Communism

“ With the children in common, and the property in common, we have a type of the communalism, not to say communism, which is so captivating to some of our contemporaries among civilized man. It is plain that the society, however, is consistent in its parts, and that its organization is conducive to its interests. ”

“ If I chose I could mention here a thousand other things, but the above named common institutions will be sufficient. Now all these institutions are nothing but Communism. For Communism is nothing but the principle of the common interests of society. In every-day life everybody looks out for his own interest, even at the cost, of his fellow-men; here cold, ugly egoism is dominant. The large cotton mills have ruined thousands and thousands of weavers; but who cares for hundreds of honest, industrious, happy people who are ruined by one mill? ”

“ The significance of Critical-Utopian Socialism and Communism bears an inverse relation to historical development. In proportion as the modern class struggle develops and takes definite shape, this fantastic standing apart from the contest, these fantastic attacks on it, lose all practical value and all theoretical justification. ”

“ I admit the plea that in the points of moral education on which the success of communism depends, the present state of society is demoralizing, and that only a Communistic association can effectually train mankind for Communism. ”

“ There is no longer any practical question open as to Communism in production: the struggle today is over the distribution of the product: that is, over the daily dividing-up which is the first necessity of organized society. ”

“ Socialism.—The opposite extreme is the assumption that common wants are of supreme importance and common judgment absolutely efficient. Under the name of “communism” it stands in direct contrast with anarchy. Anarchists and communists may unite upon a platform of a single plank, opposition to existing institutions; but in all ideals and purposes and plans for future welfare they are absolutely opposed to each other. The natural community of interests so evident in society gives a fair basis for the general principles of communism. ”

“ And now let us compare the foregoing with a picture of socialist development in another country. Socialism and communism are really the same thing, the first being merely the theoretical, inanimate and bloodless image of the second. ”

“ The characteristic name for this economical system is Communism, a word of continental origin, only of late introduced into this country. The word Socialism, which originated among the English Communists, and was assumed by them as a name to designate their own doctrine, is now, on the Continent, employed in a larger sense; not necessarily implying Communism, or the entire abolition of private property, but applied to any system which requires that the land and the instruments of production should be the property, not of individuals, but of communities or associations, or of the government. ”

“ The duty of the Communists consists in inspiring the industrial unions and the shop committees with a spirit of determined struggle, and the consciousness and knowledge of the best methods of such struggle—the spirit of Communism. ”

“ Communism—or association in a simple form—is the necessary object and original aspiration of the social nature, the spontaneous movement by which it manifests and establishes itself. It is the first phase of human civilization. ”

“ What is Communism?
If we open our eyes and look around us, we find many beneficial and useful institutions, brought forth by many, or by the whole people, in common. In one place associations are formed, for inst. to save and shelter shipwrecked persons; at another place the community erect a school, or the state, the commonwealth, builds a harbor or a canal. ”

“ What is Communism? John Stuart Mill tells us: "The assailants of the principle of individual property may be divided into two classes—those whose scheme implies absolute equality in the distribution of the physical means of life and enjoyment, and those who admit inequality, but grounded on some principle, or supposed principle, of justice or general expediency, and not, like so many of the existing social inequalities, dependent on accident alone. The characteristic name for the former economical system is Communism." ”

“ When that time has come, it will be better for all; all will enjoy life, not only those, who do so now at the cost of their fellowbeings.
If you define communism in this way, some of my readers will say, we do not object to it, quite in the contrary, we must confess to belong to the Communists ourselves. But this is not, what people generally understand by the term "Communism." We were to consider the communism, which the Communists and Socialists want to introduce, the communism with regard to property. We admit, that they do not intend to divide—but do they not intend to abolish property? ”

“ In this manner one branch after the other will be organized according to the ideas of communism, perhaps by classes of people, who are far from confessing to the principles of Socialism, of Communism, by classes who are inimical to it—because they do not understand it, and are narrow-minded enough to shut their ears and their eyes to everything, that does not tend to their private interest, But never mind! ”

“ The original primitive communism was developing naturally, though doubtless very slowly, into something akin to organized society, probably involving more complicated economic relationships in all departments of living. ”

“ Let our conscious effort direct more and more the vast social movement towards the Communism to which it already so strongly inclines, but once started in this direction the varied forces of life will themselves freely and finally determine their own advance and equilibrium. ”

“ Communism, by extinguishing caste and honouring labour, makes every man at once a servant and lord. It fills up, by its capacity of minute organization, all the social functions as completely as the European system does ”

“ The entire third chapter may doubtless serve for defining clearly by way of exclusion and antithesis, by brief but vigorous characterizations, the differences which really exist between the communism commonly characterized to-day as scientific,—an expression sometimes used in a mistaken and contradictory way,—that is to say, between the communism which has the proletariat for its subject and the proletarian revolution for its theme, and the other forms of socialism ”

“ Whatever the Government might do, a great part of the upper and middle classes were determined to set on foot a counter revolution; for the Communism which now loomed ahead seemed quite unendurable to them. Bands of young men, like the marauders in the great strike of whom I told you just now, armed themselves and drilled, and began on any opportunity or pretence to skirmish with the people in the streets. ”

