Communism
a system of society in which common property is the recognized form. In later times it is an attempt to prevent or remedy the evils arising out of the inequalities of private property But in by holding property in common. But in primitive societies, in the hunting and pastoral stages of civilization, communism was universal. Long after the pri vate use of land had been established, the common ownership of it by the tribe or clan was still recognized and enforced, and the arable land of the community was subject to periodical redistribution with the view to cultivation.
Survivals of this system still exist in various countries of the world, notably in the Mir of the Russian empire. The Soviet Republic that succeeded in 1917 was in 1920 experimenting with communism.
See COUNCIL OF WORKINGMEN AND SOLDIERS.
In the ancient world a partial communism prevailed in Crete and Sparta.
During the decline of Greece more systematic speculations and experiments in communism appeared. The most emiand experiments in communism appeared. The eminent example of the former was the Republic of Plato. In Palestine, about the Christian era, the Essenes were a society of recluses with celibacy and the community of goods. A most remarkable instance of community of goods is that of the early Christians at Jerusalem, recorded in Acts iv: 32. During the middle ages, middle ages , sects holding the community both of goods and women appeared, like the sect of the Giovannali in Corsica .
At the Reformation the anabaptists Münzer and Bockholt set up communism in Germany, and similar notions had a wide diffusion in other countries. The most eminent literary form of it was the Utopia of Sir Thomas More (1516).
Campanella's "Civitas Solis" (1623) has a community of goods under the despotic rule of the wise men, with a workingday of four hours. At the discovery of America the Spanish conquerors found a system of agricultural communism under a central despotism both in Mexico and Peru. In the earliest English settlements in America, both Virginia and New England, a system of common property was attempted, but soon abandoned. During the fermentation which preceded and accompanied the French Revolution munistic ideas again emerged in the writings of Morelly and Mably.
Socialism is vague phenomenon which must not be identified with com- Socialism is a vague phenomenon munism. In the anarchist, as also in the Marx school to a considerable degree, socialism takes the form of a systematic a COMNENUS community of property, associated with vague theories of the emancipation of women.