A form of government which arose from the revolution in Russia, circa 1917 and which explicitly distinguished itself from socialism.
Communism, as a concept, had initially been formulated by Karl Marx who saw it as a process of sudden change or reform of the capitalist system, especially laws which sustained private property; socialism being the means, communism the end.
Bogdanor writes that the other nations in the world have modeled the Russian model of communism (China and Cuba, in particular) and that it is characterized by the:
“... monolithic unity of the organization demanded the total subordination of the minority to the majority and the prohibition of factions and fractions.
The Oxford Dictionary of Politics puts it more succinctly, describing communism as an ultimate perhaps utopian end to achieve:
“... a classless, socialist society in which private ownership has been abolished and the means of production and subsistence belong to the community.”
Communism is a utopian state of government never fully attained by socialist states. From Hawkesworth and Kogan:
“None of the communist states ever claimed to have reached communism. According to their official spokespersons, most were at various stages of socialism.”
This is perhaps not surprising. A Chilean government official once said:
“Socialism can only arrive by bicycle.”
REFERENCES:
- Bogdanor, Vernon, The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Political Science (Oxford, Blackwell Publishers, 1991), p. 122.
- McLean, I., and McMillan, A., Oxford Concise Dictionary of Politics, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), p. 96.