China (CPC), is the founding and One-party state, sole ruling party of the China, People's Republic of China (PRC). Under the leadership of Mao Zedong, the CCP emerged victoriou ...
. The movement paralyzed China politically and weakened the country economically, culturally and intellectually for years. Millions of people were accused, humiliated, stripped of power and either imprisoned, killed or most often sent to work as farm laborers. Mao insisted that these he labelled Revisionism (Marxism), revisionists be removed through violent class struggle. The two most prominent militants were Marshall Lin Biao of the army and Mao's wife Jiang Qing. China's youth responded to Mao's appeal by forming Red Guards (China), Red Guard groups around the country. The movement spread into the military, urban workers and the Communist Party leadership itself. It resulted in widespread factional struggles in all walks of life. In the top leadership, it led to a mass purge of senior officials who were accused of taking a "capitalist road", most notably Liu Shaoqi and
Deng Xiaoping Deng Xiaoping (22 August 1904 – 19 February 1997) was a Chinese revolutionary leader, military commander and statesman who served as the paramount leader of the People's Republic of China (PRC) from December 1978 to November 1989. After CC ...
. During the same period, Mao Zedong's cult of personality, Mao's personality cult grew to immense proportions. After Death and state funeral of Mao Zedong, Mao's death in 1976, the survivors were rehabilitated and many returned to power.


Cuban Revolution

The Cuban Revolution was a successful armed revolt led by Fidel Castro's 26th of July Movement against the regime of Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista. It ousted Batista on 1 January 1959, replacing his regime with Castro's revolutionary government. Castro's government later reformed along communist lines, becoming the present Communist Party of Cuba in October 1965. The United States response was highly negative, leading to a Bay of Pigs Invasion, failed invasion attempt in 1961. The Soviets decided to protect its ally by stationing nuclear weapons in Cuba in 1962. In the Cuban Missile Crisis, the United States vehemently opposed the Soviet Union move. There was serious fear of nuclear war for a few days, but a compromise was reached by which Moscow publicly removed its weapons and the United States secretly removed its from bases in Turkey and promised never to invade.


African communism

During the decolonization of Africa, the Soviet Union took a keen interest in that continent's independence movements and initially hoped that the cultivation of communist client states there would deny their economic and strategic resources to the West. Soviet foreign policy with regards to Africa assumed that newly independent African governments would be receptive to communist ideology and that the Soviets would have the resources to make them attractive as development partners. During the 1970s, the ruling parties of several sub-Saharan African states formally embraced communism, including the People's Republic of Benin, the People's Republic of Mozambique, the People's Republic of the Congo, the People's Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, and the People's Republic of Angola. Most of these regimes ensured the selective adoption and flexible application of communist theory set against a broad ideological commitment to Marxism or Leninism. The adoption of communism was often seen as a means to an end and used to justify the extreme centralization of power. Angola was perhaps the only African state which made a longstanding commitment to communism, but this was severely hampered by its own war-burdened Economy of Angola, economy, rampant Corruption in Angola, corruption and practical realities which allowed a few foreign companies to wield considerable influence despite the elimination of the domestic Angolan private sector and a substantial degree of Planned economy, central economic planning. Both Angola and Ethiopia built new social and political communist institutions modeled closely after those in the Soviet Union and Cuba. However, their regimes either dissolved after the collapse of the Soviet Union due to civil conflict or voluntarily repudiated communism in favour of social democracy.


Eurocommunism

An important trend in several countries in Western Europe from the late 1960s into the 1980s was Eurocommunism. It was strongest in Communist Party of Spain (main), Spain's PCE, Communist Party of Finland, Finland's party and especially in Partito Comunista Italiano, Italy's PCI, where it drew on the ideas of Antonio Gramsci. It was developed by communist party members who were disillusioned with both the Soviet Union and China and sought an independent program. They accepted liberal parliamentary democracy and free speech as well as accepting with some conditions a capitalist market economy. They did not speak of the destruction of capitalism, but sought to win the support of the masses and by a gradual transformation of the bureaucracies. In 1978, the Communist Party of Spain replaced the historic "Marxist–Leninist" catchphrase with the new slogan of "Marxist, democratic and revolutionary". The movement faded in the 1980s and collapsed with the fall of communism in Eastern Europe in 1989.


