CommunismCommunism has had a dramatic rise and fall as a political system in the last century. Communism by Tom Lansford looks at the historic foots of this form of government, its political and economic components, how it compares with other types of government systems, and the likely reasons for its almost complete demise as a twenty-first century political system. Book jacket. |
Common terms and phrases
allowed arrested became bourgeoisie candidate Castro central committee Chinese Communist citizens civil classless society Cold Cold War collectivization communism communist governments communist leaders Communist Party communist regimes communist systems Communist Youth League Congress Constitution contemporary communist Cuba Cuban cult of personality Cultural Revolution democratic developed dictatorship Eastern Europe elections factories five-year plans forced foreign free-market freedom Germany goals groups ideology increased industrial instance Khrushchev Kim Il-sung known legislature Lenin limited Mao Zedong Mao's Maoism Marx and Engels Marx's Marxism Marxism-Leninism military million Modern monarchies nomenklatura noncommunist North Korea official Opposition and dissent organization ownership People's Republic percent policies politburo political and economic political power population private property proletariat propaganda religious repression Republic of China Russia secret police social democracy social welfare programs Soviet bloc Soviet Union Stalin suppressed Supreme Soviet theocracies totalitarian regimes United Vietnam vote wealth Western workers
Popular passages
Page 46 - But the dictatorship of the proletariat, ie, the organization of the vanguard of the oppressed as the ruling class for the purpose of crushing the oppressors, cannot result merely in an expansion of democracy. Simultaneously with an immense expansion of democracy which for the first time becomes democracy for the poor, democracy for the people, and not democracy for the rich, the dictatorship of the proletariat imposes a series of restrictions on the freedom of the oppressors, the exploiters, the...
Page 12 - The modern bourgeois society that has sprouted from the ruins of feudal society, has not done away with class antagonisms. It has but established new classes, new conditions of oppression, new forms of struggle in place of the old ones. Our epoch, the epoch of the bourgeoisie, possesses, however, this distinctive feature: It has simplified the class antagonisms. Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing each other - bourgeoisie...
Page 12 - The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles. Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild master and journeyman — in a word, oppressor and oppressed — stood in constant opposition to one another...
Page 13 - Our epoch, the epoch of the bourgeoisie, possesses, however, this distinctive feature: it has simplified the class antagonisms. Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing each other: bourgeoisie and proletariat.1 From the serfs of the Middle Ages sprang the chartered burghers of the earliest towns.
Page 53 - Receives the letters of credence and recall of diplomatic representatives accredited to it by foreign states ; (r) Proclaims martial law in separate localities or throughout the USSR in the interests of the defense of the USSR or of the maintenance of public order and the security of the state.
Page 20 - ... finally leading to such a concentration of production and capital that monopoly has been and is the result...
Page 90 - Parties which, by reason of their aims or the behavior of their adherents, seek to impair or destroy the free democratic basic order or to endanger the existence of the Federal Republic of Germany shall be unconstitutional.
Page 12 - In the earlier epochs of history, we find almost everywhere a complicated arrangement of society into various orders, a manifold gradation of social rank. In ancient Rome we have patricians, knights, plebeians, slaves; in the Middle Ages, feudal lords, vassals, guild-masters, journeymen, apprentices, serfs; in almost all of their classes, again, subordinate gradations.
Page 60 - Stalin originated the concept "enemy of the people." This term automatically rendered it unnecessary that the ideological errors of a man or men engaged in a controversy be proven ; this term made possible the usage of the most cruel repression, violating all norms of revolutionary legality, against anyone who in any way disagreed with Stalin, against those who were only suspected of hostile intent, against those who had bad reputations. This concept "enemy of the people...
Page 72 - Elections of deputies are universal : all citizens of the USSR who have reached the age of eighteen, irrespective of race or nationality, sex, religion, education, domicile, social origin, property status or past activities...