Virtually everything most people think about communism is wrong. A lack of knowing what Marx envisaged and proposed as well as a number of nations being considered “communist” when they aren’t has led to these misconceptions. For this debunking you need to put away your political biases and look entirely at the facts of Marx’s intentions.
The myth: Communism is when the state controls production and all men are equal – as seen in the USSR and China
In a higher phase of communist society… only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be fully left behind and society inscribe on its banners: from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs. — Karl Marx
In the entire history of mankind, a communist state has never existed and none do right now. The USSR wasn’t communist, China isn’t, North Korea isn’t. For most people this will be a shock – but it is entirely true. In reality, what most people think of as communism is actually socialism. There are three stages to implementing a communist state and no one has ever managed to go past the first (for reasons that may be clear in a moment). Here are the stages of pure communism as envisaged by Marx – the father of communism.
1. Revolution. This is the stage in which the people overthrow the sitting government (whether it be democracy, republic, monarchy, etc). The entire political system is disbanded and we move to stage 2.
2. Transition. A new classless society gives all power and all ownership to a “Transitional” government and entrusts one man with all of the power while the communal infrastructure is built based upon communal property and economic equality. This stage is where every attempt to create a communist state has ended. Russia was a socialist republic – not a communist state. China and North Korea are socialist – not communist. In fact, North Korea is a pseudo socialistic monarchy ruled by the Kim dynasty. So what is communism? It is stage 3:
3. Communism. This stage is virtually impossible to attain. It is when the head of the transition governmental steps down – disbands the entire socialist government and the people rule themselves by simply doing that which is right. It is a state of no government at all. It is Marx’s utopia.
So next time someone tells you that communism is great in theory but has so far failed in practice you know they are wrong: it actually isn’t great in theory – it is fundamentally flawed and can almost certainly never be attained so long as humans are involved.
As to the merits of socialism (step 2 on the road to communism) – that is a debate for another day!
Interesting Fact: In “The Republic”, Plato actually described something of a communist state: “the private and individual is altogether banished from life and things which are by nature private, such as eyes and ears and hands, have become common, and in some way see and hear and act in common, and all men express praise and fell joy and sorrow on the same occasions”.
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 Communist Manifesto  |
 Animal Farm  |
 Communism: A History  |
 The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression  |
Further Reading
Listverse: Another 15 Fascinating Factlets
Listverse: 15 Notable Political and Military Misquotes
Google WDYL: Communism
Wikipedia: Communism
Wikipedia: Marxism
Wikipedia: Socialism
Encyclopaedia Britannica: Communism
22 Comments
Simple old knowledge here this time. But would be nice to see this treated in the way it is treated nowadays as dictated by cultural marxists.
The fact that communism is materially impossible doesn’t change the fact that other ways have been created for marxists to achieve their goals.
I think the problem remains that the goal of communism is exactly as described above – no method will allow that to happen so long as humans are involved – imagine making tax voluntary – it would never work
Communism always sounded like it would be wonderful, but I’ve read about what it’s like to live in a communist country and it has always amazed me how such seemingly good intentions have gone so wrong. And it never did make sense that these countries, which are supposed to be ruled by the people, had a ruler. And there were so many rules. For many people, it was dangerous even just to think about something you weren’t allowed to. But the way you’ve described it here, true communism does seem unattainable. If the head of government would step down, it would undoubtedly lead to anarchy at some point or another.
You are dead right. Interestingly some people have theorized about a form of anarcho-communism which is essentially what you describe. I am certain that would fail also.
Really, Stalin’s russia wasn’t communist at all – people were prosecuted for their thoughts as you said – by that very fact, its a dictatorship. And I would love to think true communism is attainable, if we can rid ourselves of greed and corruption with out the use of a god or organized religion (ie. pay taxes or god will smite you – as has happened in the past) but it would mean the systematic removal of these traits from society – which is as attainable as ridding the world of Racism: there only needs to be one charismatic bell end for the embittered masses to see his bigotry for their own. however, to rid the world of these people is unethical – another hurdle to jump over.
Perhaps Communism, or something like it, is attainable. We cannot see the future.
In many ways it is a question about human nature. What is it? And does it change?
But even if it is attainable… do we want it?
I live in Croatia, a part of former Yugoslavia. I am too young to tell from my own experience, but i can tell you that some people say it was great then, and some are happy it’s over.
You could vote then, but only one candidate was offered, comrade Tito. Children ware brainwashed from the first grade, they had to join the pioneers, something just like Hitler jugend, just in comunist sense.
Speaking of that, comunism and nacism have many things in common. The worshiping of the leader (like stalin, tito or castro), brainwashing the children (fascist had gioventu ballila, nazis hitler jugend and comunism had pioneers), and the strong wish of purifying the society (in the case of nacism they killed jews, and in comunism the victims were so called ‘class enemies’-usualy ordinary people), the iconography in nacism and comunism is the same. And what whas the name of Hitler’s party? Well, National Socialistic. So, nacism and socialism are pretty much the same, they only use different names.
National Socialist Worker’s Party. It had nothing to do with Socialism or workers, and Nation only within the limited confines of Aryanism, This was accomplished by excluding the ‘undesirables’ from the national structure.
And the ‘workers’ mentioned probably refer to the masses of slave labor they created.
