Arguably, communism is both economic and political philosophy. The term was first used in the year 1840, to describe groups in French republic endeavoring to create a society with no class and overthrow their own government. Communism has existed since then up until the present period. It is a theory that, in most cases advocates a state of society that has no private ownership, labor forces are organized for the benefit of the community as well as property ownership belong to the entire community (Lansford, 2007). Furthermore, communism is a sociopolitical movement whose aims are a stateless and classless society, in which it is structured upon community ownership of both property and the means of production.
Debatably, in its original state, communism was conceived as a strategy of improving the opportunities and the lives of the poor people in the society. As a matter of fact, communists believed that, the root of inequality in the society is the issue of class struggle. The rich class tries to exploit the poor. The main goal of communism is to create a world in which all people are equal and there are no defined economic, social or political classes.
Actually, most of the communist government seized supremacy and power, especially during the revolution in Russia. These communists lead to the creation of Soviet Union in the early 20th century. Later, communist regime spread to many parts of the world such as eastern Asia, Eastern Europe, Cuba, North Korea and some African regions. These regimes collapsed in the late 1980s and early 1990s. After the collapse the communist, government adopted capitalistic policies of controlling economy. The decline and collapse of communism was caused by the inability of the government to achieve their goals and tendency to develop into totalitarian systems (Lansford, 2007)
As a matter of fact, forms of communism have always been around the entire history of human beings. Contemporary form of communism is actually based on economic and political theories of Karl Marx 9Lansford, 20070. Karl Marx believed that private ownership of property led to inequality in the society, therefore it is necessary for the government to control the resource distribution and economy (Osmond & Major2002).For example in Europe, industrial revolution increased the gap between the poor and the rich.
China developed their form of communism, which was known as Maoism. This form combines Marxism, Confucianism and Chinese culture. Mao believed that the revolution to bring down the rich could be led by the united front and peasants. Communism was to evolve from small groups to large organizations. As it grows, the noncommunist regimes would be unpopular due to its inability to contain rebellion (Osmond & Major, 2002).
Communism regime is based on five principles. Despite all this principles, no government has ever implemented them successfully. One of the principles is that the government controls all the economy and owns the businesses (Lansford, 2007). This implies that the employment of people is done by the ruling regime, which decides on production, wages, service and products. In this scenario, the government has the power over its people occupation.
The second principle is that there is no real estate. The entire land is owned by the government. The profits from this land are equally distributed to the people in the society. Therefore, the government pays for education and health care of its people. In addition there is no inheritance. Third, the government has the power over wage creation, and this seems to be so theoretical this is because all people are equal socially, politically and economically. Hence for communism to work, the rich have to be eliminated (Osmond & Major, 2002).
The fourth principle is that, all welfare benefits, such as retirement pension, health care and education are provided free of charge to the people. For example, this was proved in the 20th century, when all communist states recorded the highest percentage of literacy. Finally, all the communist regimes are totalitarian; this is because they limit dissent and political expression (Osmond & Major, 2002). These regimes abolish religious practices and religion so that no other beliefs compete with the supreme communist ideologies. In order to achieve this, communist regime asserted an objective of world dominion so as to achieve a classless global society.
Actually, communism did not achieve its goal. In 1933 under the rule of Adolf Hitler, any people lost their lives (Lansford, 2007). Communist states considered more on their party, at the expense of liberty and rights of the people. Soviet government violated the rights of the people in 1980s. Therefore many leaders used it to enrich themselves and oppressed its people.
References
Lansford, T. (2007). Communism. London: Wiley.
Osmond, J & Major. (2002). The Workers and Peasants State: Communism and Society. Carlifornia: Oxford