“ It is the difference between compulsory and free [255] cooperation,—the difference between the most despotic form of communism, founded upon the most ancient form of religion, and the most highly evolved form of industrial union, with unlimited individual right of competition.
There exists a popular error to the effect that what we call communism and socialism in Western civilization are modern growths, representing aspiration toward some perfect form of democracy. As a matter of fact these movements represent reversion,—reversion toward the primitive conditions of human society. ”

“ In the same manner, communism has been confounded with socialism, although the term should be used in entirely different connections—communism when we are speaking in terms of property, socialism when we are speaking in terms of individual liberty. ”

“ To-day Communism means the principles of Marxian revolutionary Socialism and a scheme of social and industrial organization constructed on those principles which are peculiar to the Bolshevik regime in Soviet Russia. ”

“ Our Communism is not sectarian, but truly universal, and compatible with the highest degree of liberty which is at all attainable. The most correct term for our Communism would, perhaps, be Collectivism, as it is now called in France. ”

“ To which we may answer, that whenever it ceases to be true that mankind, as a rule, prefer themselves to others, and those nearest to them to those more remote, from that moment Communism is not only practicable, but the only defensible form of society, and will, when that time arrives, be assuredly carried into effect. ”

“ These industrial unions will, in their turn, lead to the abolition of division of labor between people, to the education, training and preparation of workers who will be able to do everything. Communism is moving in this direction ”

“ We may say that communism is the ideal of livelihood, and that the doctrine of livelihood is the practical application of communism; such is the difference between the doctrine of Marx and the doctrine of the Kuomintang. ”

“ Communism makes common cause with the proletariat because in this resides the revolutionary force which, bursts, breaks, shakes and dissolves the present social form and creates in it, little by little, new conditions ”

“ Alongside of the process of adjustment of the labor movement to the war, another process has been in development, the process of collecting the hatred to the war. In what are the roots of reformism and of Communism? How could one and the same working class create two opposite movements, fighting each other with arms in hand? ”

“ Communism was characterized by tensions between party, state and the economy - exactly as the medieval polity was plagued by conflicts between church, king and merchants-bankers. Paradoxically, communism was a faithful re-enactment of pre-capitalist history.
Communism should be well distinguished from Marxism. ”

“ The hopes which inspire Communism are, in the main, as admirable as those instilled by the Sermon on the Mount, but they are held as fanatically, and are likely to do as much harm. ”

“ Communism is a hateful thing and a menace to peace and organized government; but the communism of combined wealth and capital, the outgrowth of overweening cupidity and selfishness, which insidiously undermines the justice and integrity of free institutions, is not less dangerous than the communism of oppressed poverty and toil, which, exasperated by injustice and discontent, attacks with wild disorder the citadel of rule.
He mocks the people who proposes that the Government shall protect the rich and that they in turn will care for the laboring poor. ”

“ The call for socialism or communism is generally a call for more of justice and of honesty and of fair dealing between men, rather than a demand for any particular and organized method of carrying on industrial life. ”

“ The breakdown of western civilization, a negative reaction, has been accompanied by a planet-wide drive to replace the concepts, forms and practices of civilization by the concepts, forms and practices of socialism-communism.
Socialism-communism as a way of life for nations and continents is a new experiment on the planet earth. ”

“ Hence the union is something quite different from "that society which Communism means to found." [281] "You bring into the union your whole power, your ability, and assert yourself; in society you with your labor-strength are spent. ”

“ Communism is only possible as the act of sovereign populations 'all at once' and simultaneously, which presupposes the universal development of productive forces and the world intercourse bound up with communism. ”

“ Will you be at the pains, now, however, to learn rightly, and once for all, what Communism is? First, it means that everybody must work in common, and do common or simple work for his dinner; and that if any man will not do it, he must not have his dinner. That much, perhaps, you thought you knew?—but you did not think we Communists of the old school knew it also? You shall have it, then, in the words of the Chelsea farmer and stout Catholic, I was telling you of, in last number. ”

“ The idea of communism and what it implies refers to the social conditions and it would be senseless for me to demand that every one should sleep as little as I do, eat the same food, wear the same clothes or have the same feelings which are peculiar to me. ”

“ To others communism is a commitment to the atheistic philosophy and way of life. To still others, adherence to communism means a commitment to use force and violence, if necessary, to achieve that kind of socialist state. ”

“ In this way the country will also necessarily come to village Communism, to the organisation which corresponds best with the productive Trade Unions of the workers in the cities and industrial centres, until all differences between city and country, peasant and working man, have completely disappeared. ”

“ Thus great stress is laid on the dictum that Communism is not a mere party doctrine of the working-class, but a theory compassing the emancipation of society at large, including the capitalist class, from its present narrow conditions. ”

“ The movement was gradually evolving from the haze of communism that clung to it through all its early years and was beginning to take form as an independent political organization with the central object of conquering the powers of government as a means of emancipating the working class from wage-slavery. ”