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As a general economic term, communism refers to any system in which property is shared by a community or owned in common. Thus the early Christians were said to practice a form of "primitive communism". Some writers prefer the term communitarianism for this sense.

In Marxist theory, communism (lower case) is the final historical stage of society after socialism withers away. This stage is variously seen as possible in a single nation or as requiring world hegemony of socialism as a pre-condition.

Communism (upper case) refers both to political theories based on Marxism and to the political system put into practice in countries ruled by Communist parties. It should be emphasized that Marxists call such countries "socialist", reserving the term "communist" for the historical stage Marx predicted would come after socialism.

Communism as a form of Goverment

In the twentieth century, a number of Communist parties organized succesful revolutions and established governments in various countries, such as the Soviet Union, China, and Cuba. In general, Communist parties and Worker's parties having power draw on the writings of Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin for inspiration and legitimation. Towards the end of the 20th Century nearly one third the world's population was ruled by Communist governments. Although they promoted collective ownership of the means of production, they were also characterized by strong state apparatuses. Many have characterized these regimes as "state socialism".

The dominant form of Communism today is based on Marxism and sometimes called Marxism-Leninism, a theory of history in terms of class relations based on a political and economic philosophy derived from the teachings of Karl Marx. Various revolutionaries in the twentieth century have contributed to Marxist theory, especially Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky, and Mao Zedong. In the twentieth century, a number of countries attempted to put Marx's ideas into practice, especially in the Soviet Union and the Peoples Republic of China; at various times they have had to allow or even encourage certain forms of private-property.

Communist theory claims that capitalist systems exist through the exploitation of the working class by the ruling class and argues that this system is destined to be replaced by a classless communist stage of society, after the socialist state "withers away". However, critics have often claimed that as practiced in nations such as the former Soviet Union it created a new division of power (see nomenklatura). The term is also used to refer to historical instances of totalitarian socialism (as distinct from democratic socialism). Regimes described as communistic have, according to most Western observers, generally been despotic and extremely abusive of human rights. Examples are the Soviet Union, the People's Republic of China and Cuba.

In Marxist theory, communism is the final stage of social development, coming after socialism. Marx specified that the workers would rise up to destroy capitalism and replace it with socialism, but he did not explain how capitalism would transform into socialism, which anti-communists consider a serious theoretical flaw. In theory, prior to this final stage, the state holds the property on behalf of its citizens.

The term "communism" and ideology has a history that predates Marx, however, closely associated with (socialist) anarchism. According to Marxist theory, the state will eventually wither away because the class divisions that underlie the existence of the state will have disappeared. Prior to this final stage, however, state ownership is supposed to exist during a what is ostensibly a transitional period that Marxist theory describes as socialist. No Marxist government actually claimed to have instituted a "communist" society; instead, the official doctrines of these regimes held that their governments were only transitional socialist regimes.

There are various kinds of Communism or socialism; some kinds of Communism are varieties of ideology, while others are terms for practices or styles of governance. Marxism holds--among other things--that human history has had and will have a developmental structure, alternating between slow development of technology/economy (and the according philosophy/religion) and a rapidly changing short period of technology/economy.

The short-lived Paris Commune of 1871, a brief revolutionary government after the defeat of France in the Franco-Prussian War, was an early attempt at instituting a socialist regime, and Marx wrote approvingly of it. Bolshevism and Menchevism were also two early forms of communism-in-practice, advocated by Russian (mainly ex-patriate) communists in the late 19th and early 20th century; the Mencheviks favored peaceful change, while Bolsheviks called for, and eventually organised, a revolution, putting power in the hands of the soviets of workers and peasants. Leninism is the name given to Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin's system of thought, which emphasises a top-down party structure known as democratic centralism, and the need to spread the revolution to other countries, and to exclude any compromise with the bourgeoisie.

Lenin's rule gave way to Joseph Stalin's and Stalin's style of communist dictatorship is known as Stalinism; Stalin's government was violently repressive of individual liberties and of political dissidents and featured more [[five-year plans]] as well as massive industrialization, under the un-Marxist pretext of constructing "socialism in one country". Leon Trotsky opposed the doctrine of "socialism in one country", and criticized Stalin's regime as being a "bureacratically deformed" worker's state. Followers of Trotsky are known as Trotskyists.

The practices of Mao Tse Tung are known as Maoism.

Compare:

• anti-communism

See also:

• Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky, Joseph Stalin
• Soviet Union, Cuba, China
• Socialism, fascism
• Post-Communism, classical liberalism