THE THEORY OF COMMUNISM

One of the contradictions in communism most frequently highlighted is that between the theory and the practice. While this is to some extent justified, it also needs to be borne in mind that, as with most concepts, there is no single theory of communism. Rather, there are numerous theories and variations on a theme – and some versions of the theory are more compatible with the practice than others. This theoretical diversity exists not only because so many individuals have contributed their ideas to the concept of communism, but also because of gaps, ambiguities, and even contradictions within the works of some of the best-known theorists. Nevertheless, there is sufficient agreement among most analysts of communist theory to permit the drawing of a reasonably coherent picture. Since this book is primarily concerned with the practice of Communism, the emphasis here is on those aspects of theory that provide a better understanding of how Communists in power perceived the world, why they acted as they did, and how they attempted to justify their actions.

While there were many theorists of various kinds of communism both before him (e.g. Henri de Saint-Simon, 1760–1825; Charles Fourier, 1772–1837) and as contemporaries (e.g. Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, 1809–65), the person almost always seen nowadays as the father of communism is Karl Marx (1818–83). In fact, however, Marx’s main contributions were to provide a broad theoretical framework for interpreting the world – in particular, the march of history – and a deep analysis of the nature of capitalism. In many ways, more influential on Communism in practice were the Russian revolutionary leader Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924); his successor, Josef Stalin (1878–1953); and Chinese revolutionary leader Mao Zedong (1893–1976). The contribution of each to communist theory needs to be considered. First, however, it is important to note that – in the cases of Marx, Lenin, and Mao at least – the interest in communism was to no small extent the result of a profound alienation from the existing system and a desire for a better world.

Marxism.

Much of what is usually called classical Marxism was in fact based on the ideas of Marx himself and his colleague Friedrich Engels (1820–95). But Marx was the dominant partner in this intellectual relationship, so that we shall follow the usual custom of describing even their co-authored works as Marxist, and the focus here will be on Marx himself.

As with any thinker, it is important to locate Marx in time and place. He was born in what is now Germany – though he spent most of his adult life in England – at a time when the Industrial Revolution and the development of capitalism were already underway in Western Europe. It was also a time when the ramifications of the French Revolution (from 1789) were still being felt throughout Europe, and there were several other revolutionary phases during his lifetime, notably in 1830, 1848–9, and 1871. Marx was fascinated by these various revolutionary situations, and believed he could discern patterns in historical development. These patterns were formed by reactions to events and developments; once the reaction had occurred, there were in turn reactions to this.

Marx’s approach to history has thus been called a dialectical one, meaning that he saw history progressing through conflict, or the interplay between actions and reactions – while his conviction that there are identifiable laws to the march of history has led many to label him an historicist, and his approach to history historical materialism. This last term requires explanation.

In their attempts to explain the nature of reality, philosophers are often classified as either idealists or materialists. The core of the first of these terms is the word ‘idea’. In this approach, the world around us comprises manifestations of concepts or ideas; it is the ideas that constitute reality, not their worldly manifestations. The best-known idealist is the German philosopher G. W. F. Hegel (1770–1831). While Marx was heavily influenced and impressed by Hegel, he adopted a fundamentally different approach to reality. For Marx, the physical – or material (hence materialism) – world around us is reality, and our ideas and perceptions are determined by our relationship to that reality. How we see that world – how we interpret material reality – varies according to who we are, and when and where we live. For instance, one’s interpretation or conception of what a city is would be very different if one lived in New York in the 21st century – when we might think of skyscrapers, freeways, subways, congestion, pollution, jazz clubs, and so on – from what it would have been to someone living in Florence in the 15th century or Athens in ancient Greece. The material nature of these three cities in three different eras varies enormously, which in turn affects perceptions of what a city is. But Marx believed that there was more than just temporal and geographic dimensions for explaining differing perceptions. In addition, he argued, a person’s position in society affects the way that person perceives the world. For example, the owner of a factory would see the factory in a different light from how a worker in that factory would see it. For the former, it might represent personal achievement, prestige, and high income; for the latter, it might represent alienation, and hard work for a meagre income.

