Portal:Communism

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THE COMMUNISM PORTAL

Introduction

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

Communists often seek a voluntary state of self-governance but disagree on the means to this end. This reflects a distinction between a more libertarian socialist approach of communization, revolutionary spontaneity, and workers' self-management, and a more authoritarian vanguardist or communist party-driven approach through the development of a socialist state, followed by the withering away of the state. As one of the main ideologies on the political spectrum, communism is placed on the left-wing alongside socialism, and communist parties and movements have been described as radical left or far-left.

Variants of communism have been developed throughout history, including anarchist communism, Marxist schools of thought, and religious communism, among others. Communism encompasses a variety of schools of thought, which broadly include Marxism, Leninism, and libertarian communism, as well as the political ideologies grouped around those. All of these different ideologies generally share the analysis that the current order of society stems from capitalism, its economic system, and mode of production, that in this system there are two major social classes, that the relationship between these two classes is exploitative, and that this situation can only ultimately be resolved through a social revolution. The two classes are the proletariat, who make up the majority of the population within society and must sell their labor power to survive, and the bourgeoisie, a small minority that derives profit from employing the working class through private ownership of the means of production. According to this analysis, a communist revolution would put the working class in power, and in turn establish common ownership of property, the primary element in the transformation of society towards a communist mode of production.

Communism in its modern form grew out of the socialist movement in 19th-century Europe that argued capitalism caused the misery of urban factory workers. In the 20th century, several ostensibly Communist governments espousing Marxism–Leninism and its variants came into power, first in the Soviet Union with the Russian Revolution of 1917, and then in portions of Eastern Europe, Asia, and a few other regions after World War II. As one of the many types of socialism, communism became the dominant political tendency, along with social democracy, within the international socialist movement by the early 1920s. (Full article...)

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A young Karl Marx
Marxism is the philosophy, social theory and political practice based on the works of Karl Marx, a 19th century German socialist philosopher, economist, journalist, and revolutionary. Marx, often in collaboration with Friedrich Engels, drew on G. W. F. Hegel's philosophy, the political economy of Adam Smith and David Ricardo, and theorists of 19th century French socialism, to develop a critique of society which he claimed was both scientific and revolutionary. This critique achieved its most systematic (albeit unfinished) expression in his most famous work, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, more commonly known as Das Kapital.

Marx defined history on a strictly economic basis, stating that history had 6 steps (Tribe, Slavery, Feudalism, Capitalism, Socialism and Communism), where economic inequility caused each step to be replaced over time. He as a communist believed that a violent revolution would be the catalyst in the transformation from capitalism to socialism. Since its inception and up to the present day, Marxism has been situated largely outside the political mainstream, although it has played a major role in history. Today, Marxist political parties of widely different sizes survive in most countries around the world.

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Leon Trotsky, 1929
Leon Trotsky (7 November [O.S. 26 October] 1879 – 21 August 1940), born Lev Davidovich Bronshtein, was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and theorist, Soviet politician, and the founder and first leader of the Red Army.

Trotsky was initially a supporter of the Menshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. He joined the Bolsheviks immediately prior to the 1917 October Revolution, and eventually became a leader within the Party, second only to Vladimir Lenin. During the early days of the Soviet Union, he served first as People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs and later as the founder and commander of the Red Army, and People's Commissar of War. He was a major figure in the Bolshevik victory in the Russian Civil War (1918–20). He was also among the first members of the Politburo.

After leading a failed struggle of the Left Opposition against the policies and rise of Joseph Stalin in the 1920s and the increasing role of bureaucracy in the Soviet Union, Trotsky was successively removed from power, expelled from the Communist Party, deported from the Soviet Union and assassinated on Stalin's orders. An early advocate of Red Army intervention against European fascism, Trotsky also opposed Stalin's non-aggression pact with Adolf Hitler in the late 1930s. Trotsky's ideas form the basis of Trotskyism, a major school of Marxist thought that is opposed to the theories of Stalinism.

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News related to communism

21 March 2024 –
President of Vietnam Võ Văn Thưởng resigns after just over a year in office amid the Communist Party's anti-corruption campaign, making him the shortest-serving president in Vietnamese history. (Reuters) (Al Jazeera) (Bloomberg)

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THE FOUR STAGES OF SUBVERSION

What many of you do not see, is the second "chain" of events which I graphically represent in the following chart (see page 22) of the FOUR STAGES OF SUBVERSION: I) DEMORALIZATION, 2) DESTABILIZATION, 3) CRISIS, 4) "NORMALIZATION".

What has all this to do with the KGB? Very simple: these are the 'most favourable conditions' listed in any Marxist textbook of revolutionary struggle. I have simply placed them in chronological order and divided them into three vertical columns: the areas of application, the methods of subversion and the expected (or achieved) results.

In the context of the United States, most of these nasty things are done to America by Americans. . . with the IDEOLOGICAL help of the Communist subverters. Most of the actions are overt, legitimate, and easily identifiable. The only trouble is - they are "stretched in time". In other words, the process of subversion is such a long-term process that an average individual, due to the short time-span of his historical memory, is unable to perceive the process of subversion as a CONSISTENT and willful effort. That is exactly how it is intended to be: like the small hand of your watch. You know it moves, but you CAN NOT SEE it moving.

The main principle of ideological subversion is TURNING A STRONGER FORCE AGAINST ITSELF. Just like in the Japanese martial arts: you do not stop the blow of a heavier more powerful enemy with an equally forceful blow. You may simply hurt your hand. Instead you catch the striking fist with your hand and PULL the enemy in the direction of his blow until he crashes into a wall or any other heavy object in his way.

— Yuri Bezmenov (1939-1993)
Love Letter of America , 1984

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