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spartan
25th September 2008, 04:53
Can there be communistic/socialistic societies in a pre-industral society?

It's just that time and time again I come across movements aiming for a "communistic" or "socialistic" society in pre-industrial societies with primarily Feudal/artisan modes of production.

We see this first with the "primitive communism" of tribal societies.

Hell there are even some who believe that Jesus was a socialist and certain early Christian communities did indeed have a general rule that all things owned and produced were distributed equally to all it's inhabitants.

You then come across it again in the 15th century with the Taborites who were a radical faction of the Hussites during the Hussite wars in what is today the Czech Republic but was back then Bohemia in the Holy Roman Empire.

Tabor (the town where the Taborites were based and from which they took their name) was economically supported by their control of local gold mines, and it's citizens joined with the local peasants to develop a communistic-like society (what this entailed I don't know (perhaps someone here knows?) as I have only scratched the surface of this intresting subject).

The Taborites announced the "Millenium of Christ" and said that there would be no more masters or servants.

I will look for more examples of groups or movements (most of them seem to be based on religion especially Christianity) who sought, attempted and with some even temporarily succeeding in setting up communistic/socialistic societies.

If you know of more then please post your thoughts.

Valeofruin
25th September 2008, 05:13
How can you answer a question so deep and disputed on a forum?

I'd recommend reading Stalins "Foundations of Leninism".

Generally however we see bourgeoise revolution before proletarian revolution. Whether its POSSIBLE to have a proletarian revolution in Military-Feudal societies, i sense will be a long discussion that i for one will hold my horses on a bit. Let someone else get started lol.

chegitz guevara
25th September 2008, 05:38
Someone you should definitely look up is Sheik Bedreddin, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bedreddin) of the Ottoman Empire.

You should also study the Morea under the last days of the Byzantines. During the 1430s, if I recall correctly, they attempted to create a communal state.

I assume you know about the Anabaptists under Munzer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%BCnster_Rebellion) in Germany and the revolts of Watt Tyler in England (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watt_Tyler), and later the Levellers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leveller) and Diggers in England (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diggers). Then there were the Communeros in Spain, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castilian_War_of_the_Communities) though the only thing they may share in common is the name.