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COMMUNISM
A political theory that advocates collective ownership of the means of production (resources, land and capital), abolition of private property and equalisation of incomes. Communism differs from socialism because it contemplates revolutionary social change rather than just electoral politics. The first modern communist society was established in Russia after the revolution of 1917 and this political system was imposed by the Soviet Union, after the second world war, on many countries of Eastern Europe. In Asia, a successful communist-led revolution in China in 1949 led to the growth of communist regimes and political movements in other areas, including Korea, Vietnam and Malaysia. These centralized and dictatorial communist systems were far from the model societies envisaged by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels who believed that a communist revolution would create co-operative collective ownership a true community-based democracy and a weakening of the role of the state . See: SOCIALISM / .

Last updated 2002--0-9-


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Athabaca University ICAAP

© Robert Drislane, Ph.D. and Gary Parkinson, Ph.D.
The online version of this dictionary is a product of
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ICAAP

*This social science dictionary has 1000
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science and women's study with a commitment to Canadian examples and
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