Communism

Communism does still exist in North Korea, but it does not actually appeal to the citizens. The reason why it still exists is that the citizens have nothing else to compare it to since they are basically cut off from news media and television. North Korea is also a totalitarian state where any political opposition is crushed with torture and unending jail sentences, a significant percentage of the country is uneducated, millions die of hunger, and people are told to believe that the rest of the world is even worse off than they are.

Revolutionary Communist League of Britain ended in 1998.

The Domino theory; once one nation fell the one next to it would fall next.

Capitalism is a political or economic system that a country's industry or trade is being controlled by private owners for property. Capitalism has continued throughout history.

No. A system based on Communism is the when everything is publicly owned. Everything is shared and distributed based on need. This destroys a class-based society and therefore equality for all. But some dictator always has to come and screw everything up.

The theory and ideas of Communism were developed by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in the 19th century. The first government established on those principals was that of Russia under Vladimir Lenin in October of 1917.

Marx developed Marxism with the help of Engels. Communism, the idea that goods should be held by the collective (community) rather than individuals, has been around a lot longer. traditionally even British culture was more communal than it is now. There were lots of struggles when the common (last remaining commonly owned land) was gotten rid of. Groups like the Diggers protested in 1649. Many native cultures in North America got so ripped off because the idea of the land belonging to anyone was so foreign to them that they didn't understand it and it got taken by Europeans.

No Government has ever been established on the principles of Communism as defined by Marx and Engels. In fact, the idea of Communist Government is a contradiction in terms. What we lazily call Communism is simply good old Capitalism where the faceless government owns the wealth, just like the faceless corporations who own the wealth of the "free world."

The idea of common ownership in a classless society of humans, however, is very old. We might better ask: When did communism end? And the answer might be: With the Division of Labor, which introduced drudgery and social class.

you can only smoke in bars and casinos ect

Absolutely not. Communism promotes the idea that all people will be on the same level economically (it was never a reality). The aristocrats are the rich people in their society so they would not cherish communism since they would not want to give up their wealth and spread it around amongst the general populous.

Karl Marx, who - along with Frederich Engels - wrote The Communist Manifesto.

Considering how he led an armed revolution to install a "communist" government in China, he appears to be pro-use of force.

Communism is an example of a political/socioeconomic idealogy, like Capitalism, Socialism, or Totalitarianism.

bad, the opposite of democracy, no freedom etc. etc.

The Government of the United States is a Representative Democracy that has promoted Capitalism for generations. While promoting this endeavor has made millions of people better off then they would be otherwise, it has left some of the lazier humans, or less fortunate behind.

In the 40's, F.D.R. started our first tiny bit of socialist tendencies. We call this scam out Social Security System. It is the first known ponzi scheme in America.

We are now engaged in a new era of free money. Both parties are looking to buy future votes at the price of our children. Technically, this is a form of communism as all money is given out by the Government and controlled by the Government, but this system is more evil and insidious. We are handing out money that is not really there. We are taking money from our children and grandchildren to keep the money flow and lifestyles of the people alive today. This is not a true socialist system either. The answer to your question is that we were a capitalist society and quickly trying to become a non existant soceity. Socialism requires that we live within our means. The system we have now does not bother with that detail. We are a society based on prue greed.

the meaning is that they could do anything constitutional

As a history student, my guess is that it was because they were terrified of being overthrown.

Socialism and Communism are the same: a classless stateless society. It will have to operate at a global level, with no countries or borders, because production everywhere is so intertwined. So there can be no such thing as a Socialist or Communist country.

Well, Americans are scared of Communism because they see how the citizens felt while under it's influence (scared and oppressed) and how greedy the central government was, and they saw the citizens being tortured because they didn't like the ruler, or they did something completely harmless, but the government didn't like it.

They are two entirely different concepts. A good example would be to site the USSR which its dictators described as a Communist organisation. In a Communist organisation the the work and assets means of production are controlled by the state for the benefit of the people of that country. Russia was turned into a dictatorship where the will of one man took precedence over all else. the people were simply ripped of and if they complained they were made to suffer or die. Communism and dictatorship have no similarity's because their is no formulae to dictatorship other then force.

Because in Cuba Fidel is actually liked by the people, in China, Laos and Vietnam they managed to introduce economic reforms while at the same time clamp down on political dissidents... North Korea is not communist, its a heraldry monarchy with some wacko ideology they call Juche.. Its a reason why they have removed all references to communism from their constitution..

The Soviet Union collapsed because Mikhail Gorbachev introduced both political and economic reforms at the same time.. While he succeeding in democratizing the country, Gorbachev also succeeding in worsening the performance of the Soviet economy. So when the Soviet people finally were given democratic rights, the already stagnating Soviet economy collapsed.. The Eastern Bloc collapsed because, unlike in the USSR, China, Vietnam and Cuba, communism was forced on the rest of Eastern Europe.. In the USSR, China, Vietnam and Cuba, communism came to power through revolutions, through popular participation by the people..

Czechoslovakia resisted Communism for a very long time but was eventually subsumed by the Soviet Union.

Communism doesnt always have to be implemented by a violent revolution, for instance.

