Communist society in the context of "Communists"

Marxism is a political philosophy and method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a dialectical materialist interpretation of historical development, known as historical materialism, to understand class relations and social conflict. Originating in the works of 19th-century German philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, the Marxist approach views class struggle as the central driving force of historical change.

Marxist analysis views a society's economic mode of production as the foundation of its social, political, and intellectual life, a concept known as the base and superstructure model. In its critique of capitalism, Marxism posits that the ruling class (the bourgeoisie), who own the means of production, systematically exploit the working class (the proletariat), who must sell their labour power to survive. This relationship, according to Marx, leads to alienation, periodic economic crises, and escalating class conflict. Marx theorised that these internal contradictions would fuel a proletarian revolution, leading to the overthrow of capitalism and the establishment of a socialist mode of production. For Marxists, this transition represents a necessary step towards a classless, stateless communist society.

Common ownership refers to holding the assets of an organization, enterprise, or community indivisibly rather than in the names of the individual members or groups of members as common property. Forms of common ownership exist in every economic system. Common ownership of the means of production is a central goal of socialist political movements as it is seen as a necessary democratic mechanism for the creation and continued function of a communist society. Advocates make a distinction between collective ownership and common property (the commons) as the former refers to property owned jointly by agreement of a set of colleagues, such as producer cooperatives, whereas the latter refers to assets that are completely open for access, such as a public park freely available to everyone.

The Critique of the Gotha Programme (German: Kritik des Gothaer Programms) is a document written by Karl Marx in 1875 as a private communication to the leadership of the German Social Democratic Workers' Party (the "Eisenachers"). The critique was directed at the draft programme of the unified party that was to be created through a merger with the General German Workers' Association (the "Lassalleans") at a congress in the city of Gotha. Marx argued that the programme made significant and damaging concessions to the state-oriented socialism of Ferdinand Lassalle, whose ideas he considered opportunistic and insufficiently revolutionary.

The work is celebrated among Marxists for being one of Marx's most detailed pronouncements on programmatic matters. It offers his most extensive statements on the nature of a future communist society, the strategy for achieving it, and the principles that would govern it. The Critique outlines the "two phases of communist society": a lower phase where individuals receive goods equivalent to their labour contribution, and a higher phase in which society operates on the principle, "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs". It also contains Marx's only sustained discussion of the "dictatorship of the proletariat" as the state form during the political transition period between capitalism and communism.

Communism (from Latin communis 'common, universal') is a political and economic ideology whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a socioeconomic order centered on common ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange that allocates products in society based on need. A communist society entails the absence of private property and social classes, and ultimately money and the state. Communism is a part of the broader socialist movement.

Communists often seek a voluntary state of self-governance but disagree on the means to this end. This reflects a distinction between a libertarian socialist approach of communization, revolutionary spontaneity, and workers' self-management, and an authoritarian socialist, vanguardist, or party-driven approach to establish a socialist state, which is expected to wither away. Communist parties have been described as radical left or far-left.

"From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" (German: Jeder nach seinen Fähigkeiten, jedem nach seinen Bedürfnissen) is a slogan popularised by Karl Marx in his 1875 Critique of the Gotha Programme. The principle refers to free access to and distribution of goods, capital and services. In the Marxist view, such an arrangement will be made possible by the abundance of goods and services that a developed communist system will be capable to produce; the idea is that, with the full development of socialism and unfettered productive forces, there will be enough to satisfy everyone's needs.