List of communist ideologies


Since the time of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, a variety of developments have been made in communist theory and attempts to build a communist society, leading to a variety of different communist ideologies. These span philosophical, social, political and economic ideologies and movements, and can be split into three broad categories: Marxist-based ideologies, Leninist-based ideologies, and Non-Marxist ideologies, though influence between the different ideologies is found throughout and key theorists may be described as belonging to one or important to multiple ideologies.

Background

Communist ideologies notable enough in the history of communism include philosophical, social, political and economic ideologies and movements whose ultimate goal is the establishment of a communist society, a socioeconomic order structured upon the ideas of common ownership of the means of production and the absence of social classes, money and the state.
Self-identified communists hold a variety of views, including libertarian communism, Marxist communism, non-Marxist communism, and religious communism. While it originates from the works of 19th century German philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Marxist communism has developed into many different branches and schools of thought, with the result that there is now no single definitive Marxist theory.
Different communist schools of thought place a greater emphasis on certain aspects of classical Marxism while rejecting or modifying other aspects. Many communist schools of thought have sought to combine Marxian concepts and non-Marxian concepts which has then led to contradictory conclusions. However, there is a movement toward the recognition that historical materialism and dialectical materialism remains the fundamental aspect of all Marxist communist schools of thought. The offshoots of Marxism–Leninism are the most well-known of these and have been a driving force in international relations during most of the 20th century.

Marxist communism

Marxism

Marxism is a method of socioeconomic analysis that views class relations and social conflict using a materialist interpretation of historical development and takes a dialectical view of social transformation. It originates from the works of 19th century German philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Classical Marxism is the economic, philosophical and sociological theories expounded by Marx and Engels as contrasted with later developments in Marxism, especially Leninism and Marxism–Leninism.
Under the capitalist mode of production, this struggle materializes between the minority, who own the means of production, and the vast majority of the population, who produce goods and services. Starting with the concept that social change occurs because of the struggle between different classes within society who are under contradiction against each other, a Marxist would conclude that capitalism exploits and oppresses the proletariat, therefore capitalism will inevitably lead to a proletarian revolution. In a socialist society, private property—in the form of the means of production—would be replaced by co-operative ownership. A socialist economy would not base production on the creation of private profits, but on the criteria of satisfying human needs—that is, production would be carried out directly for use. As Friedrich Engels said: "Then the capitalist mode of appropriation, in which the product enslaves first the producer, and then the appropriator, is replaced by the mode of appropriation of the product that is based upon the nature of the modern means of production; upon the one hand, direct social appropriation, as means to the maintenance and extension of production - on the other, direct individual appropriation, as means of subsistence and of enjoyment".
Marxian economics and its proponents view capitalism as economically unsustainable and incapable of improving the living standards of the population due to its need to compensate for falling rates of profit by cutting employee's wages, social benefits and pursuing military aggression. The socialist system would succeed capitalism as humanity's mode of production through workers' revolution. According to Marxian crisis theory, socialism is not an inevitability, but an economic necessity.

Orthodox Marxism

Orthodox Marxism is the body of Marxist thought that emerged after the death of Marx and which became the official philosophy of the socialist movement as represented in the Second International until World War I in 1914. Orthodox Marxism aims to simplify, codify and systematize Marxist method and theory by clarifying the perceived ambiguities and contradictions of classical Marxism. The philosophy of orthodox Marxism includes the understanding that material development is the primary agent of change in the structure of society and of human social relations, and that social systems and their relations become contradictory and inefficient as the productive forces develop, which results in some form of social revolution arising in response to the mounting contradictions. This revolutionary change is the vehicle for fundamental society-wide changes and ultimately leads to the emergence of new economic systems.
As a term, orthodox Marxism refers to the methods of historical materialism and of dialectical materialism and not the normative aspects inherent to classical Marxism, without implying dogmatic adherence to the results of Marx's investigations. One of the most important historical proponents of Orthodox Marxism was the Czech-Austrian theorist Karl Kautsky.