Interestingly, however, if you look at the political compass, both Naziism and Communism are in the same spot as far as authoritarianism is concerned – it is only on economic issues that one is left and one right. Furhermore, Hitler is more a centrist than an extreme right-wingerer. Here is the compass that illustrates it: http://www.politicalcompass.org/images/axeswithnames.gif
They are the same thing as far as authoritarianism is concerned but different from an economic perspective with Stalin having more control and Hitler less
Thank you for this informative article. It has cleared several misconceptions about Communism and Socialism.
You are welcome
Found this site and Cogitz through your Facebook post, it’s brilliant. Well done!!
Thanks
One of the problems why it fails is that bloody revolutions, even with the best intentions, never work. What all revolutions try is to enforce a change in the current ruling/society systems, but on that way they forget to change themself along with it.
That is the problem imho. You can change the system as much as you want, as long as the people are the same from before, we will always fall back into the same old (and mostly bad) habits, beginning the whole mess anew.
The key would be to not to revolt but to evolve in our mind, beheaviour and habits. The change in the system would come along with it automatically.
Sadly though this seems impossible again too because changing the current human nature, which has prevailed for thouands of years now, would take at least two or three generations and so far every attempt at it failed for various reasons.
I disagree that communism has never existed. It existed during the “Dark Ages” of Europe where government was highly decentralized and the ruling elements were married Catholic priests.
Essentially I believe in Plato’s Republic’s conception of cycles of society. Government size and strength is inversely proportional to the strength of of the individual’s character. In Socialism, the populace individual moral character is at its weakest thus requiring the strongest kind of state to maintain order.
Rome’s Republic was a bourgeois state, it’s empire was “socialism”. Marx I think got everything right except the idea that religion is the opiate of the people. In fact religion is the enabler of the transition from socialism to communism,,,
The “dark ages” weren’t really dark – that is a myth from the so-called enlightenment period. Also, the government wasn’t united as one but each nation or area was ruled and private property existed. The priests (who didn’t have many married priests – at least not in the western part of Europe) were not the rulers – Bishops (who are higher than priests) ruled Church matters in each diocese but the state (whether it be a King or Lord, etc) ruled in civil matters.
The early middle ages (the correct term for the “dark ages”) saw the birth of the Carolingian empire and eventually the forming of the Holy Roman Empire which existed until the 1800s.
Communism fundamentally requires the abolition of private property and the non-exist of ANY form of government – even if what you said was right (which it wasn’t) – it would still not constitute communism.
Oh, yes, the dark ages (pre-1500, depending on who says it) were most certainly not communist. See, you mention “ruling elements”…
Also, the Church had a good amount of power over individual states at about that time. King John of England (1166-1216) tried telling the Church to sod off and it got him in a lot of trouble. Still, civic matters (as far as they existed) were more or less the matters of the state. Although, what to do with the Jews was a matter of strain between the Kings and the Church… Story for another time. Anyway, not Communist, not at all.
Nor were the early middle ages exactly idyllic. Particularly by modern standards (which began to appear more or less with the enlightenment, so of course we see the enlightenment as…good). Maybe not as bad as Monty Python makes it look like, but not great either. Plague, Mongols (if you lived anywhere near modern Russia), repressive feudal system, a questionable religious system, lack of education for the lower classes, etc.
The most fluffy the middle ages ends up looking to me (outside Disney and other kids shows) is probably Ellis Peter’s Cadfael series… they did a television show about it, actually, starring Derrick Jacobi. If you haven’t seen it/read it, I do suggest it, particularly if you like the Middle Ages.
Marx based his ideas on the workers that were forced to work for 25 hours continuasly. While basing his ideas on this, he could not forsee that the situation case change any time. Capitalists changed along the way. People were not forced to work for that many hours but 8 hours with a good pay.
I think thats where Karl Marx failed.
You said it……virtually impossible to attain. Because it’s a fairy tale. Like the Garden of Eden. A fictional paradise that not even Marx could really describe, in any detail, how it would work. ‘Communist’ China (which embraces elements of capitalism to power its economy), the Soviet Union et all were the closest any major state has come and look how disastrous they were.
Capitalism is by no means perfect. It is as open to abuse of power like any other system, ncluding socialism, but it’s the best we have.
Well,it’d work GREAT if there was free energy you just plucked off trees(the trees can’t be regulated,taxed,or OWNED by any entity)and super computer based quantum ai was used in place of politicians and bankers.You can see the problem with this.
Socialism is an economic system, not a political system. Communism on paper should be a utopia, no one had no more or no less than anyone else. The state decides production, demand, and supply ( using the nations resources without killing production, ect. ) but like any system it is corruptible, and what we deem by our history as communism was/is Authoritarian and or Totalitarianism. So, I have to disagree with what you have as a myth. Hitler was NOT a socialist, he played at one to be elected, that is fact. Germany was in a sever depression and people were desperate. People actually burned their money because it was useless in purchasing products.
Socialism, is actually where the govt through either very strong regulation oversees corporations where the workers are treated fairly. It’s a bridge between workers, business and government. Trade with other countries, had to be fair to the nation and the worker. FDR was a democratic socialist, and this type of socialism was what brought a safety net to people such as Social Security, Food Stamp Program, Farm Subsidies, TVA, and ect. I just feel you are NOT giving the correct information on Socialism.