Political philosophies like communism
Political Philosophy is a broad foreword to the major intellectuals and themes in political philosophy. It discovers the philosophical beliefs which have formed and continue to inform political judgements of people. Dudley Knowles introduces the ideas of major political thinkers such as Hobbes, Locke, Marx and Mill and dominant modern philosophers such as Berlin, Rawls and Nozick. Basically, Political philosophy is concerned with the concepts and arguments involved in political opinion.
Communism is considered as vital framework in political philosophy. It is a socio-economic scaffold that assists in supporting the establishment of a classless, stateless society based on common ownership of the means of production. It boosts the formation of a democratic state in order to overcome the class structures and alienation of labour that characterize capitalistic societies and their inheritance of imperialism and nationalism. According to the principle of communism, main process of resolving problems of classless and other favouritism in society for the working class is to replace the prosperous ruling class, through radical action, in order to establish a diplomatic, free society, without classes or government. Communism, basically, is the idea of a free society with no division or estrangement, where humankind is free from oppression and insufficiency, and where there is no need for governments or countries and no class divisions. It imagines a world in which each person gives according to their abilities, and receives according to their needs. It is usually deliberated as a division of extensive Socialist movement. The main forms of Communism, such as Leninism, Trotskyism and Luxemburgism, are based on Marxism, but non-Marxist versions of Communism (such as Christian Communism and Anarchist Communism).
In the era of late 19th Century, major philosophical terms like socialism and communism were often used simultaneously. Communism was considered as an economic-political philosophy which was evolved by famous philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels during this period. Marx and Engels wrote and published “The Communist Manifesto” in 1848. They had a wish to stop thinking a capitalism feeling that it was the social class system which led to the mistreatment of labours. The workers that were treated badly had developed class awareness and it resulted in a fundamental process of class conflict. In this conflict, the public may rise up against the bourgeoisie and establish a communist society. Marx and Engels supposed of the proletariat as the individuals with labour power, and the bourgeoisie as those who own the means of production in a capitalist society. The state would pass through a phase, often thought of as socialism, and ultimately developed a pure communist society. In a communist society, all private ownership would be obliterated, and the ways of production would belong to the whole community. In the communist movement, a popular motto was that everyone contributes according to their competence and received according to their requirements. Therefore, the needs of a society would be put above and beyond the specific needs of an individual. Though, there are numerous arguments for Marxist theory such as communism would not emerge from Capitalism in a fully developed state, but would pass through a first phase (Socialism) in which most productive property was owned in common, but there were some class differences. This would finally develop into a “higher phase” that was termed as Communism in which class differences were abolished, and a state was no longer needed and would wither away. It was argued by many philosophers that radical activity by the working classes was required to bring about these changes.
History of Communism: It was documented in historical records that initially, Communist philosophy was the history of Socialism. In its modern version, Communism evolved of the Socialist movements of 19th Century Europe and the critics of Capitalism during the Industrial Rebellion. Main critics were the German philosopher Karl Marx and his associate Friedrich Engels (1820 – 1895), and their pioneering “Communist Manifesto” of 1848, the defining document of the movement, presented a novel explanation of Communism and promoted the phrase communism. The practice of the terms “communism” and “socialism” changed after the Russian Revolution of 1917, when the admittedly Marxist Bolshevik Party in Russia changed their name to the Communist Party and formed a single party regime that was dedicated to the implementation of socialist policies under Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (1870 – 1924). Lenin created the Third International (or Communist International or Comintern) in 1919 and set the twenty-one conditions (including democratic centralism) for any European socialist parties willing to join. With awareness of the Russian Civil War, the Union of Soviet Socialist was established in 1922.
