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Occam's razor

2017-08-10T13:20:19Z

JaqenHgar: The original point, that if one assumes that a God exists then evolution is not necessary, fails to address the point of Occam's razor. Detailing philosophical arguments for the existence of God, by necessity, is more relevant.

{| class="infobox bordered" style="font-size:95%; width:25em;"
! style="font-size:120%; background:lightgreen; text-align:center; padding:5px 0;" | Newton's first rule of reasoning
|-
| style="padding:15px;" |«''We are to admit '''no more causes''' of natural things '''than''' such as are both true and '''sufficient''' to explain their appearances.''»
<div style="padding-left:40px;">— Isaac Newton: ''Principia''<ref name="Rappaport1997">{{cite book |title=When Geologists Where Historians, 1665-1750 |author=Rhoda Rappaport |publisher=Cornell University Press |place=Ithaca and London |year=1997 |pages=62 |isbn=978-0801-433863 |url=http://books.google.com/books?id=30U3W2kI7foC |quote=In the famous language of Newton's first rule of reasoning in the ''Principia'', ... }}</ref> </div>
|}
'''Occam's razor''' (sometimes '''Ockham's razor''') is a principle that, in short, can be described as ''the hypothesis that makes the least assumptions is the best answer for the phenomenon in question''. Note that Occam's razor does not say that the more simple a hypothesis, the better. It is also called a methodological tool reflecting the imperative ''don't invent unnecessary entities to explain something.''<ref name="DeniableDarwin">{{cite book
|author=David Berlinski
|title=The Deniable Darwin
|publisher=Discovery Institute Press (reprinted from ''Commentary'' February 1998 by permission)
|location=Seattle, USA
|year=2009
|pages=319
|chapter=Darwinism versus Intelligent Design: David Berlinski &critics
|isbn=978-0-9790141-2-3
|url=http://www.davidberlinski.org/deniable-darwin/about.php
|quote=[actual quote from] Morton Rosof: ...It is true that science has its own phiposophical or faith-like underpinnings. They consist of methodological tools like Occam's Razor (don't invent unnecessary entities to explain something), falsification (can a hypothesis, in principle, be falsified?), and balance (extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence). These devices have served science with great success for 300 years.}}</ref>

Ockham's Razor is one of the most widely used logical razors in all fields of applied logic, most notably [[philosophy]], [[theology]], [[science]], and [[systemology]]. It is attributed to [[William of Occam]], an English Franciscan [[Friar]] who lived in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. Briefly, it can be stated as follows:

:"From any set of equally probable explanations, we should assume the one which makes the fewest [[fundamental assumptions]] is correct, [[null hypothesis|until we have reason to believe otherwise]]"

This is different from the shortest explanation, the shortest logical argument, and the simplest explanation, and the razor is often incorrectly quoted and/or applied. Some people have argued that these criteria qualify as better principles than the razor.

Occam's razor is a ''guiding principle''. That is, it says that the explanation with the fewest assumptions ''is to be preferred'', not ''is correct''. The explanation with the fewest assumptions can turn out to be the wrong explanation.

== Historical Background ==
When addressing the cosmological argument in Article 3 ("asks the question whether God Exists") of Question 2 (called "The existence of God") of the first part of the ''[[Summa Theologica|Summa]]'', [[Aquinas]] argues that "it is superfluous to suppose that what can be accounted for by a few principles has been produced by many." This constraint is now familiar as Occam's Razor, even though William of Occam lived and wrote after Aquinas's death.<ref name="Devils">{{Cite book
| author = David Berlinski
| title = The Devil’s Delusion
| publisher = Basic Books, New York, 2009
| isbn = 978-0-465-01937-3
| pages = 66
| chapter = The Cause
| url=http://www.davidberlinski.org/devils-delusion/about.php
| quote = }}</ref>

== Illustration ==

Ockham's razor can be illustrated by the following common example. A tree is found uprooted in the middle of a field with no apparent cause. Two people offer competing hypotheses for how this occurred. Person A says that there must have been a storm last night, which combined with heavy rainfall the previous day, resulted in the uprooting of the tree. Person B says that last night aliens visited the planet Earth, and uprooted the tree as a message to mankind. There is no way of determining which of these hypotheses is correct after the fact, but as A's hypothesis makes far fewer fundamental assumptions (basically that the planet Earth has weather) than B's hypothesis (basically that aliens exist, have a way of finding humans in the cosmos, have a way of traversing space to reach our planet, could topple such a tree without being noticed, and so forth), we should assume A is correct and that a storm felled the tree unless B can provide some other evidence to support their claim.

