Communism, a concept or system of society in which the major resources and means of production are owned by the community rather than by individuals. In theory, such societies provide for equal sharing of all work, according to ability, and all benefits, according to need. Some conceptions of communist societies assume that, ultimately, coercive government would be unnecessary and therefore that such a society would be without rulers. Until the ultimate stages are reached, however, communism involves the abolition of private property by a revolutionary movement; responsibility for meeting public needs is then vested in the state (Daniels 177).
As a concept of an ideal society, communism is derived from ancient sources, including Plato's Republic and the earliest Christian communes. In the early 19th century, the idea of a communist society was a response of the poor and the dislocated to the beginnings of modern capitalism. At that time communism was the basis for a number of utopian settlements; most communistic experiments, however, eventually failed. Most of these small-scale private experiments involved voluntary cooperation, with everyone participating in the governing process (Daniels).
Later the term communism was reserved for the philosophy advanced by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in their Communist Manifesto and the movement they helped create in Central Europe. Since 1917 the term has denoted those who regard the Russian Revolution as a model that all Marxists should follow. Beginning with the Russian Revolution, moreover, the center of gravity of global communism has shifted away from Central and Western Europe; from the late 1940s through the 1980s, communist movements were often linked with Third World strivings for national independence and social change(Pious 24). .
In their writings, Marx and Engels tried to analyze contemporary society, which they described as capitalistic.