Other communism movement related to Lenin’s New Economic Policy (NEP) which was lasted until 1928, when Joseph Stalin (1878 – 1953) party leader under the banner of “socialism in one country” and proceeded down the way of isolationism and Totalitarianism with the first of many Five Year Plans. Remarkably Leon Trotsky (1879 – 1940) Marxist critics of the Soviet Union, referred to the Soviet system as a “degenerated” or “deformed” workers’ state, argued that it fell far short of Marx’s communist model, and claimed that the working class was politically expelled. Post World War II, the Warsaw Pact saw Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Poland, Hungary and Romania joined the Soviet Union in an economic and military coalition under firm Soviet Control. However, relations were very tough, and the Soviet Union was forced into military interventions to supress popular rebellions in Hungary (1956) and Czechoslovakia (1968), and Albania withdrew from the Pact in 1968 due to philosophical dissimilarities.
In the decade of 1070s, although never officially unified as a single political entity, almost one-third of the world’s populace lived in Communist states, including the People’s Republic of China, the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact countries of Eastern Europe, as well Cuba, North Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Angola, and Mozambique. However, the Warsaw Pact countries had all abandoned Communist rule by 1990, and in 1991 the Soviet Union itself dissolved, leaving China, Cuba and some isolated states in Asia and Africa as the remaining bastions of Communism. In most cases significantly dampened down and changed from its original philosophy.
Types of Communism: Marxism is the main theoretical-practical structure on which dogmas of Socialism and Communism are based.
Marxism: Marxism is a perspective that involves a number of differing “sub-perspectives” that is, whilst there tends to be a general agreement about the need to construct a critique of Capitalist society, there are major differences between theorists working within this viewpoint. Main Marxist ideas can be explained in the following terms:
1. Marxism stresses the notion that social life is based upon “conflicts of interest”. Most significant and basic conflict is that between the Bourgeoisie, those who own and control the means of production in society and the Proletariat, those who simply sell their labour power in the market place of Capitalism.
2. Dissimilar of the Functionalist version of Structuralist sociology, the idea of social class is more than an evocative category, social class is used to clarify how and why societies change. Class conflict signifies a process whereby change comes about through the opposition of social classes as they follow what they see to be their (different and opposed) collective interests in society.
3. Marxism is a political philosophy whose main concern is to expose the political and economic contradictions in-built in Capitalism such as the fact that while people co-operate to produce goods, a Capitalist class appropriates these goods for its private profit and to point the way towards the establishment of a future Communist society.
Marxism-Leninism is the Communist philosophical field that emerged as the conventional tendency amongst Communist parties in the 1920’s as it was accepted as the conceptual foundation of the Communist International during the era of Joseph Stalin (1878 – 1953), with whom it is mainly associated. The term “Marxism-Leninism” is mostly used by those who consider that Lenin’s legacy was effectively carried forward by Stalin, although it is arguable to what extent it actually follows the principles of either Marx or Lenin.
Philosophy of Leninism was built upon and extended the ideas of Marxism, and served as the theoretical foundation for the ideology of Soviet Communism after the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the establishment of the Soviet Union. Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (1870 – 1924) argued in his leaflet “What is to be Done?” of 1902 that the proletariat can only realise a successful radical consciousness through the efforts of a “vanguard party” composed of full-time professional revolutionaries and through a form of controlled organization generally called “democratic centralism” (whereby decisions are made with internal democracy but then all party members must externally support and actively promote that decision). It maintains that Capitalism can only be conquered by innovatory ways and any attempts to improve Capitalism from within are destined to fail. The objective of a Leninist party is to coordinate the overthrow of the existing government by force and grab power on behalf of the proletariat, and then implement a autocracy of the proletariat, a kind of direct equality in which workers hold political power through local councils known as soviets.
Stalinism is a more judgemental phrase for Joseph Stalin’s vision of Communism. Supporters of this ideology argue that it includes widespread use of publicity to establish a personality cult around an absolute ruler, as well as extensive use of a secret police to maintain social proposal and silence political opposition, all of which are trappings of Totalitarianism.
Trotskyism is the philosophical model of Marxism that was supported by Leon Trotsky (1879 – 1940), who considered himself a conformist Marxist and Bolshevik-Leninist, and squabbled for the establishment of a frontline party. His politics differed sharply from the Marxism-Leninism of Joseph Stalin, with respect to declare the need for an international proletarian revolution and firm support for a true dictatorship of the proletariat based on direct autonomous ideologies. Most dominant characteristics of Trotskyism is the theory of permanent uprising to explain how socialist revolutions could happen in societies that had not yet attained advanced Capitalism. Marx explained it as a prerequisite for socialist revolution.
