Communism and Socialism

 According to historian Richard Pipes, communism -- a term that was coined in Paris in the 1840s -- refers to an ideal of "full social equality that in its most extreme form calls for the dissolution of the individual in the community." "Inasmuch as social and economic inequalities derive primarily from inequalities of possession," says Pipes, communism's attainment, by definition, requires the "abolition of private property." While this theoretical ideal has an ancient heritage, communism as an operational program is most closely associated with the names of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, authors of the famous Communist Manifesto of 1848.

In the profiles and analyses contained in DiscoverTheNetworks, "communism" refers to the revolutionary philosophies based on Marxism, including also Leninism, Stalinism, Trotskyism and Maoism. When the term “Communism” is used as a synonym for the political system of the old Soviet Union and the Soviet satellite states ruled by various Communist parties, the “C” is capitalized.

Marxist doctrine holds that just as society evolved from feudalism to capitalism, it will inexorably progress still further to socialism and eventually communism. Communists consider socialism to be an intermediary step between capitalism (out of which socialism is said to grow) and communism. That is, communism (whose motto is “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs”) is deemed a further development, or “higher stage,” of socialism (whose motto is “From each according to his ability, to each according to his deeds”). Communism, in other words, is viewed as the more “perfect” of two systems that both advocate public ownership of the means of production, centralized economic planning, and the widespread redistribution of wealth.

The socialist principle of distribution according to deeds, or the quality and quantity of work that people perform, stands in marked contrast to the communist principle of distribution according to people’s needs. The former, because it accepts deed-based distribution of wealth, is considered easier to implement in a capitalist society without large-scale overhauls of existing political and economic structures. In essence, socialists view capitalism as a viable economic mechanism whose reins must simply be transferred from the currently dominant “oppressor class” that misuses capitalism to exploit workers, into the hands of the “worker class” which could use the system for laudable ends.

Communists, unlike socialists, believe that capitalism cannot be subtly incorporated into a new, egalitarian economic order; that it cannot be used as a convenient means to a more desirable end. Rather, communists call for the annihilation of capitalism by revolutionary means. They exhort the working classes to overthrow the “capitalist dictatorship” and to establish a classless society by force -- using armed strength to utterly vanquish the existing “ruling class.”