"One way to implement communism is for humankind to take its very own course and develop a peaceful and compassionate society and put capitalist morals behind them. Something like this to happen is very inevitable and would most likely never happen; although it is technically possible. A variation of the tactic listed above is Social Evolution. Social Evolution basically argues that a society will evolve to a communist nation over a long period of time." taken from my history paper

"Marxism is the basis of socialism and communism. The question answers its self." This answer is even more confused than the question. Socialism was around in one form or another a long long time before Marxism. And Communism was also professed in one form or another before Marx became synonymous with it (e.g. "The Communist Manifesto" was Marx and Engel's attempt to put a coherent policy statement in place for the official international Communist Party.) It would require a book to answer the original question. But as I have about 45 mins free while I sit here in this airport I will give it a go. I already put my 2 euro in after all! Loosely described socialism was associated with a diverse collection of beliefs that became more and more prevalent in the era of the Enlightenment (late 17th-18th centuries). Some of the great figures in this were Frenchmen such as Saint-Simon, Proudhon, etc. These doctrines, in line with the spirit of the age, began to question the foundations for everyday beliefs which organised, justified and explained society into strict hierarchical orders (such as monarchies, religions, etc). Socialists questioned the claim that these orders were given by God and that they reflected the natural order and place of different human beings. They began to question justifications that the poor were poor, or slaves were slaves, because they had certain given (inferior) natures that made them only fit for those roles. Instead, most socialisms began with the rejection of divine authority and replaced this with the idea that man's nature (whether he be poor, rich, slave, etc) was the result of man-made actions and force (wars, division of property, etc). These societal divisions had obscure historical roots that were often disguised as religious or national ideologies and were therefore accepted as eternal orders (e.g. the Church or the Nation). But they were in reality (according socialists) the result of man's will and need to dominate other men. Socialist's wished to free humans from the domination of other humans. Socialist's believed that society determined the nature/behaviour of any individual you met (not any divinely ordained good or evil nature). And that if you could create a truly free society you would create better truly free humans. This is the root of the name "socialist". These ideas were influences upon - and subsequently greatly influenced by - the French Revolution in 1789. Just over 50 years later, Marx and Engel's were dismayed by the degree to which socialists (and communists who professed similar understandings and goals) were as prone to follow whimsical and idealistic notions of mankind as were their religious counterparts. They were particularly dismayed that these idealistic visions were often completely impractical and only served to discredit more serious demands for political and social change. Changing society required drastic changes to the material division of society they felt. In writing their Manifesto they sought to set down ideas that would clarify the views of the Communist Party and allow supporters of social justice and change to understand what was at stake in the issues which they fought for and debated. Over 30-40 years of writing, both Marx and Engels would lay down a body of work that would become the touch-stone for all those who worked under the name Marxist. They put forward immensely complex and revolutionary understandings of History, Economics, Phillosophy all under the name of a new all-embracing philosophy of Historical Materialism (although this name itself is really a later invention). I am running out of time for my flight. And these issues are too complex to explain here. However, at root, Marx and Engels claimed that all of the history of mankind was a struggle for those material resources (property, food, water, technology) that allowed societies to reproduce themselves. This extraordinarily simple idea underlay every complex organization of society that you can find. All those words in the service of myths or religions or governments or democracy, were really all just justifications for different hierarchies that served the interests of some particular group. Those who suffered from these divisions were trained and forced to accept these words from the moment they were born (Marx called them ideologies). This is where it gets even more complex. For Marx did not claim that his doctrine aimed at revealing a reality or truth that was universal. This would require that God truly existed in order to make that truth universal. Instead he claimed that all truths with regard to philosophy or history, were representative of the interests of certain societal groups. His work sought to show to the working classes how their interests had been silenced and hidden by those who forced them to labour for things that they did not benefit from. In earlier societies these oppressors were Kings or Druids or Popes or Military figures who dominated the production of weapons or books and forced the masses into work (sometimes justifying this order with religious beliefs). But in the era of industrialization and the bourgeois capitalist, things were much more complex (though not much different). In capitalist society, workers worked and the benefits of whatever they produced were taken away by the owner of their factory (the capitalist). The capitalist was backed by the military and legal power of the state which granted him rights of property and ownership. These divisions within society were then justified/explained by numerous ideologies that were paid for and produced by bourgeois academics and universities (such as economics). Marx claimed that capitalist societies agonies and torments would only get worse and worse as the uneven distribution of the products of society only allowed greater inequality and suffering. In order for mankind to be truly free then each individual needed to be freed from having to constantly fight and chase after the basic necessities of life (food, housing, etc). Only then would he/she be free to pursue their own true wants and become their own person. This could only happen once workers had rested control of production from the minority capitalist owners (who used ideology to justify their ownership). Only then could workers turn the aims of production towards the needs of society as a whole. In communist societies work was supposed to become secondary to living. However, as money and production were at the basic root of all society's beliefs and values, this would be immensely difficult to achieve. Capitalists who controlled the state, ideology and the military would not simply "give-up" their rights to ownership and control. They would have to be overturned by force. This would only happen if the working classes began to organise themselves in the face of intimidation and harassment. Marx intended his doctrine to help in the task of this organisation. The day would then finally come when, spaked by increasing hunger, oppression and increasing understanding of their role in society, the workers would rise up and through an international revolution overthrow the capitalist organization of society. Once this happened history as we have known it would come to an end. And in the new egalitarian society, a new even more complex "history" would begin, as each individual member would seek to contribute to societies understanding of what it means to live as a free human. OK out of time. Gotta catch my plane now. I wonder if this will ever be read by anyone at all. In any case I hope it helps someone with their term paper or summat!!