Other forms

Anarcho-communism is a political philosophy and anarchist school of thought which advocates the Anti-statism, abolition of the state,
capitalism Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for Profit (economics), profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, pric ...
, wage labour, Hierarchy, social hierarchies and private property (while retaining respect for personal property, along with Public property, collectively-owned items, goods and services) in favor of
common ownership Common ownership refers to holding the assets of an organization, enterprise or community indivisibly rather than in the names of the individual members or groups of members as common property. Forms of common ownership exist in every economi ...
of the means of production and direct democracy as well as a horizontal network of workers' councils with production and consumption based on the guiding principle "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs." Left communism 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 regard as more authentically Marxist than the views of Marxism–Leninism espoused by the Communist International after its Bolshevization by Joseph Stalin and during its second congress. Libertarian Marxism is a broad scope of economic and political philosophies that emphasize the anti-authoritarian and libertarian aspects of Marxism.


End of the Eastern Bloc (1980–1992)


Reform and collapse (1980–1992)

Social resistance to the policies of communist regimes in Eastern Europe accelerated in strength with the rise of the Solidarity (Polish trade union), Solidarity, the first non-communist controlled trade union in the Warsaw Pact that was formed in the People's Republic of Poland in 1980. In 1985,
Mikhail Gorbachev Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (2 March 1931 – 30 August 2022) was a Soviet politician who served as the 8th and final leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 to dissolution of the Soviet Union, the country's dissolution in 1991. He served a ...
rose to power in the Soviet Union and began policies of radical political reform involving political liberalisation called
perestroika ''Perestroika'' (; russian: links=no, перестройка, p=pʲɪrʲɪˈstrojkə, a=ru-perestroika.ogg) was a political movement for reform within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) during the late 1980s widely associated wit ...
and
glasnost ''Glasnost'' (; russian: link=no, гласность, ) has several general and specific meanings – a policy of maximum openness in the activities of state institutions and freedom of information, the inadmissibility of hushing up problems, ...
. Gorbachev's policies were designed at dismantling authoritarian elements of the state that were developed by Stalin, aiming for a return to a supposed ideal Leninist state that retained a One-party state, one-party structure while Demokratizatsiya (Soviet Union), allowing the democratic election of competing candidates within the party for political office. Gorbachev also aimed to seek détente with the West and end the Cold War that was no longer economically sustainable to be pursued by the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union and the United States under President George H. W. Bush joined in pushing for the dismantlement of apartheid and oversaw the dismantlement of South West Africa, South African colonial rule over Namibia. Meanwhile, the Eastern European communist states politically deteriorated in response to the success of the Polish Solidarity (Polish trade union), Solidarity movement and the possibility of Gorbachev-style political liberalisation. In 1989, revolts began across Eastern Europe and China against communist regimes. In China, the government refused to negotiate with student protestors, resulting in the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Tiananmen Square attacks that stopped the revolts by force. The opening of a border gate between Austria and Hungary at the Pan-European Picnic on August 19, 1989, then set in motion a peaceful chain reaction, at the end of which there was no longer a GDR and the Eastern Bloc had disintegrated. It was the largest escape movement from East Germany since the Berlin Wall was built in 1961. But with the mass exodus at the Pan-European Picnic, the subsequent hesitant behavior of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany, Socialist Unity Party of East Germany and the non-intervention of the Soviet Union broke the dams. The revolts culminated with the revolt in
East Germany East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR; german: Deutsche Demokratische Republik, , DDR, ), was a country that existed from its creation on 7 October 1949 until its dissolution on 3 October 1990. In these years the state ...
against the communist regime of Erich Honecker. The event in East Germany developed into a Monday demonstrations in East Germany, popular mass revolt with Fall of the Berlin Wall, sections of the Berlin Wall being torn down and East and West Berliners uniting. Gorbachev's refusal to use Soviet forces based in East Germany to suppress the revolt was seen as a sign that the Cold War had ended. Honecker was pressured to resign from office and the new government committed itself to German reunification, reunification with West Germany. The Romanian Communist Party, Communist Party regime of Nicolae Ceaușescu in Socialist Republic of Romania, Romania was forcefully overthrown in the Romanian Revolution of 1989 and Trial and execution of Nicolae and Elena Ceaușescu, Ceaușescu was executed. The other
Warsaw Pact The Warsaw Pact (WP) or Treaty of Warsaw, formally the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance, was a collective defense treaty signed in Warsaw, Poland, between the Soviet Union and seven other Eastern Bloc socialist republic ...
regimes also fell during the Revolutions of 1989, with the exception of the Socialist People's Republic of Albania that continued until 1992. Unrest and eventual collapse of communism also occurred in Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Yugoslavia, although for different reasons than those of the Warsaw Pact. The Death and state funeral of Josip Broz Tito, death of Josip Broz Tito in 1980 and the subsequent vacuum of strong leadership allowed the rise of rival ethnic nationalism in the multinational country. The first leader to exploit such nationalism for political purposes was Slobodan Milošević, who used Serbian nationalism to seize power as president of Serbia and demanded concessions to the Socialist Republic of Serbia and Serbian nationalism, Serbs by the other republics in the Yugoslav federation. This resulted in a surge of Slovenian nationalism, Slovene and Croatian nationalism, Croat nationalism in response and the collapse of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia in 1990, the victory of nationalists in multi-party elections in most of Yugoslavia's constituent republics and eventually Yugoslav Wars, civil war between the various nationalities beginning in 1991. Breakup of Yugoslavia, Yugoslavia was dissolved in 1992. The Soviet Union itself collapsed between 1990 and 1991, with a rise of secessionist nationalism and a political power dispute between Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin, the new leader of the Russian Federation. With the Dissolution of the Soviet Union, Soviet Union collapsing, Gorbachev prepared the country to become a loose federation of independent states called the Commonwealth of Independent States. Hardline communist leaders in the military reacted to Gorbachev's policies with the August Coup of 1991 in which hardline communist military leaders overthrew Gorbachev and seized control of the government. This regime only lasted briefly as widespread popular opposition erupted in street protests and refused to submit. Gorbachev was restored to power, but the various Republics of the Soviet Union, Soviet republics were now set for independence. On 25 December 1991, Gorbachev officially announced the dissolution of the Soviet Union, ending the existence of the world's first communist state.


