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Karl Heinrich Marx (May 5, 1818 – March 14, 1883) was a German philosopher, political economist, historian, sociologist, humanist, political theorist and revolutionary credited as the founder of communism.Marx summarized his approach to history and politics in the opening line of the first chapter of The Communist Manifesto (1848): “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles”. Marx argued that capitalism, like previous socioeconomic systems, will produce internal tensions which will lead to its destruction. Just as capitalism replaced feudalism, capitalism itself will be displaced by communism, a stateless, classless society which emerges after a transitional period, the 'dictatorship of the proletariat'.
On the one hand, Marx argued for a systemic understanding of socioeconomic change. He argued that the structural contradictions within capitalism necessitate its end, giving way to communism:“ The development of Modern Industry, therefore, cuts from under its feet the very foundation on which the bourgeoisie produces and appropriates products. What the bourgeoisie, therefore, produces, above all, are its own grave-diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable. ”
— (The Communist Manifesto) On the other hand, Marx argued that socioeconomic change occurred through organized revolutionary action. He argued that capitalism will end through the organized actions of an international working class, led by a Communist Party: "Communism is for us not a state of affairs which is to be established, an ideal to which reality [will] have to adjust itself. We call communism the real movement which abolishes the present state of things. The conditions of this movement result from the premises now in existence." (from The German Ideology)
While Marx remained a relatively obscure figure in his own lifetime, his ideas began to exert a major influence on workers' movements shortly after his death. This influence was given added impetus by the victory of the Marxist Bolsheviks in the Russian October Revolution, and there are few parts of the world which were not significantly touched by Marxian ideas in the course of the twentieth century.Marx's analysis of history focuses on the organization of labor and is based on his distinction between the means / forces of production, literally those things such as land, natural resources, and technology, that are necessary for the production of material goods, and the relations of production, in other words, the social relationships people enter into as they acquire and use the means of production. Together these compose the mode of production, and Marx distinguished historical eras in terms of distinct modes of production. For example, Marx observed that European societies had progressed from a feudal mode of production to a capitalist mode of production. Marx believed that under capitalism, the means of production change more rapidly than the relations of production (for example, we develop a new technology, such as the Internet, and only later do we develop laws to regulate that technology). For Marx this mismatch between (economic) base and (social) superstructure is a major source of social disruption and conflict.
Marx understood the "social relations of production" to comprise not only relations among individuals, but between or among groups of people, or classes. As a scientist and materialist, Marx did not understand classes as purely subjective (in other words, groups of people who consciously identified with one another). He sought to define classes in terms of objective criteria, such as their access to resources. For Marx, different classes have divergent interests, which provides another source of social disruption and conflict. Conflict between social classes he regards as something inherent in all human history:
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Vladimir Ilyich Lenin April 22 1870 – January 21, 1924), born Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov and also known by the pseudonyms V.I. Lenin and N. Lenin, was a Russian revolutionary, a communist politician, the principal leader of the October Revolution, the first head of the Russian Soviet Socialist Republic. In 1998, he was named by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century. His contributions to Marxist theory are commonly referred to as Leninism.
In March 1919, Lenin and other Bolshevik leaders met with revolutionary socialists from around the world and formed the Communist International. Members of the Communist International, including Lenin and the Bolsheviks themselves, broke off from the broader socialist movement. From that point onwards, they would become known as communists. In Russia, the Bolshevik Party was renamed the “Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks),” which eventually became the CPSU.