Neo-Marxism

Neo-Marxism is a Marxist school of thought originating from 20th-century approaches to amend or extend Marxism and Marxist theory, typically by incorporating elements from other intellectual traditions such as critical theory, psychoanalysis, or existentialism. The Frankfurt School is often described as neo-Marxist.

Leninist-based ideologies

Leninism

Leninism is a political theory for the organisation of a revolutionary vanguard party and the achievement of a dictatorship of the proletariat as political prelude to the establishment of socialism. Developed by and named for the Russian revolutionary Vladimir Lenin, from the Bolshevik faction of the Bolshevik-Menshevik split in the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, Leninism comprises political and economic theories developed from orthodox Marxism and Lenin's interpretations of Marxist theories, including his original theoretical contributions such as his analysis of imperialism, principles of party organization and the implementation of socialism through revolution and New Economic Policy reform thereafter, for practical application to the socio-political conditions of the Russian Empire of the early 20th century.

Marxism–Leninism

Marxism–Leninism is a political ideology developed by Joseph Stalin in the late 1920s. Based on Stalin's understanding and synthesis of both Marxism and Leninism, it was the official state ideology of the Soviet Union and the parties of the Communist International after Bolshevisation. After the death of Lenin in 1924, Stalin established universal ideological orthodoxy among the Russian Communist Party, the Soviet Union and the Communist International to establish universal Marxist–Leninist praxis. In the late 1930s, Stalin's official textbook The History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union , made the term Marxism–Leninism common political-science usage among communists and non-communists.
The purpose of Marxism–Leninism is the revolutionary transformation of a capitalist state into a socialist state by way of two-stage revolution led by a vanguard party of professional revolutionaries, drawn from the proletariat. To realise the two-stage transformation of the state, the vanguard party establishes the dictatorship of the proletariat and determines policy through democratic centralism. The Marxist–Leninist communist party is the vanguard for the political, economic and social transformation of a capitalist society into a socialist society which is the lower stage of socio-economic development and progress towards the upper-stage communist society which is stateless and classless, yet it features public ownership of the means of production, accelerated industrialisation, pro-active development of society's productive forces and nationalised natural resources.
As the official ideology of the Soviet Union, Marxism–Leninism was adopted by communist parties worldwide with variation in local application. Parties with a Marxist–Leninist understanding of the historical development of socialism advocate for the nationalisation of natural resources and monopolist industries of capitalism and for their internal democratization as part of the transition to workers' control. The economy under such a government is primarily coordinated through a universal economic plan with varying degrees of market distribution. Since the fall of the Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc countries, many communist parties of the world today continue to use Marxism–Leninism as their method of understanding the conditions of their respective countries. A variety of currents developed from Marxism-Leninism have gained prominence in various countries, including Bolshevism and Mariáteguism.

Stalinism

Stalinism is the means of governing and related policies implemented from 1927 to 1953 by Stalin. Stalinist policies and ideas that were developed in the Soviet Union included rapid industrialisation, the theory of socialism in one country, collectivisation of agriculture, intensification of the class struggle under socialism, a cult of personality, and subordination of the interests of foreign communist parties to those of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, deemed by Stalinism to be the leading vanguard party of communist revolution at the time.
As a political term, it has a variety of uses, but most commonly it is used as a pejorative shorthand for Marxism–Leninism by a variety of competing political tendencies such as capitalism and Trotskyism. Although Stalin himself repudiated any qualitatively original contribution to Marxism, the communist movement usually credits him with systematizing and expanding the ideas of Lenin into the ideology of Marxism–Leninism as a distinct body of work. In this sense, Stalinism can be thought of as being roughly equivalent to Marxism–Leninism, although this is not universally agreed upon. At other times, the term is used as a general umbrella term—again pejoratively—to describe a wide variety of political systems and governments. In this sense, it can be seen as being roughly equivalent to actually existing socialism, although sometimes it is used to describe totalitarian governments that are not socialist.
Some of the contributions to communist theory that Stalin is particularly known for are the following: