Pr-Marxist Communism
Further information: Primitive communism, Pr-Marxist Communism and Religious communism
Many historical groups have been considered as following forms of communism. Karl Marx and other early communist theorists believed that hunter-gatherer societies, as were found in the Palaeolithic, were essentially egalitarian and he therefore termed their ideology to be "primitive communism". Certainly, communist ideas do predate Marxism, with various philosophers in Ancient Greece, such as Pythagoras and Plato (in his The Republic) propagating the idea of common ownership. Some have also claimed that early Christianity supported a form of communism through the teachings in the New Testament which emphasized sharing amongst everyone equally. Other ancient Jewish sects, like the Essen's, also supported egalitarianism and communal living.[1]
In Europe during the Early Modern period, various groups supporting communist ideas appeared. Tommaso Campanella in his The City of the Sun propagated the concept of a society where the products of society should be shared equally (1601).[2] Within a few centuries, during the English Civil War, various groups on the side of the Round heads propagated the redistribution of wealth on an egalitarian basis, namely the Levelers and the Diggers.[3] In the eighteenth century the French philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau in his hugely influential The Social Contract (1762), outlined the basis for a political order based on popular sovereignty rather than the rule of monarchs.[4] His views proved influential during the French Revolution of 1789, in which various anti-monarchists, particularly the Jacobin's, supported the idea of redistributing wealth equally among the people, including Jean-Paul Marat and Gracchus Babeuf. The latter was involved in the Conspiracy of the Equals of 1796 intending to establish a revolutionary regime based on communal ownership, egalitarianism and the redistribution of property.[5] The plot was however detected and he and several others involved were arrested and executed. Despite this setback the example of the French Revolutionary regime and Babeuf's doomed insurrection was an inspiration for radical French thinkers such as Comte Henri DE Saint Simon, Louis Blanca, Charles Fourier and Pierre-Joseph Proudhon who declared that Property is theft!”.[6]
Karl Marx
Main article: Karl Marx
Karl Marx, founder of Marxism.
"Communism is the riddle of history solved, and it knows itself to be this solution."
— Karl Marx, 1844 [7]
In the 1840s, a German philosopher and sociologist named Karl Marx (1818–1883), who was living in England after fleeing the authorities in the German states, where he was considered a political threat, began publishing books in which he outlined his theories for a variety of communism now known as Marxism. Marx was financially aided and supported by another German emigre, Friedrich Engels (1820–1895), who like Marx had fled from the German authorities in 1849.[8] Marx and Engels took on many influences from earlier philosophers; politically, they were influenced by Maximilien Robespierre and several other radical figures of the French Revolution, whilst economically they were influenced by David Ricardo and philosophically they were influenced by Hegel.[9] Engels regularly met Marx at Chatham's Library in Manchester, England from 1845 and the alcove where they met remains identical to this day.[10][11] It was here Engels relayed his experiences of industrial Manchester, chronicled in the Condition of the Working Class in England, highlighting the struggles of the working class.
Marx stated that "the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles," something that he believed was happening between the bourgeoisie who then controlled society and the proletariat (the working class masses) who toiled to produce everything but who had no political control. He purported the idea that human society moved through a series of progressive stages, from primitive communism through to slavery, feudalism and then capitalism, and that this in turn would be replaced by communism - for Marx therefore, communism was seen as inevitable, as well as desirable.
Marx founded the Communist Correspondence Committee in 1846 through which the various communists, socialists and other leftists across Europe could keep in contact with one another in the face of political oppression. He then published The Communist Manifesto in 1848, which would prove to be one of the most influential communist texts ever written. He subsequently began work on a multi-volume epic that would examine and criticism the capitalist economy and the effect that it had upon politics, society and philosophy; the first volume of the work, which was known as Capital:Critique of Political Economy, was published in 1869. However, Marx and Engels were not only interested in writing about communism, they were also active in supporting revolutionary activity that would lead to the creation of communist governments across Europe. They helped to found the International Workingman's Association, which would later become known as the First International, to unite various communists and socialists, and Marx was elected to the Association's General Council.[12]
Early development of Marxism
During the latter half of the 19th century, various left-wing organizations across Europe continued to campaign against the many autocratic right-wing regimes that were then in power. In France in 1871, socialists set up a government known as the Paris Commune after the fall of Napoleon III, however they were soon overthrown and many of their members executed by counter-revolutionaries.[13] Meanwhile Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels joined the German Social-Democratic Party, which had been created in 1875, but which was outlawed in 1879 by the German government, then led by Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, who deemed it to be a political threat due to its revolutionary nature and increasing number of supporters.[14] In 1890, the party was re-legalized, and by this time it had fully adopted Marxist principles. It subsequently achieved a fifth of the vote in the German elections, and some of its leaders, such as August Babel and Wilhelm Liechtenstein, became well-known public figures.[15]
At the time, Marxism took off not only in Germany, but it also gained popularity in Hungary, the Hapsburg Monarchy and the Netherlands, although it did not achieve such success in other European nations like the United Kingdom, where Marx and Engels had been based.[16] Nonetheless, the new political ideology had gained sufficient support that an organization was founded known as the Second International to unite the various Marxist groups around the world.[17]
"The communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a communist revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win."
Karl Marx
However, as Marxism took off, it also began to come under criticism from other European intellectuals, including fellow socialists and leftists; the Russian collectivist anarchist Mikhail Bakunin for instance criticized what he believed were the flaws in the Marxian theory that the state would eventually dissolve under a Marxist government, instead he believed that the state would gain in power and become authoritarian. Criticism also came from other sociologists, such as the German Max Weber, who whilst admiring Marx, disagreed with many of his assumptions on the nature of society. Some Marxists tried to adapt to these criticisms and the changing nature of capitalism, for instance Eduard Bernstein emphasized the idea of Marxists bringing legal challenges against the current administrations over the treatment of the working classes rather than simply emphasizing violent revolution as more orthodox Marxists did. Other Marxists opposed Bernstein and other revisionists, with many, including Karl Kautsky, Otto Bauer, Rudolf Hilferding, Rosa Luxemburg, Vladimir Lenin, and Georgi Plekhanov sticking steadfast to the concept of violently overthrowing what they saw as the bourgeoisie-controlled government and instead establishing a "dictatorship of the proletariat."
