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What does communism mean?
In modern political history, communism is most strongly associated with Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. They described industrial capitalist society as divided between the bourgeoisie, who own capital and productive property, and the proletariat, who work for wages. In their account, the groups’ interests conflict because owners control the resources and conditions of production.
In the 1848 Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels present communists as part of the broader workers’ movement. They identify an immediate political aim: workers organize as a class, overthrow bourgeois political supremacy, and take political power. The long-term aim is to overcome the class relations associated with capitalism.
What “abolishing private property” meant to Marx and Engels
Their argument was not that nobody should own personal belongings. They focused on bourgeois productive property and the power attached to owning it. As they put it in Chapter II, “The distinguishing feature of Communism is not the abolition of property generally, but the abolition of bourgeois property.” In this usage, the issue is ownership of productive resources and the social relations built around that ownership, not personal appropriation for individual use.
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What is the communist ideal?
A familiar principle associated with Marx’s Critique of the Gotha Programme is “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.” It expresses an ideal of contribution and distribution in a future communist society, rather than a description of how every historical government calling itself communist operated.
Marx did not provide a detailed institutional blueprint for that future society. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy notes that he says relatively little about its basic structure. It is therefore important to distinguish the imagined end-state from the political transition toward it, and from the institutions or policies adopted by a historical party or state. See the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy’s Spring 2022 entry on Karl Marx for scholarly discussion of these distinctions.
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How is communism different from socialism?
The terms overlap, and their meanings have shifted across authors, parties, and historical periods. A useful broad distinction is that socialism names a wide family of proposals for social ownership or control and greater economic equality, while Marxist communism refers to a revolutionary tradition aimed at overcoming capitalist class relations and reaching a classless society.
This is a guide to one influential usage, not a universal rule. It does not mean every socialist movement favors gradual change, or that all communist movements have followed the same route. When comparing a policy or movement, ask whether it is talking about social ownership, a revolutionary program, a transition in political power, or a projected classless society.
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Movements and governments that claimed communist aims have varied. The Russian Revolution and the Soviet experience are prominent examples, but they should not be treated as a complete definition of the theoretical ideal. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum describes Bolshevism as departing in significant ways from traditional Marxist theory and discusses the Soviet experience under Lenin and Stalin, including Stalin’s consolidation of power and repression. These are claims about specific historical movements and periods, not a description of every group that has used the communist label.
The museum also records that the Communist Party of Germany received 16.9% of the vote in the November 1932 elections. It states that the first 100 prisoners at Dachau were German Communists; the camp opened in March 1933 to imprison political opponents of the Nazi regime. These figures provide historical context about communist political opponents in Germany, not general statistics about communism.
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For an overview of Marx and Engels, Bolshevism, and the Soviet experience, see the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s “Communism” article.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.How to assess a claim about communism
When someone says a country, policy, or movement is “communist,” clarify what they mean before drawing conclusions. These distinctions help keep theory, political programs, and historical records from being conflated.
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- Ideal or historical case: Is the claim about a projected classless society, a party’s stated program, or a government’s actual record?
- Kind of ownership: Is it about personal possessions, productive property, state ownership, or collective and social control?
- Political route and institutions: Is it about revolution, a transitional government, democratic participation, or the settled structure of a proposed society?
For a primary source, read Marx and Engels’ Communist Manifesto with its historical context in mind; it is a political text, not a neutral modern overview.
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