Luxemburgism is a particular innovative theoretical model under the category of Communism, which is based on the texts of Rosa Luxemburg (1870 – 1919). Her politics deviated from those of Lenin and Trotsky mainly in her discrepancy with their concept of “democratic centralism”, which she visualized as unsatisfactorily democratic. Luxemburgism looks like Anarchism in its averting of an authoritarian society by relying on the people themselves as opposed to their leaders. However, it also sees the significance of a revolutionary party and the centrality of the working class in the radical struggle. It resembles Trotskyism in its resistance to the Totalitarianism of Stalin and to the crusader politics of modern social classlessness, but differs in arguing that Lenin and Trotsky also made inequitable mistakes.
Thoughts of Maoism are different of Communism derived from the teachings of the Chinese leader Mao Zedong (or Mao Tse-tung) (1893 – 1976), and practised in the People’s Republic of China after the Chinese Revolution of 1949. Maoism evolved from the Marxism-Leninism of Stalin, but introduced new ideas such as Social-Imperialism (Mao accused the Soviet Union of dominating and exploiting the smaller countries in its scope to the point of organising their economies around Soviet, not domestic, needs), the Mass Line (a method of leadership that seeks to learn from the masses and immerse the political headship in the concerns and conditions of the masses – “from the masses, to the masses”), people’s war and new democracy.
Left Communism is a range of Communist perspectives held by the Communist Left, which asserts to be more truly Marxist and proletarian than the views of Leninism and its successors. Left Communists advocated the Russian Revolution, but did not agree to the methods of the Bolsheviks. The Russian, Dutch-German and the Italian traditions of Left Communism all share an opposition to nationalism, all kinds of national liberation movements, frontism parliamentary systems.
Council Communism is a far-reaching left movement that emanated in Germany and the Netherlands in the decade of 1920s, and continues today as a theoretic and activist position within both left-wing Marxism and Libertarian Socialism. It visualized workers’ councils, arising in factories and municipalities, as the natural form of working class organization and governmental power. This philosophical viewpoint opposes the notion of a “revolutionary party” on the basis that a revolution led by a party unavoidably produces a party despotism.
Anarchist Communism promotes the complete elimination of the state and Capitalism in favour of a horizontal network of voluntary associations, workers’ councils and/or commons through which everyone is free to satisfy their needs. The movement was led by the Russians Mikhail Bakunin (1814 – 1876) and Peter Kropotkin (1842 – 1921).
Euro communism was flourished in the decades of1970’s and 1980’s within various Western European Communist parties to develop a philosophy and practice of social change that was more applicable in a Western European egalitarianism and less allied to the party line of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
Religious Communism is a type of Communism that focus centred on religious attitudes, such as Christian, Taoist, Jain, Hindu or Buddhist. It usually denotes to a number of classless and utopian religious societies practicing the voluntary dissolution of private property, so that society’s benefits are distributed according to a person’s needs, and every person performs labour according to their abilities.
Benefit of communism: Communism philosophy upkeeps extensive universal social welfare, such as enhancements in public health and education. Its theoretical dogmas are beneficial to build equality and strong social communities. Communist ideology promotes universal education with a focus on developing the proletariat with knowledge, class realisation, and historical understanding. Communism also supports the liberation of women and to end their exploitation. Communist philosophy emphasizes the development of a “New Man”a class-conscious, knowledgeable, daring, democratic person dedicated to work and social consistency in contrast to the antithetic “bourgeois individualist” related with cultural backwardness and social atomisation.
Criticisms of Communism: There are numerous criticisms of Communism.
Many philosophers have argued that Communism offers an idea of unattainable perfect future, and keeps its subjects in thrall to it by devaluing the past and the present. It asserts to represent a universal truth which explains everything and can cure every ill and any apparent deviations or under-performance are explained away by casuistry and emotional appeals.