Contemporary communism (1993–present)

With the fall of the communist governments in the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc, the influence of state-based
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 ...
ideologies in the world was weakened, but there are still many communist movements of various types and sizes around the world. Three other communist nations, particularly those in East Asia such as the People's Republic of China, Vietnam and Laos, all moved toward Market economy, market economies, but without major privatization of the state sector during the 1980s and 1990s (see socialism with Chinese characteristics and doi moi for more details). Spain, France, Portugal and Greece have very publicly strong communist movements that play an open and active leading role in the vast majority of their labor marches and strikes as well as also anti-austerity protests, all of which are large, pronounced events with much visibility. Worldwide marches on International Workers Day sometimes give a clearer picture of the size and influence of current communist movements, particularly within Europe.
Cuba Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribbea ...
has recently emerged from the Special Period, crisis sparked by the fall of the Soviet Union given the growth in its volume of trade with its new allies Venezuela and China (the former of whom has recently adopted a socialism of the 21st century according to Hugo Chavez, Hugo Chávez). Various other countries throughout Latin America and the Caribbean have also taken similar shifts to more clearly socialistic policies and rhetoric in a phenomenon academics are calling the pink tide.
North Korea North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the northern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and shares borders with China and Russia to the north, at the Yalu River, Y ...
claims that its success in avoiding the downfall of socialism is a result of its homegrown ideology of ''Juche'' which it adopted in the 1970s, replacing Marxism–Leninism. Cuba has an ambassador to North Korea and China still protects North Korean territorial integrity even as it simultaneously refuses to supply the state with material goods or other significant assistance. In Nepal, the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist–Leninist) leader Man Mohan Adhikari briefly became Prime Minister of Nepal and national leader from 1994 to 1995 and the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) (1994), Maoist guerrilla leader Prachanda was elected Prime Minister by the Constituent Assembly of Nepal in 2008. Prachanda has since been deposed as Prime Minister, leading the Maoists to abandon their legalistic approach and return to their typical street actions and militancy and to lead sporadic general strikes using their quite substantial influence on the Nepalese labor movement. These actions have oscillated between mild and intense, only the latter of which tends to make world news. They consider Prachanda's removal to be unjust. Since the 2008 Nepal has been ruled by a coalition of communist parties: Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist–Leninist) and Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist Centre) which they merged in 2018 in the Nepal Communist Party The previous national government of India depended on the parliamentary support of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and Communist Party of India. Presently CPI(M) along with CPI leads the Government of Kerala, state government in Kerala. The armed wing of the Communist Party of India (Maoist), the People's Liberation Guerrilla Army (India), People's Liberation Guerrilla Army, is fighting the Naxalite–Maoist insurgency against the Government of India and is active in Red corridor, some parts of the country. Indian government forces have been successful in eliminating insurgency to quite an extent. In Cyprus, the veteran communist Dimitris Christofias of AKEL won the 2008 Cypriot presidential election, 2008 presidential election. In Ukraine and Russia, the communists came second in the 2002 Ukrainian parliamentary election and the 2003 Russian legislative election, respectively. The Communist Party of the Russian Federation remains strong in Russia, but the 2014 Ukrainian parliamentary election following the Russian military intervention in Ukraine (2014–present), Russian invasion of Ukraine and the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation, annexation of Crimea resulted in the loss of its 32 members and no Verkhovna Rada representation by the Communist Party of Ukraine. The party has been banned since 2015. In the Czech Republic, the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia came third in the 2002 elections as did the Portuguese Communist Party in 2005. In South Africa, the South African Communist Party (SACP) is a member of the Tripartite alliance alongside the African National Congress and the Congress of South African Trade Unions. Sri Lanka has communist ministers in their national governments. In Zimbabwe, former President Robert Mugabe of the ZANU–PF, Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front, the country's longstanding leader, was a professed communist. Colombia has been in the midst of a civil war which has been waged since 1966 between the Colombian government and aligned Paramilitarism in Colombia, right-wing paramilitaries against two communist guerrilla groups, namely the FARC, Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia–People's Army (FARC–EP) and the National Liberation Army (Colombia), National Liberation Army (ELN). The Revolutionary Communist Party, USA led by its chairman Bob Avakian currently organizes for a revolution in the United States to overthrow the capitalist system and replace it with a
socialist state A socialist state, socialist republic, or socialist country, sometimes referred to as a workers' state or workers' republic, is a Sovereign state, sovereign State (polity), state constitutionally dedicated to the establishment of socialism. The ...
. As of the early 2020s, the Philippines is still experiencing a Communist rebellion in the Philippines, low-scale guerrilla insurgency by the New People's Army, the armed wing of the outlawed Communist Party of the Philippines. Actions of an armed group likely affiliated with NPA resulted in eight casualties after a gunfight with the Philippine Armed Forces in late March 2021.