Meanwhile, the civil war raged across Russia. A wide variety of political movements and their supporters took up arms to support or overthrow the Soviet government. Although many different factions were involved in the civil war, the two main forces were the Red Army (communists) and the White Army (traditionalists). Foreign powers such as France, Britain, the United States and Japan also intervened in this war (on behalf of the White Army). Eventually, the more organisationally proficient Red Army, led by Leon Trotsky, won the civil war, defeating the White Russian forces and their allies in 1920. Smaller battles continued for several more years, however.The civil war has been described as “unprecedented for its savagery,” with mass executions and other atrocities committed by both sides. Between battles, executions, famine and epidemics, many millions would perish.In late 1919, successes against the White Russian forces convinced Lenin that it was time to spread the revolution to the West, by force if necessary. When the newly independent Second Polish Republic began securing its eastern territories annexed by Russia in the partitions of Poland in the late 18th century, it clashed with Bolshevik forces for dominance in these areas, which led to the outbreak of the Polish-Soviet War in 1919. With the revolution in Germany and the Spartacist League on the rise, Lenin viewed this as the perfect time and place to “probe Europe with the bayonets of the Red Army.” Lenin saw Poland as the bridge that the Red Army would have to cross in order to link up the Russian Revolution with the communist supporters in the German Revolution, and to assist other communist movements in Western Europe. However the defeat of Soviet Russia in the Battle of Warsow invalidated these plans.Lenin was a harsh critic of imperialism.In 1917, he declared the unconditional right of separation for national minorities and oppressed nations. However, when the Russian Civil War was won he used military force to assimilate the newly independent states of Armenia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan. He argued that the inclusion of those countries in the newly emerging Soviet government would shelter them from capitalist imperial ambitions.
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Joseph Stalin (Iosif Vissarionovich Stalin, born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili,December 18, 1878 – March 5, 1953) was General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee from 1922 until his death in 1953. In the years following Lenin's death in 1924, he rose to become the authoritarian leader of the Soviet Union.Stalin launched a command economy, replacing the New Economic Policy of the 1920s with Five-Year Plans and launching a period of rapid industrialization and economic collectivization. The upheaval in the agricultural sector disrupted food production, resulting in widespread famine, such as the Soviet famine of 1932-1933, known in Ukraine as the Holodomor.
During the late 1930s, Stalin launched the Great Purge (also known as the "Great Terror"), a campaign to purge the Communist Party of people accused of corruption or treachery; he extended it to the military and other sectors of Soviet society. Targets were often executed, imprisoned in Gulag labor camps or exiled. In the years following, millions of ethnic minorities were also deported.In 1939, the Soviet Union under Stalin signed a non-aggression pact with Nazi Germany, followed by a Soviet invasion of Poland, Finland, the Baltics, Bessarabia and northern Bukovina. After Germany violated the pact in 1941, the Soviet Union joined the Allies to play a vital role in the Axis defeat, at the cost of the largest death toll for any country in the war. Thereafter, contradicting statements at allied conferences, Stalin installed communist governments in most of Eastern Europe, forming the Eastern bloc, behind what was referred to as an "Iron Curtain" of Soviet rule. This launched the long period of antagonism known as the Cold War.
Stalin's careful control of the media helped him to foster a cult of personality. However, after his death his successor, Nikita Kruschev, denounced his legacy, initiating the period known as de-Stalinization.
Upon seizing Petrograd, the Bolsheviks formed the new revolutionary authority, the Council of People's Commissars. Stalin was appointed People's Commissar for Nationalities' Affairs; his job was to establish an institution to win over non-Russian citizens of the former Russian Empire. He was relieved of his post as editor of Pravda so that he could devote himself fully to his new role.In March 1918, the Menshevik leader Julius Martov published an article exposing Bolshevik crimes committed before the revolution. It stated that Stalin had organised bank robberies and had been expelled from his own party for doing so (the latter part is untrue). Stalin sued Martov for libel and won.After seizing Petrograd, civil war broke out in Russia, pitting Lenin's Red Army against the White Army, a loose alliance of anti-Bolshevik forces. Lenin formed a five-member Politburo which included Stalin and Trotsky. During this time, only Stalin and Trotsky were allowed to see Lenin without an appointment.In May 1918, Lenin dispatched Stalin to the city of Tsaritsyn. Situated on the Lower Volga, it was a key supply route to the oil and grain of the North Caucasus. There was a critical shortage of food in Russia, and Stalin was assigned to procure any he could find. The city was also in danger of falling to the White Army. Here, he first met and befriended Kliment Voroshilov and Semyon Budyonny, both of whom would become two of Stalin's key supporters in the military. Through his new allies, he imposed his influence on the military; in July Lenin granted his request for official control over military operations in the region.Joseph Stalin, Vladimir Lenin, and Mikhail Kalinin meeting in 1919. All three of them were "Old Bolsheviks" — members of the Bolshevik party before the Russian Revolution of 1917.Stalin challenged many of the decisions of Trotsky, who at this time was Chairman of the Revolutionary-Military Council of the Republic and thus his military superior. He ordered the killings of many former Tsarist officers in the Red Army; Trotsky, in agreement with the Central Committee, had hired them for their expertise, but Stalin distrusted them. This created a lot of friction between Stalin and Trotsky. Stalin even wrote to Lenin asking that Trotsky be relieved of his post.
