Transcription
For many years, communism was the dominant economic system used in many countries across Eastern Europe and Asia. But, what is communism? How did it get started?
The modern idea of communism was first proposed by German philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Together, they wrote a short book known as “The Communist Manifesto”. In it, they suggested that someday, the working class, known as the proletariat, would rise up and overthrow their wealthy employers. At that point, the proletariat would completely restructure society.
One of the key principles of communism is the concept of a classless society. This led to a concerted effort by communist governments to eliminate anything that might be representative of class warfare, or create class envy. For example, clothing in communist nations was relatively bland and uniformed, and most cars were of the same make. More importantly, the salaries of employees, regardless of the job performed, were all regulated so that each person would earn approximately the same amount of money.
The eventual goal of this 'classless society' would be a state in which there was no currency at all, and the government provided food, clothing and shelter to citizens in equal amounts. In a true communist nation, there is to be no private ownership of property. All property and businesses are owned by the national government. Therefore, all workers are employed by the government. This would also mean that the state controlled all means of producing goods and services, thus allowing the government to control the distribution of those products.
Marx and Engels’ arguments in favor of a classless society gained popularity throughout the later part of the 19th Century. Finally, in 1917, a group of Communists in Russia, known as Bolsheviks, started a revolution. The end result was a Communist takeover of Russia and the creation of a nation known as the Soviet Union.
For many years, the Soviet Union was the only Communist nation. However, following World War II, many other Eastern European nations followed Russia's lead and implemented a communist system. These nations included Poland, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Romania. Throughout the 1940s, ‘50s and ‘60s, many Asian nations such as China and North Korea also adopted Communism. At one point during what came to be known as the Cold War era, a full ¼ of the world’s population lived under some type of communist rule.