Communism.Was it really invented by Karl Marx

[Rio Cana]

Was invented by a Frenchman named François-Noël Babeuf.

The word "communism" was coined by Goodwyn Barmby in a conversation with those he described as the "disciples of Babeuf".

Read this - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/François-Noël_Babeuf

The first President of Paraguay, Jose Gaspar Rodriguez de Francia was a follower of the French revolution and more precisely of the ideas of Babeuf. He turned Paraguay into the first Socialist nation.

Although he has been compared to the Jacobin leader Maximilien de Robespierre (1758-94), Francia's policies and ideals perhaps most closely resembled those of François-Noël Babeuf, a French utopian who wanted to abolish private property and communalize land as a prelude to founding a "republic of equals." Francia detested the political culture of the old regime and considered himself a "revolutionary.

Also, read this page - http://countrystudies.us/paraguay/8.htm

[Cavalstan]

Lately,communism has been getting alot of hate.Also,people say[even textbooks]that Karl Marx founded it.However,a thought has come to me:did he really found communism?Was it really Russia who was first to become communist?If you really think about it,anciet civilizations did the same.So my question is,was Russia really the first communist country,or has the idea been around since the beginning of civilization?

Dude, Communism has gotten a lot of hate since the end of the Second World War. This isn't a news to anybody.

I am trying to be modest.

[Yootwopia]

No.

[Neo-Sincostan]

-The term "communisme" existed before Marx.
-Russia never established communism (Marxism-Leninism is a bollocks theory on how to reach it).
-Marx never actually did much work covering communism directly.

[Neo-Sincostan]

Kropotkin, on the other hand..

[Disserbia]

In the strict Marxist meaning, no, it was Paris in 1870.

ninja'd damnit.

[Samozaryadnyastan]

Not really. Karl Marx invented Marxism.

[Trotskylvania]

Not really. Karl Marx invented Marxism.

If that were the case, then the big man himself wouldn't have said "All I know is that I am no Marxist."

I think you can say that about any -ism attached to a person's name.

[Georgizm]

Not really. Karl Marx invented Marxism.

If that were the case, then the big man himself wouldn't have said "All I know is that I am no Marxist."

I thought that was because some plebs were messing around with his ideas?

[Helcasia]

Not really. Karl Marx invented Marxism.

If that were the case, then the big man himself wouldn't have said "All I know is that I am no Marxist."

I think you can say that about any -ism attached to a person's name.

I don't think that's the entire quote...or in the correct context.

[Helcasia]

If that were the case, then the big man himself wouldn't have said "All I know is that I am no Marxist."

I thought that was because some plebs were messing around with his ideas?

That's what I thought.

[Trotskylvania]

If that were the case, then the big man himself wouldn't have said "All I know is that I am no Marxist."

I thought that was because some plebs were messing around with his ideas?

I don't think that Marx would have wanted a Marxism to exist, regardless of how astute the Marxists where (historically, they either weren't or were vaguely opportunistic intellectuals). Once of the central subjects Marx wrote on in his early years was that history seemed to be repeating itself: first as tragedy, then as farce. This was the central subject of The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, in which he wrote probably one of my favorite passages:

The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living. And just as they seem to be occupied with revolutionizing themselves and things, creating something that did not exist before, precisely in such epochs of revolutionary crisis they anxiously conjure up the spirits of the past to their service, borrowing from them names, battle slogans, and costumes in order to present this new scene in world history in time-honored disguise and borrowed language. Thus Luther put on the mask of the Apostle Paul, the Revolution of 1789-1814 draped itself alternately in the guise of the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire, and the Revolution of 1848 knew nothing better to do than to parody, now 1789, now the revolutionary tradition of 1793-95.

[Dokuritsu Nippon]

Depends on how you define terms I suppose. "Communism" in particular is really quite apt to fall into the fallacy of equivocation (and no true scotsman internally between factions).

Though I personally advocate a rather nuanced theory of Communism (Marxism-Leninism-Juche) as best for advancing the interests of the workers of the world in attaining liberation from the capitalist-imperialist system, I'd certainly still maintain that there are a number of varying tendencies, not all of them Marxist, even self-proclaimed-wise.

Depending on how broadly one define things, while certainly not a Marxist (both in terms of theory, and simply because Marx was born millennia after he died), even Plato might be, in some senses of the word, defined as a "communist". So... ehh...

This thread is just gonna be a magnet for no-true-scotsmen and equivocation and stupid pointless factionalism...

[Natapoc]

Lately,communism has been getting alot of hate.Also,people say[even textbooks]that Karl Marx founded it.However,a thought has come to me:did he really found communism?Was it really Russia who was first to become communist?If you really think about it,anciet civilizations did the same.So my question is,was Russia really the first communist country,or has the idea been around since the beginning of civilization?

No. Also, Russia was not communist. They attempted to be socialist but were not really that either. They never even called their country communist, instead aiming, first for state capitalism then getting distracted in Stalinist concepts of state control.

[Flavionia]

Nope, Plato did, he just clarified and modernized it.