Stalin ordered the executions of any suspected counter-revolutionaries. In the countryside, he burned villages in order to intimidate the peasantry into submission and discourage bandit raids on food shipments.
Stalin returned to Moscow in early 1919 and married his longtime companinon, Nadezhda Alliluyeva, on March 24. At the Eighth Party Congress in March, Lenin criticised Stalin for using tactics that led to excessive casualties.
In May 1919, Stalin was dispatched to the Western Front, near Petrograd. In order to stem mass desertions and defections of Red Army soldiers, Stalin rounded up deserters and renegades and had them publicly executed as traitors.
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Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev Nikita Serge'evic Hrušcëv) (April 17, 1894 – September 11, 1971) served as First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, following the death of Joseph Stalin, and Chairman of the Council of Ministers from 1958 to 1964. Khrushchev was responsible for the de-Stalinization of the USSR, as well as several liberal reforms ranging from agriculture to foreign policy. Khrushchev's party colleagues removed him from power in 1964, replacing him with Leonid Brezhnev.Unlike Georgy Malenkov, Vyacheslav Molotov, and Lazar Kaganovich, who were removed from the Party and forced to live as ordinary citizens, Khruschev remained a member of the Central Committee until 1966 and Party member until his death. He received a special pension and security detail and was allowed to live in a state-owned residence. However, Khruschev remained under close watch by the KGB (whose officers formed the security detail) until his death.
Initially Khruschev lived under house arrest, but later resumed a more active social life (particularly with the members of the Moscow intelligentsia), but never publicly commented on the policy of his successors, focusing instead on writing his memoirs, which, despite the KGB, were smuggled to the West.Khruschev died of a heart attack in a hospital near his home in Moscow on September 11, 1971, and is buried in the Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow, having been denied a state funeral and interment in the Kremlin Wall
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Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev, Leonid Il’ich Brezhnev; December 19 1906 [O.S. December 6, 1906] – November 10, 1982) was General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (and thus political leader of the USSR) from 1964 to 1982, serving in that position longer than anyone other than Joseph Stalin. He was twice Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet (head of state), from May 7, 1960 to July 15, 1964 and from June 16, 1977 to his death on November 10, 1982.Brezhnev met Nikita Khrushchev in 1931, shortly after joining the party. Before long, he became Khrushchev's protégé as he continued his rise through the ranks. He was Party First Secretary of the Moldavian SSR from November 3, 1950 to April 16, 1952. As first secretary of Communist Party of Moldavia, Brezhnev liquidated and deported thousands of ethnic Romanians from Moldova and instituted forced collectivization. During Brezhnev's time here, he was responsible for the removal of as many as 250,000 people from Moldova to other parts of the Soviet Union.
Stalin died in March 1953, and in the reorganization that followed the Presidium was abolished and a smaller Politburo reconstituted. Although Brezhnev was not made a Politburo member, he was instead appointed head of the Political Directorate of the Army and the Navy, with rank of Lieutenant-General, a very senior position. This was probably due to the new power of his patron Khrushchev, who had succeeded Stalin as Party General Secretary. On May 7, 1955, he was made Party First Secretary of the Kazakh SSR, also an important post.
In February 1956, Brezhnev was recalled to Moscow, promoted to candidate member of the Politburo and assigned control of the defense industry, the space program, heavy industry, and capital construction. He was now a senior member of Khrushchev's entourage, and, in June 1957, he backed Khrushchev in his struggle with the Stalinist old guard in the Party leadership, the so-called "Anti-Party Group" led by Vyacheslav Molotov, Georgy Malenkov, Lazar Kaganovich as well as Dmitri Shepilov. Following the defeat of the old guard, Brezhnev became a full member of the Politburo.In 1959, Brezhnev became Second Secretary of the Central Committee and, in May 1960, was promoted to the post of President of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, making him nominal head of state. Although real power resided with Khrushchev as Party Secretary, the presidential post allowed Brezhnev to travel abroad, and he began to develop the taste for expensive western clothes and cars for which he later became notorious.