Philosophy of communism is incomplete. Marx and Engels never devoted much work to show how exactly a Communist economy would function in practice, leaving Socialism a “negative ideology”. The supposition that human nature is totally determined by the environment; Some Communists, such as Trotsky, believed that all the social, political and intellectual life processes in general are conditioned by the socio-economic base and the mode of production of material life, which rather devalues humanity and the importance of the lives and rights of human beings.
Many Anarchists and Libertarian Socialists throwaway the need for a transitory state phase and often disapprove Marxism and Communism for being too authoritarian. Some Anarcho-Primitivists reject left wing politics in general, seeing it as unethical and claiming that civilization is unreformable.
Some opponents have argued that Marx’s concept of freedom is really just a defence of dictatorship and oppression, and not an expansion of liberties as he claimed.
Some critics have construed many of Marx’s pronouncements on Jews as being anti-Semitic, claiming that he saw Jews as the embodiment of Capitalism and the creators of all its evils. Others, however, hotly dispute this interpretation.
Many Socialist reformists take issue with the Marxist requirement for a fierce proletarian revolution and argued that Capitalism can be reformed by steady democratic changes. Some theorists criticized communism philosophy on the ground that the concept of Historical Materialism which underlies much of Marxist theory is faulty, or that such a method can be twisted into trying to force the course of history in a particular direction, or that in practice it leads to Nihilism. In short, Historical Materialism is the notion that for human beings to survive, they need to produce and reproduce the material requirements of life, and this production is carried out through a division of labour based on very definite production relations between people. These relations form the financial base of society, and are themselves determined by the mode of production which is in force such as tribal society, ancient society, feudalism, capitalism, socialism and societies, and their cultural and institutional superstructures, naturally move from stage to stage as the foremost class is displaced by a new developing class in a social and political turmoil.
Other critics disapproved the ideology of Marxist class and argued that class is not the most important inequality in history, and that thorough analysis of many historical periods fails to find support for class or social development as used by Marxists. Some critics have argued that the growing spread of liberal democracy around the world, and the apparent lack of major revolutionary movements developing in them, suggest that Capitalism or social democracy is likely to be the effective form of human government instead of Marxism, which claims to be an “end of history” philosophy. According to Pope Pius XI, “Communism is intrinsically evil, and no one who would save Christian civilization may collaborate with it in any undertaking whatsoever” (Encyclical letter Divini Redemptoris, 58).
Effect of communism on society:
The main objective of Communism is to develop society without rulers, a society where the people oversee themselves. But until this is accomplished, a superior government has absolute power. The people do not have any private belongings and all assets belong to the government.
Therefore it has some disastrous effect on society. It can be illustrated from one of communism’s effects was in 1933. Cruel ruler, Hitler was a communist dictator. Under his instructions, the holocaust began. Reports indicated that approximately, six million Jewish people died. Communists consider their goal, their party, and the state more vital than the rights and autonomy of individual. In communist nations, there are usually huge gaps between official claims of freedom and conditions in which they actually exist.
To summarize, Communism is an economic system where the government owns most of the factors of production and decides the allocation of resources and what products and services will be provided. The most significant theorists who evolved the ideologies of communism were Karl Marx and Frederick Engels. They wanted to end the exploitation of the masses by the few. The capitalist system at that time required workers to work under harsh and dangerous conditions for little pay. According to economic scholars, communism is concept, in that ownership of land, capital and industry cannot be owned or controlled by the individual. However, under Communism the control of these things is not by a local community but by the State Government. Under this system, the government has total control of everything produced and control what is made, and who will receive the goods and services produced. The end goal of communism was to eradicate class distinctions among people, where everyone shared equally in the proceeds of society, when government would no longer be needed. In basic form, Communism is an ideology and a political and economic system to manage economies and countries. The core dogmas of communism are that all capital or means of production are owned and operated by the society or the government rather than by individuals as their private property. It is documented in theories that Communism is one of the most far-reaching political concepts but became popular throughout the world. It provided answer to the problems of capitalist and to establish a classless stateless society on a rational basis, where there is no exploitation and all live in peace, comfort and harmony getting full opportunity to develop their personality.