[[John Wisdom]] and [[Anthony Flew]] indirectly use the razor in [[The Parable of the Gardener]].

== Use by atheists ==

Among its practical applications, Occam's Razor has been used by [[atheist]]s to argue against the existence of God.<ref>The Skeptic's Dictionary</ref>
Let us take for an example the origin of intelligent life on Earth. One possibility for intelligent life is naturalistic [[evolution]] via [[natural selection]]. A second possibility is that God used intelligent design as His means of creation. Occam's Razor allows us to eliminate God from the hypothesis since the idea of intelligent design entails unnecessary additional assumptions. The ''simpler'' explanation (that which makes fewer fundamental assumptions) is that God had nothing to do with the development of intelligent life and that it came about as a result of natural processes. Therefore, the earlier explanation is the most reasonable to believe.

It is, however, important to note that Occam himself did not accept this reasoning; indeed, he considered the existence of God and the authority of Scripture to be truths which trumped the principle. While Occam's Razor is frequently (and wrongly) articulated as "The simplest explanation is to be preferred," what he actually said was "For nothing ought to be posited without a reason given, unless it is self-evident (literally, known through itself) or known by experience or proved by the authority of Sacred Scripture." <ref>http://www.bu.edu/wcp/Papers/Medi/MediZhen.htm</ref>

== Use by Christians ==
The problem with the [[atheist]] example above is that it assumes that naturalistic evolution ''can'' explain the origin of intelligent life. Most theists would argue that God is not an unnecessary additional assumption, but a ''necessary'' additional assumption. Logical arguments for the existence of God, such as ontological and cosmological arguments, intended to justify the conclusion that the existence of a God is necessary for the existence of the universe. For example, [[Thomas Aquinas]], heavily influenced by the earlier works of [[Aristotle]], attempted to use [[a posteriori]] reasoning to logically prove that a God must exist, in order for the universe to exist. <ref>http://www.scandalon.co.uk/philosophy/cosmological_aquinas.htm</ref>

Christian apologist [[William Lane Craig]] also has used Occam's razor to argue against [[polytheism]]. He argues that the [[Kalam Cosmological Argument]] argues against [[atheism]], and that Occam's Razor would only require the existence of one god.<ref>Strobel, 2004</ref>

Additionally, some supporters of [[intelligent design]] argue that the nature of the Universe is so complex that it is almost certain to have a dedicated creator. There is approximately a 1 in 10<sup>40</sup> chance of the Universe and all its life generating properties occurring purely by chance. For instance, [[water]] is the only substance that expands when frozen. Were it not for this property, frozen bodies of water would probably never unfreeze. Since intelligent design advocates believe in evolution (albeit not of the Darwinian variety), they argue that life could never have evolved were it not for this property of water. Additionally, ID advocates (who are by extension [[Old Earth Creationism|old earth creationists]]) point out that if the force of gravity were even slightly stronger than it is, the Universe would have collapsed shortly after the [[Big Bang]]. Additionally, if it were slightly weaker, stars and planets would never have formed. There are numerous other examples, and this does not even include the complexity of amino acids needed to form life. The odds of this happening by chance are, according to [http://www.evolutiondeceit.com/chapter11_1.php EvolutionDeceit.com] 1 in 10<sup>950</sup>. Of course, this could only happen in the event that the Universe has its current potential. Therefore, the odds of the amino acids emerging by chance in a Universe that can support it (that also emerges by chance) are 1 in 10<sup>990</sup>. Occam's razor would therefore state that if there is more than a 1 in 10<sup>990</sup> chance that God created the Universe and humans, and that it therefore did not occur by chance, then this is the most likely explanation.

However, an alternate explanation can be found in the [[anthropic principle]].