Until about 1962, Khrushchev's position as Party leader was secure, but as the leader aged he grew more erratic and his performance undermined the confidence of his fellow leaders. The Soviet Union's mounting economic problems also increased the pressure on Khrushchev's leadership. Outwardly, Brezhnev remained conspicuously loyal to Khrushchev, but, in 1963, he became involved in the plot to remove the leader from power, possibly actually leading the plot by some accounts, like Gennadii Voronov's. Alexey Kosygin, Nikolay Podgorny, Alexander Shelepin and some other high officials were also involved in the plan. In that year Brezhnev succeeded Frol Kozlov, Khrushchev's protege, as Secretary of the Central Committee, making him Khrushchev's likely successor.
On October 14, 1964, while Khrushchev was on holiday, the conspirators struck. Brezhnev and Podgorny appealed to the Central Committee, blaming Khrushchev for economic failures, and accusing him of voluntarism and immodest behavior. Influenced by the Brezhnev allies, Politburo members voted to remove Khrushchev from office. Brezhnev was appointed Party First Secretary; Aleksey Kosygin was appointed Prime Minister, and Mikoyan became head of state (In 1965 Mikoyan retired and was succeeded by Podgorny).
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Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev, Mihajl Serge'evic Gorbacëv; born 2 March 1931 in Privolnoye, Stavropol Krai), is a Russian politician. He was the last General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, serving from 1985 until 1991, and also the last head of state of the USSR, serving from 1988 until its collapse in 1991. He was the first (and therefore only) Soviet leader to have been born after the October Revolution of 1917.
Gorbachev's attempts at reform — perestroika and glasnost — as well as summit conferences with United States President Ronald Reagan, contributed to the end of the Cold War, and also ended the political supremacy of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) and led to the dissolution of the Soviet Union. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990. In 2000, Gorbachev co-founded and became president of a Men's World Day. Gorbachev is currently the leader of the Union of Social-Democrats,a political party founded after the official dissolution of the Social Democratic Party of Russia on 20 October 2007.Elections to the Congress of People's Deputies were held throughout the Soviet Union in March and April 1989. This was the first free election in the Soviet Union since 1917. He became Chairman of the Supreme Soviet (head of state) on 25 May 1989. On 15 March 1990, Gorbachev was elected as the first executive President of the Soviet Union with 59% of the Deputies' votes being an unopposed candidate. The Congress met for the first time on 25 May. Their first task was to elect representatives from Congress to sit on the Supreme Soviet. Nonetheless, the Congress posed problems for Gorbachev. Its sessions were televised, airing more criticism and encouraging people to expect evermore rapid reform. In the elections, many Party candidates were defeated. Furthermore, Yeltsin was elected in Moscow and returned to political prominence to become an increasingly vocal critic of Gorbachev.The rest of 1989 was taken up by the increasingly problematic nationalities question and the dramatic collapse of the Eastern Bloc. Despite international détente reaching unprecedented levels, with the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan completed in January and U.S.-Soviet talks continuing between Gorbachev and George H. W. Bush, domestic reforms were suffering from increasing divergence between reformists, who criticised the pace of change, and conservatives, who criticised the extent of change. Gorbachev states that he tried to find the middle ground between both groups, but this would draw more criticism towards him. The story from this point on moves away from reforms and becomes one of the nationalities question and the eventual collapse of the Soviet Union.On 9 November, people in the German Democratic Republic (East Germany, GDR) broke down the Berlin Wall after a peaceful protest against the country's dictatorial administration, including a demonstration by some one million people in East Berlin on 4 November. Unlike earlier riots which were ended by military force with the help of USSR, Gorbachev, who came to be lovingly called "Gorby" in West Germany, now decided not to interfere with the process in Germany. He stated that German reunification was an internal German matter.
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