The Rise and Decline of Communist Governments

Since the mid-nineteenth century, socialist and communist ideas and governments have greatly altered politics around the globe. The political philosophy of socialism and communism was most powerfully stated by Karl Marx, a German intellectual and radical, who wrote the Communist Manifesto, published amid the revolutionary fervor of 1848, as well as Capital (in German, Das Kapital), and many other works. Marx believed that all societies were fundamentally shaped by the political struggle between classes. In the era of industrial capitalism in which he lived, Marx saw European societies divided between two classes: the bourgeoisie (owners of factories and other means of production) and proletariat (workers), and believed that governments were designed to protect the property and power of owners. He believed that workers would inevitably stage a revolution and create a government more sensitive to their own needs, in which a small number of wealthy citizens would not be allowed to own the sources of wealth and exploit workers.