Variants of communism have been developed throughout history, including anarchist communism, Marxist schools of thought, and religious communism, among others. Communism encompasses a variety of schools of thought, which broadly include Marxism, Leninism, and libertarian communism, as well as the political ideologies grouped around those. All of these different ideologies generally share the analysis that the current order of society stems from capitalism, its economic system, and mode of production, that in this system there are two major social classes, that the relationship between these two classes is exploitative, and that this situation can only ultimately be resolved through a social revolution. The two classes are the proletariat, who make up the majority of the population within society and must sell their labor power to survive, and the bourgeoisie, a small minority that derives profit from employing the working class through private ownership of the means of production. According to this analysis, a communist revolution would put the working class in power, and in turn establish common ownership of property, the primary element in the transformation of society towards a communist mode of production.
Communism in its modern form grew out of the socialist movement in 19th-century Europe that argued capitalism caused the misery of urban factory workers. In the 20th century, several ostensibly Communist governments espousing Marxism–Leninism and its variants came into power, first in the Soviet Union with the Russian Revolution of 1917, and then in portions of Eastern Europe, Asia, and a few other regions after World War II. As one of the many types of socialism, communism became the dominant political tendency, along with social democracy, within the international socialist movement by the early 1920s. (Full article...)
A communist revolution is a proletarian revolution inspired by the ideas of Marxism that aims to replace capitalism with communism, typically with socialism as an intermediate stage. The idea that a proletarian revolution is needed is a cornerstone of Marxism; Marxists believe that the workers of the world must unite and free themselves from capitalist oppression to create a world run by and for the working class. Thus, in the Marxist view, proletarian revolutions need to happen in countries all over the world; see world revolution.
Leninism argues that a communist revolution must be led by a vanguard of 'professional revolutionaries'—that is men and women who are fully dedicated to the communist cause and who can then form the nucleus of the revolutionary movement. Some Marxists disagree with the idea of a vanguard as put forth by Lenin, especially left communists but also including some who continue to consider themselves Marxists-Leninists despite such a disagreement. These critics insist that the entire working class - or at least a large part of it - must be deeply involved and equally committed to the socialist or communist cause in order for a proletarian revolution to be successful. To this end, they seek to build massive communist parties with very large memberships.
...that Moscow City Hall, built in the 1890s to the tastes of the Russian bourgeoisie, was converted by Communists into the Central Lenin Museum after its rich interior decoration had been plastered over.
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3. In 1907 Stalin took part in the expropriation of the bank of Tiflis. The Mensheviks following the bourgeois philistines expressed indignation against the “conspiratorial” methods of bolshevism and its “anarcho-Blanquism”. We can have only one attitude toward this indignation: contempt. The fact of taking part in a resolute, tho only partial blow at the enemy can add only honor to the revolutionary resoluteness of Stalin. It is astonishing, however, that this fact has been removed in cowardly manner from all the official biographies of Stalin? Is it in the name of bureaucratic respectability? After all we think not. It is more likely for political reasons. For, if participation in expropriation in itself cannot compromise a revolutionist in the eyes of revolutionists, the false political appraisal of that situation compromises Stalin as a politician. Separate blows at the institutions of the enemy, including “treasuries”, are compatible only with the revolutionery offensive of the masses; i.e., with the ascent of the revolution. When the masses are retreating, partial, separate, partisan blows unavoidably degenerate into adventures and lead to demoralization of the party. In 1907 the revolution was receding and the expropriations degenerated into adventures. Stalin, at any rate, showed in that period that he was unable to distinguish between high and low tides. He will disclose in the future more than once (Esthonia, Bulgaria, Canton, the third period) incapability of political orientation on a broad scale.
4. Stalin, from the time of the first revolution leads the life of a professional revolutionist. Prisons, exiles, escapes. But during the entire period of the reaction (1907–11) we do not find a single document – article, letter, resolution – in which Stalin formulated his own appraisal of the situation and its perspectives. It is impossible that such documents do not exist. It is impossible that they are not preserved, if only in the archives of the police department. Why don’t they appear in the press? It is perfectly obvious why: they are unable to strengthen the absurd characterization of the theoretical and political infallibility that the apparatus, which means Stalin himself – creates for itself.
