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 1848, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels offered a new definition of communism in The Communist Manifesto. In the 20th century, Communist governments espousing Marxism–Leninism came to power, first in the Soviet Union with the 1917 Russian Revolution, then in Eastern Europe, Asia, and other regions after World War II. By the 1920s, communism had become one of the two dominant types of socialism in the world, the other being social democracy. For most of the 20th century, a third of the world's population lived under Communist governments. These were characterized by one-party rule, rejection of private property and capitalism, state control of economic activity and mass media, restrictions onfreedom of religion, and suppression of opposition. With the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, many governments abolished Communist rule. Only a few nominally Communist governments remain, such as China, Cuba, Laos, North Korea, and Vietnam. Except North Korea, these have allowed more economic competition while maintaining one-party rule. Communism's decline has been attributed to economic inefficiency and to authoritarianism and bureaucracy within Communist governments.
The Communist Manifesto, originally titled Manifesto of the Communist Party (German: Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei) is a short 1848 book written by the German Marxist political theorists Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. It has since been recognized as one of the world's most influential political manuscripts. Commissioned by the Communist League, it laid out the League's purposes and program. It presents an analytical approach to the class struggle (historical and present) and the problems of capitalism, rather than a prediction of communism's potential future forms.
The book contains Marx and Engels' Marxist theories about the nature of society and politics, that in their own words, "The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles." It also briefly features their ideas for how the capitalist society of the time would eventually be replaced by socialism, and then eventually communism.
Charilaos Florakis (also Harilaos Florakis; Greek: Χαρίλαος Φλωράκης; 20 July 1914 – 22 May 2005) was a leader of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE). Florakis was born on 20 July 1914 in the village of Paliozoglopi, located near Agrafa in the Itamos municipality, prefecture of Karditsa, Greece. He joined KKE, in 1941. An ELAS partisan during the resistance to the Nazi occupation in World War II, Florakis was on the losing side of the Greek Civil War that followed the liberation of the country, and subsequently left the country.
On his return to Greece in 1954 he was arrested. During his life he spent 18 years in detention or jail - including being put in internal exile by the Greek colonels in the beginning of the 1967-74 military dictatorship. First elected to parliament in 1974, Florakis led KKE as its general secretary from 1972 until 1989, when, though still fit for the job, he announced his decision to step down from the party's top post and proposed Grigoris Farakos as his successor.
...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.
Everyone is welcome to participate in WikiProject Socialism, where editors collaborate to improve all aspects related to socialism on Wikipedia.
Selected quote
“
The very name of Novosti Press Agency is a beautiful example of the newspeak and reminds on either of Orwell's "Ministry of Truth" or "Evtushenko's "Ministry of Tenderness". The fact is, that there is no news as they are erroneously and non-marxistlike understood in the West-as reports about the current events. This sort of news could easily contradict the prophesies of the founders of Marxism-Leninism, and thus give a wrong and totally unscientific picture of reality.
Neihter is there any "press" in Novosti Press Agency, at least in the meaning of the word accepted in the West and related to journalistic profession. But it does not mean that the APN has no press. "Press is the most potent weapon of the Party", said the Friend and Tcacher of all the journalists Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin-and he was right. In the APN the word press is understood mainly as a technical term-printing press, or as an abstract term in a sentence: "The Soviet Press is the most truthfull press in the world", a slogan that decorates walls of many editorial offices in the USSR.
