Communism
2 of the 7 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Communism. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
the common ownership of all property. Each member works for the community. Each is a member of one large family, embracing the entire community. Communism differs from socialism in that the latter contemplates that certain utilities or industries shall be owned by the people instead of the capitalists, and that wage earners work for the public instead of for private employers. Public ownership of waterworks, roads, gas plants, telegraphs, railroads, are some of the preliminary steps of socialism. Communism, however, extends to all forms of property. In a strictly socialistic community, a man may raise peas for his own table, but not peas for sale. The public pea patch takes care of the market. In a strictly communistic society, there are no private pea patches. The public patch is the only one; and, in fact, the public table is the only table. The communistic gardener could make no use of private peas if he had them. The earliest Christian churches were communistic. Ananias and Sapphira, his wife, it may be remembered, were struck dead for pretending that they had put all their property into the common treasury, when in fact they were withholding a part. The various religious orders of monks and nuns are founded on the principle of communism. The French Fourier (1772-1837), a Lyons merchant, questioned the righteousness of existing mercantile and manufacturing systems whereby the few become rich at the expense necessarily of the many. His doctrines, known as Fourierism, took root in the United States in the early part of the nineteenth century. Horace Greeley was very much impressed with the idea of communism as a preventive of misery and want. The periodicals known as the the Phalanx and the Harbinger were founded to advocate communistic principles. Between thirty and forty associations or communities were organized. Robert Owen, a British manufacturer, brought over a number of his countrymen to found societies. The most noted was that at New Harmony , Indiana. The Shakers are a communistic denomination, found chiefly in New York . The Oneida Community of New York was established in 1848. It carries on a number of industries. The steel trap used by the trappers of the Northwest for several decades bears the stamp of the Oneida Community. Oneida silverware is of excellent quality. The Amana Community still flourishes in Iowa. It comprises seven villages with surrounding farm lands. The society is noted for thrift, fine stock, and manufactures of woolen goods. Dowie's Zion City in Illinois is the latest notable attempt of the sort. The following quotation is from the Britannica. It applies more properly to the talking communist. "The opinion that a communist is a man who has no property to lose, and who therefore advocates a general redistribution of wealth, is very widespread and popular. It is embodied in the well known lines of the cornlaw rhymer: What is a Communist? One who hath yearnings For equal division of unequal earnings. Idler or bungler, or both, he is willing To fork out his penny and pocket your shilling. See Brook Farm ; Socialism
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
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. 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 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 , 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 communistic ideas again emerged in the writings of Morelly and Mably. Socialism is vague phenomenon which must not be identified with communism. In the anarchist , as also in the Marx school to a considerable degree, socialism takes the form of a systematic a community of property, associated with vague theories of the emancipation of women.