The Author of communism Karl Heinrich Marx (5 May 1818—14 March 1883) was a greatly influential German philosopher, political economist, and socialist revolutionary, who analytically addressed the matters of alienation and exploitation of the working class, the capitalist mode of production, and historical materialism. He is famous for analysing history in terms of class struggle, summarised in the initial line introducing the Communist Manifesto (1848): “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles”. His ideas were influential in his time, and it was greatly expanded by the successful Bolshevik October Revolution of 1917 in Imperial Russia. Friedrich Engels (28 November 1820–5 August 1895) was the nineteenth century German political philosopher and Karl Marx’s co-developer of communist theory. Marx and Engels met in September 1844; discovering that they shared views of philosophy and socialism, they collaborated and wrote works such as Die heilige Familie (The Holy Family). After the French deported Marx from France in January 1845, Engels and Marx moved to Belgium, which then permitted greater freedom of expression than other European countries; later, in January 1846, they returned to Brussels to establish the Communist Correspondence Committee. In 1847, they began writing The Communist Manifesto (1848), based upon Engels’ The Principles of Communism; six weeks later, they published the 12,000-word pamphlet in February 1848. In March, Belgium expelled them, and they moved to Cologne, where they published the Neue Rheinische Zeitung, a politically radical newspaper. Again, by 1849, they had to leave Cologne for London. The Prussian authorities pressured the British government to expel Marx and Engels, but Prime Minister Lord John Russell refused. After Karl Marx’s death in 1883, Friedrich Engels became the editor and translator of Marx’s writings. With the Origins of the Family, Private Property, and the State (1884) — analysing monogamous marriage as guaranteeing male social domination of women, a concept analogous, in communist theory, to the capitalist class’s economic domination of the working class — intellectually significant contributions to feminist theory and Marxist feminism. Communist Manifesto The Communist Manifesto reflects an attempt to explain the goals of Communism, as well as the theory underlying this movement. It argues that class struggles, or the exploitation of one class by another, are the motivating force behind all historical developments. Class relationships are defined by an era's means of production. However, eventually these relationships cease to be compatible with the developing forces of production. At this point, a revolution occurs and a new class emerges as the ruling one. This process represents the "march of history" as driven by larger economic forces. Modern Industrial society is characterized by class conflict between the bourgeoisie and proletariat. However, the productive forces of capitalism are quickly ceasing to be compatible with this exploitative relationship. Thus, the proletariat will lead a revolution. However, this revolution will be of a different character than all previous ones: previous revolutions simply reallocated property in favor of the new ruling class. However, by the nature of their class, the members of the proletariat have no way of appropriating property. Therefore, when they obtain control they will have to destroy all ownership of private property, and classes themselves will disappear. The Manifesto argues that this development is inevitable, and that capitalism is inherently unstable. The Communists intend to promote this revolution, and will promote the parties and associations that are moving history towards its natural conclusion. They argue that the elimination of social classes cannot come about through reforms or changes in government. Rather, a revolution will be required. The Communist Manifesto has four sections. In the first section, it discusses the Communists' theory of history and the relationship between proletarians and bourgeoisie. The second section explains the relationship between the Communists and the proletarians. The third section addresses the flaws in other, previous socialist literature. The final section discusses the relationship between the Communists and other parties. Communism vs. Stalinism I think there's a basic confusion about Communism given that we really haven't seen it practiced for any length of time. Although there are a few known and proven facts which show pros and cons of this regime. One basic misconception is that Stalinism is communism. What Stalin came up with was a totalitarian dictatorship (or possibly an oligarchy, haven't decided yet). He just stole the name of Communism because it sounded better than dictatorship. Many of the world's dictatorships call themselves democracies because it just sounds better (Ukraine is a good example). Secondly, people who favor communism really don't get the point that it only seems to work for long periods of time in small groupings of 100,000 or less. Once the population grows beyond that it generally converts into some form of market democracy or into an oligarchy. It is because of human nature. People have always wanted to have more than the others for various reasons. Fortunately, you can have some of the benefits of communism as an add-on package to a democracy or democratic republic, in the form of Socialism. A mix of democracy and socialism helps iron out many of the people problems that occur when a market is allowed to be fairly uncontrolled. Socialism is the "caring about people" part of communism, to help deal with the side effects of having the "free market" opposite of communism. Pros and cons of communism CONS: Human nature- · Current modern human, not very different from our caveman ancestor, who judges success according to what they have not according to what they have done, is not ready for a place where the one who has the greatest car or the biggest house is the biggest boss. It's not ready to stop looking down on others and forget about prejudice. It's not ready to let go the old consumer mind. It's not ready for many things involved in Communism. · it will never work, people are greedy and the central government keeps too much money for themselves. Economy- · A country where it's residents are not at the rate of other contrived will want to leave in search of a better life or "the American dream?" Thus as humans of today we don't live with what we need we live with what we want... Which is the basic problem why it is not possible to have truly communist regime · What and how much to produce of Goods or Services is decided upon by a committe. People are usually dissatsified. In Capitalisim, the consumer (you) decides which means you have more choice. PROS: · The health care and schools are for free and on a high level. If you have a serious health problem you get the same care whether you are proletarian or burgeon · Education and law is strongly forced which lowers the rate of criminality and drug abuse to minimum – which in “modern” countries is a great problem. · Standard of living is set the same for everybody so people do not have to worry about starving or losing their home. · Money are put into the most important things such as – infrastructure, environment, health care, schools, science... etc. In capitalist countries the money are put into the most profitable things. Conclusion After I have carried out my research on Karl Marx’s communism, my idea of how it really looks like has changed a lot. At first I have realized that there is a great difference between Stalinism and Communism. The second thing is that Communism has never been tested in a full scale so nobody can really tell whether my conclusion is correct or not. Thirdly after seeing all the facts I think that a country with 100% working communist regime could be called an Utopia. Unfortunately people are not ready jet to give to the poor to share their own property and to come out of our little materialistic box. Don’t you think that country where everything is shared where health, science, education, social care is for free and on a high level would be a nice one to live in? Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Marx http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Communist_Manifesto http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/11/prin-com.htm http://www.allaboutphilosophy.org/communism.htm