Marx’s materialist view of the world is closely related to his historicism; his combination of the two explains why his approach is so often described as historical materialism. For Marx, the driving force of history is class relationships. He defines class in terms of a person’s relationship to the means of production; crudely, this means that most people’s class position is determined primarily by whether or not they own property, particularly property that can generate wealth. Thus, in the feudal system that preceded the Industrial Revolution and the emergence of capitalism, the most fundamental class division was between those who owned land, and those who had to work for those who owned the land. With the advent of the spinning jenny, the steam engine, and other inventions of the early Industrial Revolution, themost important class division became that between those who owned factories, and those who worked for the factory owners.Marx called the former ‘capitalists’ or ‘the bourgeoisie’, and the latter the ‘proletariat’, which literally means ‘without property’. While his class analysis is more complex and sophisticated than the simplified outline provided here, it is these most basic divisions within any given era – centred on private property – that, for Marx, lead to fundamental or revolutionary change. This argument is summarized in the opening chapter of what is themost famous and most widely read book on communism, the short Communist Manifesto (1848) – ‘The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.’ According to this theory, the tensions between classes build up over time, and eventually result in revolutionary change. However, until the emergence of capitalism, it was not tensions between what he saw as the main exploiting and the main exploited classes that led to revolutionary change; often, scientific, technical, and economic changes led to the emergence of a new elite that sought to wrest power from the existing ruling class. ForMarx, the French Revolution could largely be understood in these terms.

However, Marx believed that the era in which he was living was different from all previous ones, in two ways. First, the class structure of capitalism was becoming simpler than that in earlier epochs, with society even more clearly dominated by just two main classes. Second, the class struggle under capitalism would be primarily between the bourgeoisie and an increasingly alienated proletariat, not between the existing ruling class (the bourgeoisie) and some new potential elite class. He believed for most of his life that the tensions between these two main classes would eventually build up to such a point that a socialist revolution would occur. Unlike all previous class revolutions, therefore, this one would be followed by a political system dominated by the majority of the population, not a minority or small elite as in the past. But Marx was vague about what would follow a socialist revolution. He maintained that, in the long term, a new type of society – communism – would emerge, in which there would be no ruling class and no alienation. Indeed, in this ultimate society, there would be no politics as such and no need for a state, which would ‘wither away’; the ‘government of persons’ would be replaced by the ‘administration of things’. But immediately following the socialist revolution, before this ultimate stage was reached, there would be a temporary or transitional state, the dictatorship of the proletariat. What Marx meant by this is not entirely clear; he only used the actual phrase twice in his writings, and never provided much detail on it. But he was impressed by the short-lived experiment in France known as the Paris Commune (1871), and saw many features of that experiment, including the way in which ordinary workers exercised power – became the new ruling class – as indicative of what a dictatorship of the proletariat might look like.

An important point to emphasize about Marx is that he was above all a theorist and polemicist; while he was politically active at several points in his life, he was not a national leader. This helps to explain why much of his writing and analysis is abstract, and short on practical details. As already noted, his descriptions of the state following a socialist revolution are hazy. However, three important points need to be made before moving on to Lenin. First, Marx was reasonably clear that only advanced industrial societies could have socialist revolutions; predominantly rural, agricultural societies would not be ready for such changes, and history had to follow its own logic. Second, Marx was consistently an internationalist; he did not believe that one country alone could have a successful socialist revolution. Finally and importantly, there is a common misperception that Marx’s references to communism were only to the final end-goal. In fact, Marx made it clear in The German Ideology (completed in 1846) that communism meant for him the political movement that undermines and overthrows the existing political system as much as the final goal: Communism is for us not a state of affairs that is to be established, an ideal to which reality [will] have to adjust itself. We call communism the real movement that abolishes the present state of things. [emphasis in original]

Leninism

Lenin was born in the late 19th century into a Russian family that lived in a small city on the River Volga. Both of his parents were teachers, and had highly developed senses of civic responsibility. When Lenin was just a teenager, his older (but still teenage) brother was arrested and subsequently executed for allegedly plotting to assassinate Tsar Alexander III; a number of commentators have argued that this traumatic experience hardened the young Lenin and helps to explain his passionate hatred of the Russian Tsarist autocracy. This combination of a sense of social responsibility and hatred of the system in which he lived helps to explain Lenin’s approach to politics, history, and the Russian Empire. Soon after the death of his brother, Lenin began to study revolutionary ideas, in particular those of Russian radicals such as Nikolai Chernyshevsky and of Marx. By the late 19th century, he had fallen foul of the Russian authorities, and was sent into exile.
But his influence on Russian radicals was profound, and by the end of 1917, following the third Russian Revolution of the 20th century (the October Revolution; there were also revolutions in 1905 and February 1917), he and his party – the Bolsheviks – had taken power. Russia was now to be ruled by Communists for more than seven decades.