== Bibliography ==
* [http://skepdic.com/occam.html Occam's razor] (The Skeptic's Dictionary).
* Grigg, Russell, [http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/5096/ Occam’s Razor and creation/evolution] 22 May 2007 (Creation Ministries International).
* Strobel, Lee. The Case for a Creator. Zondervan 2004

== Notes ==
{{reflist|2}}

[[Category:Ontological Principles]]
[[Category:Methodology of Science]]

Communism

2017-07-28T13:51:55Z

JaqenHgar: Corrected the claim that a fifth of the world's population was living under "communism".

[[Image:HammerAndSickle.png|right|175px]]
'''Communism''' is a [[left-wing]] [[materialist]]ic and often violently [[Atheism|atheist]]ic ideology created to justify the overthrow of [[Capitalism]], replacing [[free market]] [[economics]] and [[democracy]] with a "[[dictatorship of the proletariat]]". Under Communism, the [[political]] system replaces the [[private property|private ownership]] of the means of production with "collective ownership" of the [[economy]], this is to be accomplished through direct "[[democratic]]" control by the workers.<ref>http://www.marxists.org/archive/mandel/1968/11/workersdem.htm</ref>
Twentieth century Communism was based on [[Karl Marx]]'s manifesto which proposed to establishment of a "[[classless society]]." However, all Communist societies have had a [[class structure]], notably the [[USSR]], which was dominated by a self-appointed [[elitist]] ''[[Nomenklatura]]''.

In the belief that "people cannot change", governments under the banner of Communism have caused the death of somewhere between 40 million to 260 million human lives.<ref>Multiple references:
*Anticommunist (April 14, 2004). [http://web.archive.org/web/20130607125427/http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2004/04/289239.html "The Human Cost of Communism - 100 million"]. UK Indymedia. Retrieved from June 7, 2013 archive at Internet Archive.
*[http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~hpcws/lelivrenoir.htm "''The Black Book of Communism''"]. Harvard University, Faculty of Arts and Sciences website: Cold War Studies.
*Rummel, R. J. (November 1993). [http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/COM.ART.HTM "How many did communist regimes murder?"] University of Hawaii website; Freedom, Democracy, Peace; Power, Democide, and War.
*White, Matthew (February 2011). [http://necrometrics.com/20c5m.htm "Source list and detailed death tolls for the primary megadeaths of the twentieth century"]. Necrometrics.
*Higgins, David (June 22, 2007). [http://web.archive.org/web/20071008035420/http://www.sarasotamagazine.com/blog/template_permalink.asp?id=365 "Memory and ideology: Washington's newest statue is the Victims Of Communism Memorial"]. Sarasota Magazine website. Retrieved from October 8, 2007 archive at Internet Archive
*Radosh, Ronald (February 2000). [http://www.firstthings.com/article.php3?id_article=2526 "''The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression''"]. First Things [journal] website.</ref> Dr. R. J. Rummel, professor emeritus of political science at the University of Hawaii, is the scholar who first coined the term [[democide]] (death by government). Dr. R. J. Rummel's mid estimate regarding the loss of life due to communism is that it caused the death of approximately 148,286,000 people between 1917 and 1987.<ref>Rummel, R. J. (November 1993). [http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/COM.ART.HTM "How many did communist regimes murder?"] University of Hawaii website; Freedom, Democracy, Peace; Power, Democide, and War.</ref>

President [[Ronald Reagan]] in an address before the British [[House of Commons]] said,
{{Cquote|'''What I am describing now is a plan and hope for the long term — the march of [[freedom]] and [[democracy]] which will leave Marxism-Leninism on the ash heap of history as it has left other tyrannies which stifle the freedom and muzzle the self-expression of the people.'''<ref>President Ronald Reagan [http://www.iri.org/history_ReaganSpeech.asp Speech to the British Parliament], June 8, 1982. Retrieved from International Republican Institute 05/24/07.</ref>}}

There are currently no advanced communist societies that exist in the world, given that for one of these to exist the society must be classless and stateless. However, repressive socialist regimes exist currently reside in the following nations: the People's Republic of China, Laos, Vietnam, Cuba and North Korea. In the last three decades the former nations, with exception to North Korea, have steadily been liberalizing their economies whilst at the same time have become less repressive.
{{clear}}

