Communism

 

Communism           

 

Typical definition:- Communism which in Latin means ‘common universal’ is a philosophical, social, political and economic ideology and movement whose ultimate goal is establishment of a socioeconomic order structured upon the ideas of common ownership of the means of production and the absence of social, classless, money and the state.

If we talk of communism, we can have multiple definitions with similar actual meaning. In simple words let’s say communism is “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.”

This means that every person should work according to his abilities and should be rewarded accordingly. Such a society would be free of class differences, money and there would be no state. In a communist society, all the means of production (resources such as land, factories, farms etc) would be owned and controlled by laborers. Laborers here are common people.

Primitive form of communism:-

Whenever we talk of communism in contemporary times the theories of Karl Marx, Soviet Union, Cold war and China instantaneously strike our minds. Well we can discuss these in some other blog. Communism existed on smaller levels since times immemorial, even when the world was nothing but a hunter- gatherer society.   Anthropologists regard this era as the era of primitive communism. The resources and property hunted and gathered were shared with all members of a group, in accordance with individual needs. And this is what the ideal of communism says. Theories of philosophers like Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels were inspired by this primitive communism. They credited hunter-gatherer society in their writings for it being traditionally egalitarian and presenting a picture of common ownership. Also there was no accumulation of wealth and existence of class (the ideals put forward by Marx).  

 

 

History:-

The word ‘communism’ didn’t formally come into use till 1815 however the idea of egalitarian and classless society emerged in ancient Greece. In 5^th century, a movement switched on Persia for challenging the enormous privileges of Noble class and the clergy. The main idea of this movement was to criticize the institution of private property and to create an egalitarian society. This movement is seen as a ‘communistic’ movement by philosophers.

Thomas More, an English writer portrayed a society based on common ownership of property, whose rulers administered it through the application of reason in his writings where he reflected the idea of Utopia. Ideals related to communism are also evident in the English civil war. During French revolution, communism emerged as a common political doctrine.

In 19^th century, communism took a new face when religious emphasis was replaced with a rational and philanthropic basis. In 1848 Karl Marx and his associate Friedrich Engels offered a new definition of communism in their famous Pamphlet The Communist Manifesto which is regarded as modern form of communism.

 

 

Marx’s theory of communism/Marxism:-

Karl Marx also known as father of modern communism was a German philosopher who gave his theory of communism in The Communist Manifesto. To understand Marxism better we need to have a view of the conditions prevailing in Marx’s time.

In Europe the society was divided into two classes namely ‘haves’ and ‘not haves’. The haves were the ones who owned resources and were rich whereas the not haves were poor, worked under haves and were exploited harshly. There was an alarming inequality between haves and not haves. Marx looked into the awful conditions of working class and wanted to bring reforms for them. He gave a theory in goodwill of have nots. He stated that these reforms could be brought by changing the material forces by adopting dialectical materialism. For this, there had to be ‘thesis’ and ‘antithesis’ so that both of these could bring the result called ‘synthesis’. What already existed in the society was thesis and what could oppose it is called antithesis. What these two could produce is called synthesis.

If we talk of Marxism in particular, here the aristocratic class was the existing class (thesis), to oppose it came a new class called capitalist (antithesis) and best of aristocracy and capitalist is socialist (synthesis).

Dialectical materialism: - It is a philosophy of science, history and nature developed in Europe and based on writings of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. It emphasizes the importance of real-world conditions, in terms of class, labor and socioeconomic interactions.

Historical materialism:-

The application of dialectical materialism is historical materialism. When material forces change it also changes the society and not only market forces.

How does its application work?

                                  I.            Exploited class will revolt. This is called Revolution or class action that occurs due to surplus value.

                              II.             Resources would be owned by the state.

                          III.            All the people (be it haves or not haves) would become workers under state.

                          IV.            Hence a classless society of equals formed under the state. Such a state would be a socialist state with communist ideology.

 

Successful ideas of communism:-

§  Classless society: - Most of the civilizations in the world today accept and appreciate the idea of classless society. Casteism, racism, sexism are opposed and considered as orthodox ideas. The idea of classless society is chiefly drawn from communism.

§  No inheritance: - Marx suggested the idea of no inheritance of land and wealth by the successors. Most of the democratic European countries execute this idea on a smaller and different level by levying inheritance tax on the citizens. If you are wealthy and gifting that wealth to your children and letting them inherit it then that wealth would be taxed. 

§  Workers’ rights :- Accumulation of wealth at one pole is at the same time accumulation of misery, agony of toil, slavery, ignorance, brutality, mental degradation, at the opposite pole

                                                                                        – Karl Marx

So communism supports the working class and their rights. The socialist revolution in Soviet Union was led by the working class and the revolt was started to get their due rights. Today we see farm unions, labor unions and many other unions who fight for their rights whenever such a situation arises.

§  Other basic rights: - The ideas of minimum wage, free healthcare and free elementary education are also drawn from communist ideology.

Failures of communism:-

§  Basic definition: - If we go by the basic definition of communism, it says “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.”  E.g.  A disabled and a healthy person would work according to their abilities but would get equal rewards. If this were the situation, there would be no room for competition. People would have no reason to work better and harder. Although this reason is quite philosophical.

§  Power vacuum: - Let’s say division is pyramidal in various societies. Power and resources flow from top to bottom. But in a communist society, everyone would be placed at the same level and no one would occupy the top level. This creates power vacuum which ultimately leads to dictatorship for there is no one to lead common people and a dictated society can’t remain a communist society in actual sense.

§  Corruption: - Since communism always paves a way for dictatorship, power and resources are concentrated to a few hands and corruption is bound to be the there.

 

Fun fact: - There is small society named ‘Auroville’ in Pondicherry which depicts a successful example of communism. It is a community of about 2000 people. Each one works for community as a whole, there is no private ownership rather the resources are equally distributed and concept of money doesn’t exist.

 

 

AUROVILLE

Conclusion:-

There are some practical fallacies with the conception of communism that don’t allow its implementation appropriately. Whenever it was tried to implement communism these fallacies stood as an obstruction and communism could never be implemented in its true sense in a large society. It either paves way for dictatorship which causes annoyance among people as it happened in Soviet Union which even led to its disintegration. Even if dictatorship doesn’t happen, there has never been an instance where communism was implemented without a state and communism with a state isn’t communism in true sense.