In what context did communism emerge?

[Jiub]

So, I have been asked the above question, and I answered something like this:


Communism - as we know it now - has been thought up by the philospher Karl Marx. Karl Marx grew up in a wealthy family, so he had all the opportunity for good education. During his stay at Paris he met Frederick Engels and got in touch with the proletariat. Combined with his knowledge about politics, religion and economics Marx gradually began to form an ideology. In his work "Das Kapital" Marx describes the class war and the transition from capitalism to socialism to communism.

Communism quickly grew to THE ideology of the proletariat. The problem was that they hardly got the chance to know about communism, simply beceause they had long workdays, didn't get any education, came back tired from work, and beceause newspapers were quite expensive back then.

The asker of the question mostly wanted to know why communism emerged in the 19th century, and not earlier or later. I think I somewhat answered his question, but with my limited knowledge of that period I feel like I am missing something: stuff like important strikes, other communists, proto-communism and what-not-else.

So my question is, could you try to expand on my answer to the question in what context communism appeared?

Thanks in advance, Jiub

[More Fire for the People]

Communism - as we know it now - has been thought up by the philospher Karl Marx. Karl Marx grew up in a wealthy family, so he had all the opportunity for good education.
Marx wasn't that wealthy. His father was a lower civil servant and because of his position in the government his father was able to arrange for Karl Marx to attend university. A lot of his education was informal as well, his own father introduced him at a young age to the works of Locke, Diderot, and Voltaire.


During his stay at Paris he met Frederick Engels and got in touch with the proletariat.
It's a deeper relation than that. In 1842 Marx began to work for a newspaper called the Rheinische Zeitung. When he first started writing his articles where only distinguishable by their appeal to the rights of the toilers but by the time he had become the editor of the paper the central themes of the paper where revolution and democracy. It was as an editor in Cologne that Marx first met Engels.

But the paper is shut down and Marx is forced to resign. He spends some time with his partner, Jenny von Westphalen, and her mother. He begins to work on his work Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right which is a tremendous work — something I've only read the introduction to but sincerely enjoyed. In his Critique Marx begins to use the philosophy of Hegel as a new means of understanding whereby the history of humanity is understood as human self-activity and that the highest potential of human activity is within the proletariat.

Marx then marries Jenny and they move to France where he decides to work with the Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher. In France, Marx becomes deeply aware of both lived history and living history. He frequents the clandestine workers' meetings and workers' secret societies. By 1844 Marx breaks with his old thinking and begins his career as a materialist theorist of communism. Then Marx & Engels meet later in 1844.


Combined with his knowledge about politics, religion and economics Marx gradually began to form an ideology. In his work "Das Kapital" Marx describes the class war and the transition from capitalism to socialism to communism.
Actually, the description of class war and post-capitalism in Das Kapital is very sly and not the main emphasis of the work. It is primarily a critique of the existing property relations.


Communism quickly grew to THE ideology of the proletariat. The problem was that they hardly got the chance to know about communism, simply beceause they had long workdays, didn't get any education, came back tired from work, and beceause newspapers were quite expensive back then.
Communism did not grow to become the ideology of the proletariat — it is the ideology of the proletariat. Without Marx and Engels, there would still be communism as a response to the everyday struggle against the dominion and subjugation by capital.

It is the knowledge of communism, the self-awareness, that allows the working class to sublate — or to transcend and negate — their position. Or otherwise put communism is no longer the the struggle to overcome but the overcoming of the struggle. From strike and riot we move to soviet and assembly. This knowledge is not gained only in books. It gained through both knowledge and practice — praxis. 'Pure' knowledge is escapism, pure practice is folly but the combination of the two allow us to not only to rebel, to riot, to destroy but to rise, to resolve, to create.

[JazzRemington]

Actually, communism, in one form or another, has existed since primitive times. Hunter-Gatherer and early aggriculture tribes operated under basic communist principles as well as Medieval monestaries.

Various groups in history preached it, mostly on religious grounds such as the Medieval monks and early settlers who came over to North America. But why modern communism (i.e. based on scientific socialism as espoused by Marx and Engels, and other Marxists) came on strong in the 1800s was because of the extent of industrialism and the violent, open oppression of the working class and their conditions. Basically it was a reaction.

[Janus]

The asker of the question mostly wanted to know why communism emerged in the 19th century, and not earlier or later.
Simply by looking at the historical trends at the time. Before Marx, socialism took the form of either utopian socialism or Christian socialism; both of which accomplished very little due to the extremely reactionary views of the time. It wasn't until major political and technological changes had been made in the early/mid 19th century that communism as a theory could really develop. The ideas of liberalism, socialism, and communism only began taking off after the secularization of society and after much of the old, traditional order had been swept away by the revolutionary waves of the post-Napoleonic era. It was in this context that Marx developed his theory of communism.