[Dokuritsu Nippon]

Lately,communism has been getting alot of hate.Also,people say[even textbooks]that Karl Marx founded it.However,a thought has come to me:did he really found communism?Was it really Russia who was first to become communist?If you really think about it,anciet civilizations did the same.So my question is,was Russia really the first communist country,or has the idea been around since the beginning of civilization?

No. Also, Russia was not communist. They attempted to be socialist but were not really that either. They never even called their country communist, instead aiming, first for state capitalism then getting distracted in Stalinist concepts of state control.

See above.

Totally called it on the no-true-scotsman fallacy and pointless factionalism.

[Natapoc]

No. Also, Russia was not communist. They attempted to be socialist but were not really that either. They never even called their country communist, instead aiming, first for state capitalism then getting distracted in Stalinist concepts of state control.

See above.

Totally called it on the no-true-scotsman fallacy and pointless factionalism.

Not really. Communism is a stateless classless and moneyless society where the means of production is held in common.

Russia was none of these. A statement is not an example of a "no true Scotsman" when the statement is, in fact, not a Scotsman but rather dutch, German, Swedish, or Chinese.

[Trotskylvania]

Nope, Plato did, he just clarified and modernized it.

The only people who live communistic existences in the Republic are the guardians and their children, who live in an austere communal environment to keep them focused on the philosophical task of discovering the good life, and off applying their wisdom to rule the rest of the polis. Denying wealth and material comforts to the ruling classes may be a feature totally alien to all real world class societies, but that doesn't make it communist.

[Dokuritsu Nippon]

See above.

Totally called it on the no-true-scotsman fallacy and pointless factionalism.

Not really. Communism is a stateless classless and moneyless society where the means of production is held in common.

Russia was none of these. A statement is not an example of a "no true Scotsman" when the statement is, in fact, not a Scotsman but rather dutch, German, Swedish, or Chinese.

Well, let's take it from the horse's mouth itself, shall we:

"The theory of the Communism may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property."

I support as much. If you're going to accordingly claim I'm not a (Marxist) Communist, then you're being fallacious, as Marx himself defined it accordingly.

[Trotskylvania]

Not really. Communism is a stateless classless and moneyless society where the means of production is held in common.

Russia was none of these. A statement is not an example of a "no true Scotsman" when the statement is, in fact, not a Scotsman but rather dutch, German, Swedish, or Chinese.

Well, let's take it from the horse's mouth itself, shall we:

"The theory of the Communism may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property."

I support as much. If you're going to accordingly claim I'm not a (Marxist) Communist, then you're being fallacious, as Marx himself defined it accordingly.

The Manifesto is a polemical document, not a serious treatise in political philosophy. Marx laid out quite clearly the necessary features of a future communist society in The Civil War in France and The Critique of the Gotha Programme.

The central theme in both is simple: Participatory democracy, and an abolition of the existing state apparatus for a state that existed completely subordinated to society.

[Dokuritsu Nippon]

Well, let's take it from the horse's mouth itself, shall we:

"The theory of the Communism may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property."

I support as much. If you're going to accordingly claim I'm not a (Marxist) Communist, then you're being fallacious, as Marx himself defined it accordingly.

The Manifesto is a polemical document, not a serious treatise in political philosophy. Marx laid out quite clearly the necessary features of a future communist society in The Civil War in France and The Critique of the Gotha Programme.

The central theme in both is simple: Participatory democracy, and an abolition of the existing state apparatus for a state that existed completely subordinated to society.

I'd debate whether or not acceptance of such criteria is definitionally necessary to be considered a "Communist", but I happen to support both (the latter of which is mutually exclusive to the idea of abolition of ALL states that the other poster advocated for instance; though I wouldn't necessarily consider him not a Communist)

I just personally happen to add to such the ideas of vanguardism (because just look around; the vast majority of the world's workers aren't capable of attaining proper consciousness on their own, at the very least under the material conditions of capitalism) and analyzing the global struggle against advanced capitalism in terms of anti-imperialism (something Lenin strongly advocated, and was only really ever echoed to the same degree in more recent times by the likes of Ho Chi-Minh and Kim Il Sung, Suryong; something I feel quite glaringly missing from most other tendencies); but I view such as matters of strategy for establishing socialism rather than socialist theory proper.

[The Pretend Pub]

If that were the case, then the big man himself wouldn't have said "All I know is that I am no Marxist."

I thought that was because some plebs were messing around with his ideas?

I think you might have confused Karl Marx with Charles Marcstel.

[Neo-Sincostan]

Well, let's take it from the horse's mouth itself, shall we:

"The theory of the Communism may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property."

I support as much. If you're going to accordingly claim I'm not a (Marxist) Communist, then you're being fallacious, as Marx himself defined it accordingly.

You're an idiot.

See above.

Totally called it on the no-true-scotsman fallacy and pointless factionalism.

Not really. Communism is a stateless classless and moneyless society where the means of production is held in common.

Russia was none of these. A statement is not an example of a "no true Scotsman" when the statement is, in fact, not a Scotsman but rather dutch, German, Swedish, or Chinese.

^This.

[Super Bwitain]

The inventor of communism= Karl Marx

The communist to have the biggest effect on the world= Lenin

[Genivaria]

I used to think it was invented by Jesus.