Communism - A movement?

[Karl Marx's Camel]

Apparently, Marx and Engels wrote (in the communist manifesto) that Communism is a movement. Agree or disagree?

[Hegemonicretribution]

Well yes, capitalism is a movement, anarchism is also.... Could you possibly elabourate slightly?

[Nachie]

Communism, (that is, little-c communism) is not a political system capable of being put into place by a party or state. It is important not to recognize it as a static goal to reach, but as an evolving process arising out of the contradictions of capitalism and appearing everywhere in our daily lives in everyone's struggle against the exploitations of this system of production. In this way, it actually transcends all parties and states, while also encompassing in itself a variety of contradictions as a range of different positions are possible on any number of issues, especially depending on the region. What's important is that we recognize communism as the continuing movement of the working class towards a better world.

Marxism is simply one of the more articulate sciences dedicated to analyzing the communist tendency in human history.

"Communism is for us not a state of affairs which is to be established, an ideal to which reality will have to adjust itself. We call communism the real movement which abolishes the present state of things. The conditions of this movement result from premises now in existence." - Karl Marx

[Led Zeppelin]

Yes, it is a movement, like how capitalism was a movement during the feudal era.

[Severian]

Communism is not a doctrine but a MOVEMENT; it proceeds not from principles but from FACTS. The Communists do not base themselves on this or that philosophy as their point of departure but on the whole course of previous history and specifically its actual results in the civilised countries at the present time. Communism has followed from large-scale industry and its consequences, from the establishment of the world market, of the concomitant uninhibited competition, from the ever more violent and universal trade crisis, which have already begun full-fledged crisis of the world market, from the creation of the proletariat and the concentration of capital, from the ensuing class struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie.

"Communism, insofar as it is a theory, is the theoretical expression of the position of the proletariat in this struggle, and the theoretical summation of the conditions for the liberation of the proletariat.

That's from "The Communists and Karl Heinzen" by Engels. Written around the same time as the Manifesto.

It's an important point, I think: communism is not about doctrine; it is an expression of the living class struggle.

(I have it in my profile as my "political statement."

[aussiecommunist]

I understood that communism was an idea, a movement.

[Djehuti]

Communism is a material movement rising from the working class' struggle against being reduced to the commodity labour force. I also agree with Nachie's post.

[red_che]

A spectre is haunting Europe -- the spectre of communism. All the powers of old Europe have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this spectre: Pope and Tsar, Metternich and Guizot, French Radicals and German police-spies.

Where is the party in opposition that has not been decried as communistic by its opponents in power? Where is the opposition that has not hurled back the branding reproach of communism, against the more advanced opposition parties, as well as against its reactionary adversaries?

Two things result from this fact:

I. Communism is already acknowledged by all European powers to be itself a power.

II. It is high time that Communists should openly, in the face of the whole world, publish their views, their aims, their tendencies, and meet this nursery tale of the spectre of communism with a manifesto of the party itself.


I guess these words might give an answer to the question at hand. Communism is but the inevitable future which will be born out of the womb of Capitalism. It is not merely a movement, it is the goal of that movement.