==Communist Theory and Practice==

[[Image:Captive-nations-01b----07-19-06.jpg|thumbnail|180px|left|[[Victims of Communism Memorial|A monument to the Captive Nations stands at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation in Washington, D.C.]]]]
Communism is based upon [[Marxism]], a philosophy which uses [[materialism]] to explain all physical and social phenomena. The theory of [[evolution]] influenced the thinking of the Communists, including Marx, [[Friedrich Engels|Engels]], [[Vladimir Lenin]], and [[Joseph Stalin]].<ref>http://www.icr.org/index.php?module=articles&action=view&ID=276</ref> Marx wrote, "[[Charles Darwin|Darwin]]'s book is very important and serves me as a basis in natural science for the [[class struggle]] in history." Marx offered to dedicate the second German edition of his polemic ''[[Das Kapital]]'' to [[Charles Darwin]], but Darwin declined the "honour." <ref>http://www.icr.org/index.php?module=articles&action=view&ID=276</ref><ref>Karl Marx's Social and Political Thought, Bob Jessop, ISBN 0415193265 (pg 476)</ref>

Economically, communism advocates a [[socialist]] economy in which the [[government]] owns the [[means of production]]. In countries where communism has been imposed, the government has taken ownership of farms, factories, stores and so on in the name of the people; see "[[dictatorship of the proletariat]]". This drives all [[free market|market-based]] economic activity underground and leads to inefficiencies and shortages. In both the Soviet Union and Red [[China]], the number of people who starved to death when the government confiscated their farm products (animals and grain) is estimated in the tens of millions.

Even more important, one party controls every organization from the local labor union to the army to the national government. The party is not elected. Its top officials (the "Politburo") select replacements when there is a vacancy. usually a dictator (like Stalin, Mao or Castro) controls the Politburo, but sometimes power is shared among five or six people. No dissent is allowed—all [[news]] media are controlled, and the Internet is heavily censored.

Elites do not disappear. Members of the ruling party (see [[Nomenklatura]]) have special stores in which ordinary people are barred, stores which are allegedly immune to the shortages which the lower class must endure.

Various communist doctrines have evolved or been adapted to the time and place they have been implemented. [[Marxism]], developed by [[Karl Marx]], and its modifications under [[Vladimir Ilyich Lenin|Vladimir Lenin]], [[Joseph Stalin]], and [[Mao Zedong]], advocates the overthrow of the existing order by a [[revolution]] of the proletariat, the social group which does not control the means of production. The goal of Marxism is supposedly to create a classless society which would result in no longer the need for any [[government]] (Communism).

The most famous government to label itself "communist" is the former [[USSR]] or the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics; the Communist Party controlled its government from 1918 to 1991. This government was officially atheist and attempted to suppress all [[religion]] until [[World War II]], when it discovered religion was needed to rally the people against the [[Nazi]] invaders. Like all authoritarian regimes, it tried to cultivate reverence for the state as a psychological substitute for religion.

Marxist theory is intended to appeal to its adherents with the phrase, "from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs", which essentially states point blank a worker does not get paid according to his abilities, and there is no [[incentive]] within the economic theory. Another quote by Marx was, "The theory of the Communism may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property," or as some have phrased it, legalized theft.

== Communism and militant atheism ==

''See also:'' [[Atheism and communism]]

According to the [[University of Cambridge]], historically, the "most notable spread of [[atheism]] was achieved through the success of the 1917 Russian Revolution, which brought the [[Marxism-Leninism|Marxist-Leninists]] to power."<ref name="Marxism-Leninism">{{cite web|url=http://web.archive.org/web/20130728215151/http://www.investigatingatheism.info/marxism.html|title=Investigating atheism: Marxism|publisher = [[University of Cambridge]]|quote=The most notable spread of atheism was achieved through the success of the 1917 Russian Revolution, which brought the Marxist-Leninists to power. For the first time in history, atheism thus became the official ideology of a state.|year=2008|accessdate=July 17, 2014}}</ref>

[[Karl Marx]] believed atheism to be a key part of communism. He is often very famously quoted as saying, "Religion ... is the opium of the masses."<ref>Marx, K. [http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/31765.html Introduction to A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right] (Classic Quotations) (Standard translation from the original German).</ref> His full quote was: "Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people."<ref>http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1843/critique-hpr/intro.htm#05</ref> He believed it was part of the "superstructure," a false culture built to maintain the status quo. Thus he denigrated Christianity as a fictional religion. Instead, Marx was an avowed atheist, as he wrote, "Communism begins from the outset with [[atheism]]; but atheism is at first far from being communism; indeed, that atheism is still mostly an abstraction."<ref>Marx, Karl, [http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/manuscripts/comm.htm Private Property and Communism], 1944.</ref>