Unlike Marx, Lenin was deeply involved in national politics, and while he did occasionally produce more abstract analyses of his longer-term vision of socialism and communism, notably in The State and Revolution (1917), most of his contributions to communist theory arose out of his own experiences of and reactions to the world around him, as well as from his polemics with other Marxists. His most important theoretical contributions were on the role of the revolutionary party; his analysis of imperialism; and the distinctions he drew between socialism and communism.

Marx had said little about political parties, in part because they had not been as salient a feature in his day as they became in the 20th century. But Lenin believed that political consciousness of its exploited situation would be slow to develop in the Russian working class, and hence developed his theory of the vanguard party. In What is to be Done? (1902), Lenin argued that some people are much more politically aware than others, and should assume responsibility for leading society to socialism. This was an elitist approach to a political party, and has been compared to Plato’s arguments in favour of rule by ‘philosopher-kings’. Moreover, the party was to be highly secretive. While some have defended Lenin’s position on the grounds that the type of clandestine and closed party he advocated was necessary in the repressive conditions of the Tsarist autocracy of the early 20th century, the fact is that the Bolshevik party – which eventually became the Communist Party of the Soviet Union – did not changemany of its key features even after it had seized power. Indeed, Lenin called for much stricter discipline.

Lenin’s theory of imperialism is particularly relevant here because it ultimately led to the justification of a significant change to Marx’s approach – one that was subsequently used by revolutionaries in many parts of the world to justify their seizure of power in situations Marx himself would have considered quite inappropriate. In a long analysis of the reasons for the outbreak of World War I published in 1917, Lenin maintained that imperialism was ‘the highest stage of capitalism’. The world’s major empires had essentially divided up the world between them and, according to Lenin, the only way individual imperial powers could now continue to expand in their search for resources, new markets, and cheap labour was to seize colonies from other imperial powers.

Lenin saw this constant drive for expansion and profit as the basis of the conflict between major European powers that constituted the Great War. The relevance of this to the development of Communism is that Lenin used his theory to justify the Bolshevik takeover of power in Russia, despite his awareness that, according to classical Marxist analysis, Russia was not yet ready for a socialist revolution. He argued that Russia, which had begun its industrialization in earnest in the late 19th century but was still overwhelmingly an agrarian country, constituted the weakest link in a chain of capitalist countries; if the chain were to be broken at its weakest point, the whole edifice of international capitalism would collapse. Russia would then be absorbed into the new international socialist orbit by the countries that were sufficiently developed to move on from capitalism, such as Britain, France, and Germany. By the early 1920s, it was clear that capitalism had not collapsed; but the Bolsheviks were unwilling to surrender the power they had seized in October 1917, and Lenin had made a significant change to classical Marxist theory.

A final point about Lenin’s contribution to communist theory is that he drew a sharper distinction than Marx did between socialism and communism. Marx often used the terms interchangeably, although he did sometimes describe the former as the early phase of the latter. But Lenin was more explicit that the distribution of wealth under socialism was to be on a different basis from that under communism; whereas the guiding principle under the latter was to be ‘from each according to their ability, to each according to their need’, under the former it was to be ‘from each according to their ability, to each according to their labour’. This distinction has been used to justify sometimes significant differences in income in Communist states. Lenin also placed more emphasis than Marx did on the need for a strong state immediately following a socialist revolution, which subsequently played into the hands of Communists in power.