[Whitten]

Yes, think of it like this: If communism is the ideology of the proletariat then there wont be a communism until the proletariat as a class has grown sufficiently.

[Forward Union]

Very hard to say. Most people would consider The Levellers and Diggers movements in the 1600s to be an early form of Anarchist-Communism. So perhaps the context was Medievil Britain?


Originally posted by Libcom article

The Diggers [or ‘True Levellers’] were led by William Everard who had served in the New Model Army. As the name implies, the diggers aimed to use the earth to reclaim the freedom that they felt had been lost partly through the Norman Conquest; by seizing the land and owning it ‘in common’ they would challenge what they considered to be the slavery of property. They were opposed to the use of force and believed that they could create a classless society simply through seizing land and holding it in the ‘common good’.

Full article (http://libcom.org/history/1642-1652-diggers-levellers)

"We, whose names are subscribed, do in the name of all the poor oppressed people in England, declare unto you, that call your selves lords of Manors, and Lords of the Land, ...that the earth was not made purposely for you, to be Lords of it, and we to be your Slaves, Servants, and Beggers. It was made to be a common Livelihood to all, without respect of persons"

-A Declaration from the poor and oppressed peoples of England (published 1649) (http://libcom.org/library/a-declaration-from-the-poor-oppressed-people-of-england)

(also; see my signature)

Thinkers such as Marx, Engels, Bakunin, were writing about a phenomina that had already revealed itself as a tension in all class societies. Communism in it's most infant form (working class resistance to the state and capitalism) has always existed. The theorists of the 1800s, you could almost say, simply drew a line around, and defined this tension as a specific set political beliefs, with an ultimate goal and plan. In other words, it matured, but existed beforehand and has always done in class society, as a reaction to inhumane conditions.

[Janus]

Communism in it's most infant form (working class resistance to the state and capitalism) has always existed.
That was the physical manifestation of societal and economic problems rather than a manifestation of communism itself which is nothing more than an ideology. Class tensions certainly have existed for quite a while but the working class-bourgeois antagonism wasn't born until the age of the Industrial Revolution in which the theory/ideology of communism could actually be truly developed due to the advancement in society and the means of production. If Marx hadn't lived, then the question of how the working class movement would've really developed is certainly debatable though its general principles probably would've been the same though some of its goals may have been different.

[Forward Union]

Originally posted by [email protected] 08, 2007 12:02 am
That was the physical manifestation of societal and economic problems rather than a manifestation of communism itself which is nothing more than an ideology.
Well, if you read the stated aims of the True levellers that are easily equatable to Anarchist Communism so I would say that even ideologically, communism, in some form or other existed before Marx and Bakunin. Anarchism certainly has, the first reference being in Athens 800BC to a group of "Anarcheons"

[Janus]

so I would say that even ideologically, communism, in some form or other existed before Marx and Bakunin. Anarchism certainly has, the first reference being in Athens 800BC to a group of "Anarcheons"
Well, it's quite understandable that the certain religious groups have taken a similar position on certain key issues as later "industrial" era communists did. I think that the ubiquitous nature of certain key communist principles points more to the common sense values found in many of communism's tenets. In the era before the liberalization and secularization of society, many of the oppressed people's voices almost always came out in the form of religious connotation not simply because it was one way to escape repression but also because the Bible can be interpreted in a very populist manner.

[Purple]

Marx's theories became popular during the Industrial Revolution, in the form of "Scientific Socialism". The kind of communism that we think of today emerged from the class struggle of the Industrial Revolution. Marx predicted that communism would occur in a heavily industrialized country such as Britain where the differences between the bourgeois and the proletariat became immensly evident.

Otherwise conservative and moderate powers became afraid that the workers would rise up and rebel, hence more liberal politics were created such as "New Liberalism", "Utilitarianism"(in addition to reformist socialists who wanted power through democratic means), which would eventually satisfy the proletariat through granting them more freedom and generally a better life. Hence they actually managed to strike down the ideologies from the radical left.

What Marx had not quite predicted was that communism\Marxism would emerge in countries such as Russia, where there were no large amount of working class in factories and such, but there was a vast amount of angry peasents who felt exploited by their landowners. One of the major factors that led to the different interpretations of Marxism(Leninism, Stalinism, Maoism in particular) was that Marx's theory was designed for the heavily industrialised countries, not for the poor underdeveloped countries still remaining in the agricultural level of society.