OED Full Entry Display
communism
communism
ko(hook).miuniz'm. f. L.
commun-is or Fr. commun common + -ism. In mod.Fr.
communisme.1. a. A theory
which advocates a state of society in which there should be no private
ownership, all property being vested in the community and labour organized
for the common benefit of all members; the professed principle being that
each should work according to his capacity, and receive according to his
wants.
`I also conversed [in 1840] with some of the most advanced
minds of the French metropolis, and there, in the compan y of some
disciples of Babeoeuf, then called Equalitarians, I first pronounced the
name of Communism, which has since..acquired that world-wide reputation
(Goodwyn Barmby in The Apostle No. i. 1848).
- 1843 New Ag e 20 May 24 Works on
Communism, Religious, Political, and Domestic.
- 1844
The Movement 25 Sept. 353 The journals..teem with criticisms and
reports of Communists and Communism.
- 1848 Forster
Diary 11 May in
T. W. Reid Life (1888) I. vii. 237, I learn that the great
distinction between communism and socialism is that the latter believes in
payment according to work done, and the former does not.
- 1851 J. M. Ludlow Chr. Socialism
11 Communism starts from the thing, and is in essential antagonism
to absolute property; Socialism starts from the person, and is in
essential antagonism to human discord and rivalry.
- 1890
G. J. Holyoake Labour World
No. 11 col. 39 Communism means a self-supporting society distinguished by
common labour, common property, and common means of intelligence and
recreation.
b. spec.
A political
doctrine or movement based on Marxism and later developed by Lenin,
seeking the overthrow of capitalism through a proletarian revolution; = Marxism-Leninism.
(Freq. with capital initial.)
- 1850 H. Macfarlane tr.
Marx & Engels's Manifesto of German Communist Party in Red
Republican 23 Nov. 181/3 It is not..the abolition of property
generally which distinguishes Communism; it is the abolition of Bourgeois
property... In this sense, indeed, the Com munists might resume their
whole Theory in that single expression-The abolition of private property.
- 1896 [see Marxian a.].
- 1906 Our May Day Manifesto (Commun ist Working Men's
Club) 8 This is our `First of May', the May-Day of those who
believe in Anarchism and Communism!
- 1908 J. Bonhomme tr.
Jaeckh's International 71 In Germany, Liebknecht began to unfurl
the red flag of Communi sm in the first party which had been formed.
- 1919 tr. Lenin's State & Revol; v. 99 We are
right in speaking solely of the inevitable withering away of the State,
emphasising..its dependence upon the rapidity of development of t he
higher phase of Communism.
- 1921 E. & C; Paul
Communism 1 Communism to-day signifies an organised attempt to
overthrow the existing social order and to replace it by a better.
- 1954 J. Plamenatz Marxism &am p; Communism xiii.
319 From 1902 until 1926 German Marxism..was gradually transformed into
what is nowadays called Communism.
2.
a. Applied to any practice which carries out this theory in
whole or par t; e.g. that mentioned in Acts ii. 44 seq., as
practised in the church of Jerusalem, or that prevailing in monastic
communities. spec.
The communistic social order established in
Russia after the revolution of March 1917, and later in ce rtain
associated countries; = Bolshevism. (Freq. with
capital initial.) Also transf.
- 1857 Wood
Com. Obj. Seashore 75 In these curious creatures communism prevails
to its fullest extent, one for all and all for one.
- 1874
H. Reynolds John Bapt. iii. Sect.2. 177 The communism, the vows of
silence, the ceaseless struggle after a higher life amongst the Essenes.
- 1882 A. M. Fairba irn in Contemp. Rev. XLII. 870
Communism seems to the new-born religious society but the proper social
expression of its brotherhood.
- 1918 Times 24 Jan.
5/3 (heading) Fruits of Bolshevist Rule `Fantastic Communism'.
- 1935 S. & B; Webb (title) Soviet Communism: a
new civilisation?
- 1957 Carew Hunt Communist Jargon
i. 1 Wars waged by the Soviet Union for the purpose of `liberating'
oppressed countries and imposing Communi sm upon
them.
cb. Co-ownership of
land.
- 1866 Rogers Agric. & Prices I.
xxvii. 652 A village system, which..was a kind of simple communism.
- 1875 Poste Gaius ii. (ed. 2) 254
Communism or co-ownership appears to be an older institution than
individual ownership.
3. Community
of feeling; the spirit of a community.
rare
.
- 1870 Daily News 18 Nov., A
tribunal where the natural bias of mercantile communism could not
influence the judgment of those who had to decide the
question.
Sometimes improperly used for communalism< /XR>, and the
spirit of the commune of
Paris, in 1871.
- 1871 Graphic III. 563/2 The
Hotel de Ville..is now a complete wreck..an everlasting reproach to
Communism and its doctrine s.