Stalinism

Lenin died in January 1924, and a salient feature of Communist systems – their inability or unwillingness to introduce formal leadership succession arrangements – immediately became obvious. By the late 1920s, the Georgian Stalin had won the leadership succession struggle against rivals such as Leon Trotsky; Stalin’s image until then as a moderate compromiser was in marked contrast to that of Trotsky, who was seen as a brilliant but often hotheaded and ruthless intellectual. Stalin’s conciliatory image was ironic since, once he had consolidated power, he emerged as one of the cruelest dictators in history. Although not possessed of a highly original intellect, Stalin did contribute to communist theory, and sometimes justified his actions (practice) through quasi-theoretical means.

Stalin’s most important contribution to communist theory was in his advocacy and adoption of the notion of ‘Socialism in One Country’ in 1925–6. This was not a particularly insightful concept, since it represented little more than a theoretical justification of actual developments in and beyond what had since 1922 been called the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). Nor was it Stalin who originally devised the concept; while he had made vague references along these lines in late 1924, it was another of his rivals for the top leadership position,Nikolai Bukharin,who really developed the idea, which Stalin then adopted as official policy. The policy basically justified attempts to build socialismnot only in one country, but also in a country that Lenin had admitted was not, by itself, ready for socialism. The policy thus contradicted two basic tenets of classical Marxism. On the other hand, it appealed to Soviet citizens much more than Trotsky’s notion of permanent revolution; most citizens were tired of wars and revolutions, andwanted stability. Socialismin One Country was also used to justify the introduction of other key features of Stalin’s approach, and which became salient aspects of Communist systems. These were industrialization via a centrally planned economy, and collectivization of agriculture. Although it would be stretching a point to argue that two further features of Stalinism – high levels of state terror and a personality cult – were part of communist theory, they did become salient features of Communist practice in many other countries.

Marxism–Leninism

Although the term was not used by Lenin, Communist ideology was often called ‘Marxism-Leninism’, a term apparently devised by Stalin. Some Communist states made additions to this term to give their ideology a national or local flavour. Thus Chinese ideology was long called ‘Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought’ – though this has now been updated to incorporate the contribution of Mao’s successors, and has since late 2002 been known by the unwieldy title of ‘Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought, Deng Xiaoping Theory, and the Thought of Three Represents’ (the Chinese Communist Party must always represent ‘the development trend of China’s advanced productive forces, the orientation of China’s advanced culture, and the fundamental interests of the overwhelming majority of the Chinese people’, according to former Chinese supreme leader Jiang Zemin). Similarly, North Korean ideology has been labelled ‘Marxism-Leninism and the Juche Idea’; Juche is a Korean conception of self-reliance, and clearly resonates with Stalin’s Socialism in One Country.

Maoism

Like Lenin, Mao was attracted to Marxism because of his profound dissatisfaction with the situation in his country in his earlier years; but he was particularly attracted to Lenin’s theory of imperialism and Stalin’s notion of Socialism in One Country. China had overthrown the imperial system in the 1911 Chinese Revolution, but had then entered a period of rule by warlords and nationalists that, as Mao saw it, was not helping the country’s development. According to contemporary Chinese ideologists, Mao’s major contribution to communist theory was to develop a theoretical justification for the building of and rule by a Communist party in a ‘semi-colonial, semi-feudal society comprising mainly peasants and petty bourgeoisie’. Although Stalin distorted classical Marxism in various ways, he did accept that the Marxist model was based on an urban proletariat, not the rural peasantry; indeed, although this quotation is often cited out of context, Marx and Engels had referred in The Communist Manifesto to ‘the idiocy of rural life’. But Mao took power in an overwhelmingly agricultural country, and needed to justify his claim that this was in line with Marxism. In fact, he was better able to legitimize his actions and ideas in terms of ‘Marxism-Leninism’ – particularly Stalin’s notion of Socialism in One Country – than of classical Marxism.

