Portal:Communism

Portal:Communism

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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Iraqi Partisans
Al-Ansar (Arabic: الأنصار, 'the Partisans') was a guerrilla force attached to the Iraqi Communist Party, active between 1979 and 1988. When the alliance between the Communist Party and the Baath Party ended, a wave of harsh repression against the Communist Party followed. In 1977 the regime launched a crackdown against the communists. A number of communist cadres fled to the Kurdish areas in northern Iraq to escape arrest. By January 1979, the exiled communists had established ansar (partisan) fighting units. By April 1979 the ansar movement was operational. Headquarters of the partisan units were established in Kirkuk and as-Sulemaniyah, and bases were established in Irbil. Later, bases were also set up in Dohuk and Nineveh. The build-up of the ansar movement did however occur without the full consent of the politburo of the party.

In South Yemen, a number of Iraqi Communist Party cadres began military training before joining the guerrillas in northern Iraq. The training was administered by the South Yemeni government.

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Todor Zhivkov
Todor Khristov Zhivkov (Bulgarian: То̀дор Хрѝстов Жѝвков, tr. Todor Christov Živkov; IPA: [ˈtɔdɔr ˈxristɔf ˈʒifkɔf]; 7 September 1911 – 5 August 1998), was the communist head of state of the People's Republic of Bulgaria (PRB) from 4 March 1954 until 10 November 1989.

He became First Secretary of the Bulgarian Communist Party in 1954 and remained on this position for 35 years, until 1989, thus becoming the longest-serving leader of any Eastern Bloc nation, and one of the longest ruling non-royal leaders in history. His rule marked a period of unprecedented political and economic stability for Bulgaria, marked both by complete submission of Bulgaria to Soviet rule and a desire for expanding ties with the West. His rule remained unchallenged until the deterioration of East-West relations in the 1980s, when a stagnating economic situation, a worsening international image and growing careerism and corruption in the BCP weakened his positions. He resigned on 10 November 1989, under pressure by senior BCP members due to his refusal to recognize problems and deal with public protests. Within a month of Zhivkov's ouster, Communist rule in Bulgaria had effectively ended, and within another month the People's Republic of Bulgaria had formally ceased to exist.

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Photo credit: Tomatejc

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 name of Karl Liebknecht, as it has gone into world history, is inseparably connected with the war. The greatness of Karl Liebknecht consists in the fact that he succeeded better than anyone except Lenin in expressing with unusual forcefulness the turn in the proletarian revolution that took place in the working class of Germany and the other warring countries in connection with the first imperialist world war.

It is not especially necessary to recall that the working class of Europe which emerged from the first imperialist world war was not at all the same that it had been at its beginning. Every month of the imperialist world war was an enormous lesson for the international proletariat. Every salvo on the imperialist battlefields hit also the reformist pacifist illusions in those layers of the European working class which had entered the First World War with the feelings generated in them by the 25-year-long peaceful development of the Second International.

Blood poured out in floods. Every week tens and hundreds of thousands of men lost their lives. With every day, poverty, sufferings, and hunger grew. Already in the first months of the war, hesitations and doubts began to seize the patriotically disposed workers who were under the influence of the Social-Democracy. Soon the hesitations and doubts gave way to an ever greater hatred of the war, which the Social-Democratic leaders were calling the “great” and “liberating” war. It fell to Karl Liebknecht, we repeat, to express in the broadest and deepest way precisely this swing taking place in the mass millions of the working class ; together with these masses, to drive through to revolutionary decisions ; and, together with them, and in their name, to protest against the war with the whole might of his ardent heart. He succeeded better than anyone else in expressing the anger and pain, the sufferings and protest, and, developing therefrom, the ripening revolutionary determination of the best part of the European working class that the criminal hands of the bourgeoisie and their Social-Democracy had sent on to the imperialist battlefield.

Gregory Zinoviev (1883-1936)
Karl Liebknecht and the War , 1920

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This article uses material from the Wikipedia article Portal:Communism, and is written by contributors. Text is available under a CC BY-SA 4.0 International License; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.