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History of communism

The history of communism encompasses a wide variety of ideologies and political movements sharing the core principles of common ownership of wealth, economic enterprise, and property.[1] Most modern forms of communism are grounded at least nominally in Marxism, a theory and method conceived by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels during the 19th century.[2] Marxism subsequently gained a widespread following across much of Europe, and throughout the late 1800s its militant supporters were instrumental in a number of unsuccessful revolutions on that continent.[1] 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.[1]

Although Marxist theory suggested that industrial societies were the most suitable places for social revolution (either through peaceful transition or by force of arms), communism was mostly successful in underdeveloped countries with endemic poverty such as the Russian Empire and the Republic of China.[2] In 1917, the Bolshevik Party seized power during the Russian Revolution and in 1922 created the Soviet Union, the world's first self-declared socialist state.[3] The Bolsheviks thoroughly embraced the concept of proletarian internationalism and world revolution, seeing their struggle as an international rather than a purely regional cause.[2][3] This was to have a phenomenal impact on the spread of communism during the 20th century as the Soviet Union installed new Marxist–Leninist governments in Central and Eastern Europe following World War II and indirectly backed the ascension of others in the Americas, Asia and Africa.[1] 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.[3] This was one major cause of tensions during the Cold War as the United States and its military allies equated the global spread of communism with Soviet expansionism by proxy.[4]


By 1985, one-third of the world's population lived under a Marxist–Leninist system of government in one form or another.[1] 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.[4] There was a rapid decline of communism in the late 1980s and early 1990s, including the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 and several other Marxist–Leninist states repudiating or abolishing the ideology altogether.[5] Later historians have proposed different explanations for this decline, including arguments that Marxist-Leninist governments failed to live up to the ideal of a communist society, that there was a general trend towards increasing authoritarianism, that they suffered from excessive bureaucracy, and that they had inefficiencies in their economies.[1][6][7] As of the 21st century, only a small number of Marxist–Leninist states remain, namely China, Cuba, Laos, North Korea and Vietnam.[1][8] With the exception of North Korea, all of these states have started allowing more economic competition while maintaining one-party rule.[6]

The period (1918–1921) which saw the forming of the International, the Russian Civil War, a general revolutionary upheaval after the October Revolution resulting in the formation of the first communist parties across the world and the defeat of workers' revolutionary movements in Germany, Hungary, Finland and Poland.

War Communism

The 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.

New Economic Policy

The (1929–1934), an ultra-left turn which saw rapid industrialization 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 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), making the Comintern more or less an organ of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

Third Period

The 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 and the Second Spanish Republic. 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 and the fall of Spain to Francisco Franco.

Popular Front

The period of advocating peace (1939–1941), a result of the signing of the which resulted in the Soviet invasion of Poland. In this period, communists were advocating non-participation in World War II, 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.

Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact

The 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 by all means. This was a period of militant anti-fascism, the emergence of national liberation movements all across occupied Europe and ultimately the dissolution of the Comintern in 1943.

Eastern Front

The (1947–1960) in which the Soviet Union and the Red Army installed the Eastern Bloc communist regimes in most of Eastern Europe (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, fell short of gaining positions in the government.

Early Cold War

The (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 which were successful in some places such as Cuba and Vietnam. Communism was decisively defeated in other states, including Malaya and Indonesia. In 1972–1979, there was détente between the Soviet Union and the United States.

Late Cold War

The end of communism in Europe (1980–1992) in which Soviet client states were heavily on the defensive as in and Nicaragua. The United States escalated the conflict with very heavy military spending. After a series of short-lived leaders, Mikhail Gorbachev came to power in the Kremlin and began a policy of glasnost and perestroika, 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 merged into West Germany 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.

Afghanistan

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.[104][105][106][107][108]

The Black Book of Communism

Bolshevization

Comparison of Nazism and Stalinism

Crimes against humanity under communist regimes

Criticism of communist party rule

Foreign relations of China

Foreign relations of Cuba

Foreign relations of Laos

Foreign relations of North Korea

Foreign relations of the Soviet Union

Foreign relations of Vietnam

Mass killings under communist regimes

(2009). The Rise and Fall of Communism. HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0-06-188548-8.

Brown, Archie

Getty, J. Arch.; Manning, Roberta T., eds. (1993). Stalinist Terror: New Perspectives. Cambridge.{{}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)

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Kautsky, Karl

Major, Patrick (1997). The Death of the KPD: Communism and Anti-Communism in West Germany, 1945–1956. .

Oxford University Press

(2010). The Red Flag: Communism and the Making of the Modern World. Penguin Books. ISBN 978-0-14-029520-7. OCLC 762107381.

Priestland, David

van Ree, Erik (2015). . Routledge. ISBN 978-1-134-48533-8 – via Google Books.

Boundaries of Utopia – Imagining Communism from Plato to Stalin

Borkenau, Franz. World communism; a history of the Communist International (1938)

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Crozier, Brian. The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Empire (1999), long detailed popular history

Davin, Delia (2013). . Oxford UP. ISBN 9780191654039.

Mao: A Very Short Introduction

Deakin, F. W. ed. A history of world communism (1975)

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Furet, François

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),  0-312-32909-1.

ISBN

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)

. Communism: A History (2003)

Pipes, Richard

Pons, Silvio and Robert Service, eds. A Dictionary of 20th-Century Communism (Princeton University Press, 2010). 944 pp.  978-0-691-13585-4 online review

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Priestland, David. The Red Flag: A History of Communism (2010)

Sandle, Mark. Communism (2nd ed. 2011), short introduction

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Service, Robert

Service, Robert. Stalin (2005)

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Seton-Watson, Hugh. From Lenin to Khrushchev, the history of world communism (1954)

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. Gorbachev: His Life and Times (2018)

Taubman, William

Tucker, Robert C. Stalin as Revolutionary, 1879–1929 (1973); Stalin in Power: The Revolution from Above, 1929–1941. (1990) a standard biography; online at ACLS e-books

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Ulam, Adam B. Expansion and Coexistence: Soviet Foreign Policy 1917–73 (1974)

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