Eurocommunism

Lenin, Stalin, and Mao all elaborated their theories in the context of what would nowadays be called developing states. But given Marx’s own focus on advanced industrial states, it is important not to overlook the fact thatWestern states such as France and Italy had powerful Communist parties formuch of the 20th century.However, conditions in these and other Western countries differed significantly from those in the USSR, China, and other Communist states, so that it is hardly surprising that some Communists in Western Europe developed a quite different approach to communism. While some, notably in France, remained loyal to Moscow from the 1940s until at least the late 1960s, others soon began to question the suitability of the Soviet model for their own countries and conditions. Leading this were the Italians. Already in the 1950s, Italian Communist leader Palmiro Togliatti had argued that it was inappropriate for Communists to revere one country or system, and that each country should develop its own blueprint for achieving communism, depending on its specific circumstances. He therefore advocated ‘polycentrism’, rather than a world Communist movement focused on one centre (i.e.Moscow). This initially received only limited support among other Western Communist parties. But the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968 led to widespread criticism of the USSR among Western Communists generally, not only the Italians. Many left their parties in disgust. Others, however, preferred to remain in their parties, criticize Soviet Communism, and develop their own softer andmore democratic version of Communism. One other spur to the emergence of what by the mid-1970s was being called ‘Eurocommunism’ was the collapse of the right-wing Franco dictatorship in Spain and the re-emergence of the Spanish Communist Party.While many other Communist parties in Western Europe were also more or less attracted to the new, more tolerant and less dogmatic version of communism, it was really the French, Italian, and Spanish parties – particularly the latter two – that led the way. Although the movement eventually faded, with most Italian Communists even abandoning the term‘communism’ altogether and re-naming themselves the Democratic Party of the Left in 1991, it had constituted a serious intellectual and theoretical challenge to Communists in power in Eastern Europe, the USSR, and Asia for much of the 1970s and 1980s.

Conclusions

Communist theory is ambiguous, often incomplete, and sometimes overtly contradictory. This is partly because the various theorists were writing at different times about different conditions and in different personal situations; not being a political leader himself, Marx did not have to justify his actions – unlike Lenin, Stalin, or Mao. It is partly because they were sometimes interpreting the past, sometimes analysing the present, sometimes discussing the near-to-medium-term future, and occasionally speculating on the long-term goal of a communist society. In part it is also because, like most theorists, they were not completely consistent throughout their lives. And in part, it is because they were sometimes writing from a more normative perspective (i.e. what should be), at other times from a more descriptive one (i.e. what is).

But in addition, there are also fundamental differences of approach among communist theorists, which are best explained in terms of the voluntarism versus determinism debate. Marx himself mostly tended towards a determinist interpretation of history, meaning that he believed history had to work its way through its various stages – the actions and reactions of the dialectic. While he believed that Communists could and should help to keep the pace of historical change moving – ‘the philosophers have only interpreted the world . . . the point is to change it’, he wrote in Theses on Feuerbach (completed 1845) – Marx was wary of what might happen if they attempted artificially to accelerate it too much. Indeed, Marx became more of a determinist in his later years. In his never completed major analysis of the political economy of capitalism, Capital (Vol. 1 published 1867; the incomplete Vols. 2 and 3 were edited by Engels and published post-humously in 1885 and 1894 respectively), Marx describes a more abstract, impersonal, and globalized capitalism, in which the structural contradictions inherent within the system itself, rather than a conscious struggle between capitalists and workers, leads to crisis and the collapse of capitalism.

Conversely, leaders such as Lenin and Mao were clearly voluntarists, in that they believed that the application of human will could and would accelerate or even bypass historical processes. Whether they were voluntarists because of their assertive personalities, or because of a perceived need to use a revolutionary theory to justify their actions to overthrow repressive regimes and modernize their societies, or – most likely – because of a blend of these, the fact remains that they adapted Marxism to suit their objectives. In the process, they distorted the original ideas – even more so Marx’s later writing than his earlier theorizing. For this, they were sometimes criticized by other, more determinist Marxists; the German–Austrian Karl Kautsky (1854–1938) was often highly critical of Lenin’s voluntarism, for instance. This said, and as has been shown, Marx’s own writings on socialist revolution and what would follow this were often vague or incomplete, so that they lent themselves to very diverse interpretations. But there are tensions and contradictions even within Lenin’s work, and his views on what would succeed a socialist revolution as expressed in The State and Revolution were sometimes at odds with what he wrote and did following what he claimed was a socialist revolution in Russia. Given all this, the best way to understand what Communism is or was is to study it in practice.

Written by Leslie Holmes in "Communism - A Very Short Introduction", Oxford University Press, UK, 2009, excerpts pp.1-16.Digitized, adapted and illustrated to be posted by Leopoldo Costa.