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1 "Communism" and other related terms
1.1 History of use of the word "communism"
The words "communism" and "communist" first came into use in France after the Revolution of 1830. They began to enter common speech in the 1840s. In particular, in 18401840 is a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will take you to calendar). Events January 3 One of the predecessor papers to the Herald Sun of Melbourne, Australia, The Port Phillip Herald is founded by George Cavanaugh. January 10 Uniform penny postage, the first " communist banquet " was held in ParisEiffel Tower has become the symbol of Paris throughout the world. Paris is the capital and largest city of France. The city is built on an arc of the River Seine, and is thus divided into two parts: the Right Bank to the north and the smaller Left Bank to. The term was also used to refer to supporters of Étienne Cabettienne Cabet ( January 1, 1788 1856) was a French philosopher and utopian socialist. In 1831, he was elected into the chamber of deputies, but due to his bitter attacks on the French Government he was sentenced for treason and fled to England. Influenced, a utopian socialistUtopian Socialism is the term for the first currents of modern Socialist thought. Utopian socialists never actually used this name to describe themselves; the term "utopian socialism" was introduced by Karl Marx and used by later socialist thinkers, to de. In FrenchFrench le francais la langue francaise is one of the most important Romance languages, outnumbered only by Spanish and Portuguese. French is the 11th most spoken language in the world, spoken by about 77 million people (called Francophones) as a mother to, the root of the word "communism" could be interpreted to refer both to a commune, a self-governing village or community, and to communauté, common ownership. The later Marxist use of the word "communism" contains elements from both interpretations. "Communism" came into usage in England through the French exile community and had a connotationIn logic and in some branches of semantics, connotation is more or less synonymous with intension''. Connotation is often contrasted with denotation which is more or less synonymous with extension''. See these articles for further information. In everyday of militancy, as opposed to the milder connotation of "socialism". This is why Marx and Engels chose to use "communism" in the title of the Communist Manifesto.
1.2 "Communism" and "socialism"
Much confusion surrounds the words "communism" and "socialism", particularly in the United States. The aim of this paragraph is to dispel that confusion. In terms of ideology and politics, communism is a sub-category of socialism. Communist ideology is a specific branch of socialist ideology and the communist movement is a specific branch of the larger socialist movement. A person who calls himself or herself a "communist" is a certain kind of socialist; in other words, all communists are socialists but not all socialists are communists. In terms of socio-economic systems, communism and socialism are two different things. For example, socialism involves the existence of a state, while communism does not. Socialism involves public ownership of the means of production and private ownership of everything else, while communism abolishes private ownership altogether.
1.3 Communism and "communist states"
As noted several times above, a communist system does not involve the existence of a state. Thus, the term "communist state" is an oxymoron. No country ever called itself a "communist state" and no government ever claimed to have established a communist system (in fact, no government can ever claim to have established a communist system, since the very existence of that government shows that the system is not communist).
Nevertheless, there have been a number of countries ruled by Communist Parties, and those countries were often called "communist states" by people living in other parts of the world. They called themselves socialist countries, and their ruling Communist Parties claimed to have established a socialist, democratic system, with the aim of eventually reaching communism. However, these countries were generally not seen as democratic by anyone except their leadership, and were not seen as socialistic by any (non-communist) socialists living outside their borders. In fact, most socialists strongly opposed them. Due to these reasons (as well as a number of others), the term "communist states" was invented to refer to those countries.
However, the term "communist state" is itself quite inappropriate. Besides the problem noted above (the fact that "communist state" is technically an oxymoron), there is one further issue with this term: there were (and are) many communists who opposed the governments of those countries and who argued that their ruling parties were communist in name only. The best known of these dissenting communists are probably the Trotskyists.
A better term for "communist states" would be "states ruled by communist parties". But that name is generally considered too long to be practical. Another term could be "Stalinist states", since all of them were governed by communist parties that were either clearly Stalinist themselves or could trace their roots back to Stalinism.
