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Sunday 15 June 2014

Communism

The Communist Manifesto by communist theorists Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels was first published on February 21, 1848.

Cover of the Communist Manifesto’s initial publication in February 1848 in London.

As a young man, the German philosopher Friedrich Engels (1820-1895) was sent by his father to Manchester, England in a vain attempt to calm his ‘liberal ideas.’

The Manifesto was written over 6–7 weeks. Although Engels is credited as co-writer, the final draft was penned exclusively by Marx.

Initially ignored in the writers' native Germany, The Communist Manifesto became one of the world's most influential political tracts.


After Czar Nicholas II abdicated in 1917, Vladimir Lenin became President of Russia, the world’s first communist leader.

Between 1917-21, 10 million died during Lenin’s communist regime. Lenin felt that human rights shouldn't get in the way of the progress of the working class.


Early in Lenin's communist party reign, the Orthodox Easter coincided with the socialist May Day festival. Ten times as many Muscovites celebrate Easter rather than the socialist day. The lesson was not lost on Lenin and his fellow atheistic Bolsheviks. Between 1921-23, more than 8,000 monks, nuns and priests “disappeared,”many icons were destroyed and churches were turned into grain stores or cowsheds or simply blown up.

Abortions at the woman’s request were allowed for the first time in post-revolutionary Russia.

Following the promulgation of a 1929 law governing church-state relations, the Russian communist leader Josef Stalin launched a campaign against Christianity. All church congregations had to be registered and were not allowed to engage in any social or charitable work or hold any meetings outside of the normal Sunday service.

Josef Stalin once said. "The communist party cannot be neutral. It stands for science and all religion is opposed to science.”

The Communist Party of China was founded at the founding National Congress in Shanghai held between July 23-31, 1921. Co-founder Chen Duxiu served from 1921 to 1927 as its first General Secretary.

Site of the 1st Congress, Shanghai. Pyzhou - Self-photographed

The Communist Party of China grew quickly, and by 1949 it  had driven the nationalist Kuomintang (KMT) government from mainland China after the Chinese Civil War, thus leading to the establishment of the People's Republic of China.

The Communist Party of Vietnam was founded at a "Unification Conference" held in Kowloon, British Hong Kong on February 3, 1930. The conference brought together several communist and socialist organizations in Vietnam and marked the start of the Communist movement in the country. 

Over the following decades, the Communist Party of Vietnam played a significant role in the struggle for independence from France and later the Vietnam War, ultimately leading to the establishment of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam in 1976. Today, the Communist Party remains the only legally recognized political party in Vietnam and holds a monopoly on political power in the country.

The Communist Control Act came into effect in the US on August 24, 1954, outlawing the American Communist Party.

U.S. anti-Communist propaganda of the 1950s

John Lennon claimed that his song "Imagine" was basically a summation of the Communist manifesto.

In 1987 Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet leader, introduced radical liberal reforms and churches were allowed to reopen. Despite decades of persecution by the communist regime authorities church members were outnumbering communist members in the USSR by 10:1.

After several visits to his homeland, Poland, Pope John II proved to be a rallying point for opponents of the communist regime. Democratic elections were promised. Other Eastern European countries, encouraged by this and Gorbachev’s reforming policies proceeded to overthrow their Communist regimes. The culmination of this was the symbolic breaking up of the Berlin Wall.

Of the 142 million deaths caused by an ideology in the 20th century 94 million were due to communism.

The Communist Party of China is currently the world's second largest political party with a membership of 87.79 million as of 2015.

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