What is Communism? | Socialism 101 #1

Communism. There’s a lot of excitement surrounding the term,

though usually as an insult rather than an accurate political descriptor.

You’ve probably heard Joe Biden called one, certainly Bernie Sanders – maybe even Donald

Trump. Somehow. But what is communism, beyond this ill-defined bogeyman you were taught to hate?

Isn’t it just when no iPhone Vuvezuela 300 gorillion like they say in the YouTube comments?

Let’s find out. Welcome to Socialism 101:

What is Communism

a series designed to educate people with no prior knowledge on the basics of socialism and

communism from an explicitly Marxist-Leninist perspective. There’s a lot of misinformation

about communism spread by those both on the political right and the political left,

so this series seeks to demystify and clarify exactly what it is that we Marxist-Leninists and

Marxist-Leninist-Maoists believe in short, easily-digestible videos. After this “101”

series is finished, there’ll be an Intermediate Socialism 201 and an Advanced Socialism 301.

If this sounds interesting to you, hit subscribe and turn on the bell notifications below.

On that note – Howiya doing? My name’s Paul and I’m an Irish communist.

But what does it mean when I say “communist”? Friedrich Engels, the magnificently bearded

co-author of The Communist Manifesto, wrote that “Communism is the doctrine of the prerequisites

for the emancipation of the proletariat” - a theoretical toolbox that clearly maps

out how to achieve complete liberation for all working people. And this isn’t just by securing

free healthcare or increasing the minimum wage. In 1845, Karl Marx wrote that “We call communism

the real movement which abolishes the present state of things”. The aim is a fundamental

transformation of society, which once and for all ends “the exploitation of man by man”.

We call the people involved in this project “communists”.

But what’s our end-goal? To take away everyone’s toothbrush?

No. You keep your personal property. Please. The goal of communism as a movement, simply put,

is to create a stateless, classless, moneyless society – that is to say, a communist society.

Now, how we get there is a matter of debate among various different sections of the political left:

some, such as anarchists, believe we can have a revolution and establish this

kind of society immediately thereafter. Others, including Marxists like myself,

believe that we’ll need a transitional stage between capitalism and communism –

a transitional stage called socialism. But hang on a minute – what about Communist

Communist States

States? Don’t these communist states like the USSR and China contradict what’s been said so far?

Well, “Communist State” is a term used pretty much exclusively by those in the Western world.

These countries never called themselves communist states. They called themselves

“socialist states” - it’s in the name: Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

The term “Communist State” is also an oxymoron, given that communism is, as mentioned earlier,

a stateless, classless, moneyless society. Nice job, Western academic big brains.

Historical Development