Under the economic and political system called Communism, all people are meant to enjoy an equal share of a country's property and wealth. In practice, however, most of the wealth and power in Communist countries has often ended up in the hands of the countries' leaders. Communism has been practiced in a number of countries around the world, including China and the former Soviet Union.

Origins

Some of the basic ideas of Communism go back as far as ancient Greece and the philosopher Plato. Modern Communism, however, developed as a reaction to the economic system called capitalism. Under capitalism, individuals owned a country's capital, or means of production—that is, the land, factories, machinery, and other things needed to run businesses. The people who started and ran businesses, known as capitalists, competed with each other for customers.

Some capitalists became very rich. As they strove to make money, however, they sometimes ignored the well-being of their workers. During the Industrial Revolution of the 18th and 19th centuries, men, women, and even children were employed in miserable conditions for low wages. This hardship led to the rise of socialist and communist ideas. Communists wanted to create a society in which the workers, not the capitalists, owned the means of production.

The ideas of Marx

The leader of the Communists was the German philosopher Karl Marx. Marx published his ideas in 1848 in The Communist Manifesto, written with his friend Friedrich Engels, and later in Capital. In these works Marx wrote about the problems of the working people, whom he called the proletariat. He thought that people's ideas and lives were largely controlled by money. The capitalists, he said, were not concerned about workers' problems. Marx believed that private ownership of property and control of wealth caused this hardship. These problems could be solved only by replacing capitalism with Communism. Eventually, Marx thought, the workers would lead a revolution and overthrow the capitalists.

After taking control, the proletariat would become the new ruling class. At first there would be a “dictatorship of the people” to defeat all opposition. This would be followed by a true Communist society, with common ownership of property, one social class, and no government. People would work to produce wealth according to their abilities, and everyone would share in this wealth according to their needs.

Rise and fall of Communism

Marx thought Communist revolutions would happen first in industrial countries such as Great Britain. Instead, the first Communist government came to power in Russia, after the Russian Revolution of 1917. The leader of the revolution was a Communist named Vladimir Lenin. After his victory he established a dictatorship and put Marx's ideas into practice. Russia was reorganized and renamed the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, or Soviet Union. Upon Lenin's death in 1924, Joseph Stalin came to power. Stalin's rule was harsher than Lenin's, providing little freedom to the Soviet people.

Stalin hoped to spread Communism throughout the world. For decades these efforts were largely unsuccessful, but this changed after World War II. By the end of the war Soviet armies controlled much of eastern Europe, and after the war Stalin forced these countries to become Communist. This began a long and tense rivalry between the Communist world and the United States and its supporters. This period came to be known as the Cold War.

In 1949 Communists gained control of China after a long civil war. Communism then spread to other parts of Asia (Vietnam, Cambodia, North Korea), Africa (Ethiopia and Angola), and Central America (Cuba and Nicaragua).

By the late 20th century, however, the influence of Communism had been reduced. In the late 1980s a reform movement spread through eastern Europe. Between 1989 and 1991 the Communist system collapsed in most eastern European countries and in the Soviet Union itself. Even in some countries where Communism kept its leading political role, such as China, some moves were taken toward a capitalist system.