Variants of communism have been developed throughout history, including anarchist communism, Marxist schools of thought, and religious communism, among others. Communism encompasses a variety of schools of thought, which broadly include Marxism, Leninism, and libertarian communism, as well as the political ideologies grouped around those. All of these different ideologies generally share the analysis that the current order of society stems from capitalism, its economic system, and mode of production, that in this system there are two major social classes, that the relationship between these two classes is exploitative, and that this situation can only ultimately be resolved through a social revolution. The two classes are the proletariat, who make up the majority of the population within society and must sell their labor power to survive, and the bourgeoisie, a small minority that derives profit from employing the working class through private ownership of the means of production. According to this analysis, a communist revolution would put the working class in power, and in turn establish common ownership of property, the primary element in the transformation of society towards a communist mode of production.
Communism in its modern form grew out of the socialist movement in 19th-century Europe that argued capitalism caused the misery of urban factory workers. In the 20th century, several ostensibly Communist governments espousing Marxism–Leninism and its variants came into power, first in the Soviet Union with the Russian Revolution of 1917, and then in portions of Eastern Europe, Asia, and a few other regions after World War II. As one of the many types of socialism, communism became the dominant political tendency, along with social democracy, within the international socialist movement by the early 1920s. (Full article...)
Anti-communism is opposition to communism. Organized anti-communism developed in reaction to the rise of communism, especially after the 1917 October Revolution in Russia and reaching global dimensions during the Cold War. Anti-communists argue that the repression in the early years of Bolshevik rule, while not as extreme as that during Joseph Stalin's rule, was still severe by reasonable standards, citing examples such as Felix Dzerzhinsky's secret police, which eliminated numerous political opponents by extrajudicial executions, and the brutal crushing of the Kronstadt rebellion and Tambov rebellion. Some anti-communists refer to both Communism and fascism as totalitarianism, seeing similarity between the actions of communist and fascist governments. Historian Robert Conquest has argued that Communism was responsible for tens of millions of deaths during the 20th century.
Opponents argue that Communist parties that have come to power have tended to be rigidly intolerant of political opposition. These opponents claim that most Communist countries have shown no signs of advancing from Marx's socialist stage of economy to an ideal communist stage. Rather, Communist governments have been accused of creating a new ruling class (a Nomenklatura), with powers and privileges greater than those previously enjoyed by the upper classes in the non-communist regimes.
Álvaro Barreirinhas Cunhal, who used the name Álvaro Cunhal (Portuguese pronunciation:[ˈaɫvɐɾukuˈɲaɫ]; Sé Nova, Coimbra, 10 November 1913 – Lisbon, 13 June 2005), was a Portuguese politician. He was one of the major opponents of the dictatorial regime of Estado Novo. He served as secretary-general of the Portuguese Communist Party (PCP) from 1961 to 1992. He was one of the most pro-Soviet of all western Europe communist leaders, often supporting Soviet Union world policies, including the intervention in Czechoslovakia in 1968.
Cunhal was born in Coimbra, the third child of Avelino Henriques da Costa Cunhal (Seia, Seia, 28 October 1887 Coimbra, Sé Nova, 19 December 1966) and wife (m. Coimbra, Sé Nova, 22 August 1908) Mercedes Simões Ferreira Barreirinhas (Coimbra, Sé Nova, 5 May 1888 – Lisbon, 12 September 1971). His father was a lawyer in Coimbra and Seia, and later on in Lisbon, and came from a family of rural bourgeoisie, related to a rich and more aristocratic family, the Cunhal Patrício. His mother was a devout Catholic who wished her son had also become one. He also studied Law at the University of Lisbon, where he joined the PCP, then an illegal organization, in 1931. The deaths of his younger sister Maria Mansueta Barrerinhas Cunhal (Coimbra – Seia, 13 January 1921) and of his older brother António José Barreirinhas Cunhal (Coimbra, 1910 – Lisbon, 1932) struck the grief of both his parents and brothers, but specially of his mother and Álvaro, of whom they had always been close. He visited the Soviet Union for the first time in 1935 to attend the Seventh World Congress of the Comintern in Moscow. He joined the Central Committee of the PCP in 1936 at the age of 24. His first arrest occurred in 1937.
...that Moscow City Hall, built in the 1890s to the tastes of the Russian bourgeoisie, was converted by Communists into the Central Lenin Museum after its rich interior decoration had been plastered over.
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On the question of agricultural co-operation, I think we should be confident, firstly, that both the poor peasants and the lower-middle peasants among the new and old middle peasants are enthusiastic about taking the socialist road and are eagerly responding to our Party's call for co-operative transformation -- this being particularly the case among those with a higher level of political consciousness -- because the poor peasants are in a difficult economic position and because the lower-middle peasants are still not well off, although their economic position is better than before liberation.
I think we should be confident, secondly, that the Party is capable of leading the people of the whole country to socialism. Having led the great people's democratic revolution to victory and established the people's democratic dictatorship headed by the working class, our Party can certainly lead the whole nation in basically accomplishing socialist industrialization and the socialist transformation of agriculture, handicrafts and capitalist industry and commerce in the course of roughly three five-year plans. In agriculture no less than in other spheres we already have powerful and convincing proof of this. Witness the first batch of 300 co-operatives, the second of 13,700 and the third of 86,000, or a total of 100,000, all established before the autumn of 1954 and all consolidated since. Why, then, can't the fourth batch of 550,000 co-operatives formed in 1954-55 and the fifth batch to be established in 1955-56 (the provisional control figure is 350,000, subject to final confirmation) also be consolidated?
We must have faith in the masses and we must have faith in the Party. These are two cardinal principles. If we doubt these principles, we shall accomplish nothing.
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