Communism

This a PBS documentary which looks into how Communism started with Vladimir Lenin’s Bolsheviks revolution. Also offers testimony of members of the Red Guard, party activists, students, and workers striving to build a modern industrial state.

Communism is a social structure and political ideology in which property is commonly controlled. Communism (written with a capital C) is a modern political movement that aims to overthrow capitalism via revolution to create a classless society where all goods are publicly owned. Karl Marx posited that communism would be the final stage in human society, which would be achieved through a proletarian revolution and only becoming possible after a socialist stage develops the productive forces, leading to a superabundance of goods and services.

“Pure communism” in the Marxian sense refers to a classless, stateless and oppression-free society where decisions on what to produce and what policies to pursue are made democratically, allowing every member of society to participate in the decision-making process in both the political and economic spheres of life.

In modern usage, communism is often used to refer to Bolshevism or Marxism-Leninism and the policies of the various communist states which had government ownership of all the means of production and centrally planned economies. Communist regimes have historically been authoritarian, repressive, and coercive governments concerned primarily with preserving their own power.