See also

* Foreign relations of China * Foreign relations of Cuba * Foreign relations of the Soviet Union * Foreign relations of Vietnam


References


Bibliography

* * * * * * * * * * * *


Further reading

; Books * Borkenau, Franz. ''World communism; a history of the Communist International'' (1938
online
* Crozier, Brian. ''The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Empire'' (1999), long detailed popular history * * Deakin, F. W. ed. ''A history of world communism'' (1975
online
* François Furet, Furet, François. ''The Passing of an Illusion: The Idea of Communism in the Twentieth Century'' (1999). * Garver, John W. ''China's Quest: The History of the Foreign Relations of the People's Republic'' (2nd ed. 2018) comprehensive scholarly history
excerpt
* Harvey, Robert, ''A Short History of Communism'' (2004), . * Kotkin, Stephen. ''Stalin, Volume I: Paradoxes of Power, 1878-1928'' (2014) highly detailed scholarly biography; vol 2 ''Stalin: Waiting for Hitler, 1929-1941'' (2017) * Pathak, Rakesh, and Yvonne Berliner. ''Communism in Crisis 1976-89'' (2012) * Pipes, Richard. ''Communism: A History'' (2003) * Pons, Silvio and Robert Service, eds. ''A Dictionary of 20th-Century Communism'' (Princeton University Press, 2010). 944 pp. 
online review
* Priestland, David. ''The Red Flag: A History of Communism'' (2010) * Sandle, Mark. ''Communism'' (2nd ed. 2011), short introduction * Robert Service (historian), Service, Robert. ''Lenin: A Biography'' (2000
excerpt and text search
als
online
* Service, Robert. ''Stalin'' (2005
online
* Seton-Watson, Hugh. ''From Lenin to Khrushchev, the history of world communism'' (1954
online
* Taubman, William. ''Khrushchev: The Man and His Era'' (2004
excerpt and text search
als
complete text
* Taubman, William. ''Gorbachev: His Life and Times'' (2018) * Tucker, Robert C. ''Stalin as Revolutionary, 1879-1929'' (1973); ''Stalin in Power: The Revolution from Above, 1929-1941.'' (1990
online edition
a standard biography
online at ACLS e-books
* Ulam, Adam B. ''Expansion and Coexistence: Soviet Foreign Policy 1917-73'' (1974
online
; Journals * ''American Communist History'' (United States) * ''Communisme'' (France) * ''Twentieth Century Communism'' (United Kingdom) ; Primary sources * Daniels, Robert V., ed. ''A Documentary History of Communism in Russia: From Lenin to Gorbachev'' (1993) * Daniels, Robert V. ed
''A Documentary History of Communism: Communism and the World''
(1985) * Gruber, Helmut. ''International Communism in the Era of Lenin: A Documentary History'' (1967) ; Memoirs * * * * ; Animation
Mapping the fall of communism
{{DEFAULTSORT:History Of Communism Communism History of political thought, Communism History of socialism, Communism