[[Vladimir Lenin]] similarly wrote: "A Marxist must be a materialist, i. e., an enemy of religion, but a dialectical materialist, i. e., one who treats the struggle against religion not in an abstract way, not on the basis of remote, purely theoretical, never varying preaching, but in a concrete way, on the basis of the class struggle which is going on ''in practice'' and is educating the masses more and better than anything else could."<ref>Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich, ''Proletary'', No. 45, May 13 (26), 1909, translated by Andrew Rothstein and Bernard Issacs, quote from [http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1909/may/13.htm].</ref>

In 1955, [[China|Chinese]] communist leader Chou En-lai declared, "We Communists are atheists".<ref>Noebel, David, The Battle for Truth, Harvest House, 2001.</ref> In 2015, the [[Communist Party of China]] reaffirmed that members of their party must be atheists.<ref>[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/02/china-communist-party-atheism-zhejiang-ban-religious-members-christianity_n_6599722.html China's Communist Party Bans Believers, Doubles Down On Atheism]</ref>

The [[atheism]] in communist regimes has been and continues to be [[militant atheism]] and various acts of repression including the razing of thousands of religious buildings and the killing, imprisoning, and oppression of religious leaders and believers.<ref>http://www.academia.org/campus_reports/2000/March_2000_4.html</ref><ref>http://www.orthodoxinfo.com/ecumenism/frroman1.aspx</ref><ref>http://www.nysun.com/article/23082?page_no=1</ref><ref>http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2003/5/7/120250.shtml</ref><ref>http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1058/is_26_116/ai_56249447</ref><ref>http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=35818</ref><ref>http://theworldnow.wordpress.com/tag/around-the-world/asia/china/</ref>

Marxists justification for its persecution of the Russian Orthodox Church was based upon the claim that the Church was a "willing tool of Tsarism."<ref>http://www.marxist.com/religion-soviet-union170406-6.htm</ref>

The clergy openly stated its support for the counter-revolution (White Revolution). Lenin proclaimed that a communist regime must show itself to be merciless toward the question of religion. There was no place for the church in Lenin's regime. This led to anti-religious decrees and propaganda. All church property was expropriated by the new Soviet government.<ref>http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-42047/Union-of-Soviet-Socialist-Republics#277888.hook</ref>

During the late 1930s and later 1940s the restrictions on church activity were loosened as Stalin needed all the support he could get for the war. This doctrine of co-operation between the church and state continued throughout the existence of the Soviet republics and the other Warszawa pact nations. Though never going as far as a leader of the Soviet Union asking [http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/simon_barrow/2007/03/hiding_behind_god.html god to bless the country] the clause in the Soviet Unions constitution addressing the separation of church and state was rendered useless.

Dr. [[Martin Luther King]] said, "for the Communist there is no divine government, no absolute moral order, there are no fixed, immutable principles; consequently almost anything - force, violence, murder, lying - is a justifiable means." <ref>''Stride Toward Freedom : The Montgomery Story'', Martin Luther King, Jr., Harper and Rowe, New York, 1958, p. 92.</ref>
[[File:Stalin-kill.jpg|thumb|300px|left|Exhumed skeletons of [[class war]] victims murdered by communists.<ref>[http://www.mega.nu/ampp/rummel/rm1.stalin.kill.htm.]</ref> Apologists maintain communism has never really been tried. ]]

=== Atheistic communism and torture of the religious ===

''See also:'' [[Atheistic communism and torture]]

The website Victimsofcommunism.org declares concerning atheistic communism and the use of torture:
{{cquote|Significantly, communists did not merely try to block or halt religious faith but to reverse it. This was particularly true for [[Romania]], even before the Nicolai Ceausescu era. This meant not just forbidding religious practice and jailing ministers and believers but employing torture to force them to renounce their faith. It was not enough to contain, silence, even punish believers in prison; it was decided they must be tortured in truly unimaginably degrading ways to attempt to undo religious faith.<ref>[http://victimsofcommunism.org/the-war-on-religion/ The War on religion]</ref>}}

For additional information please see: [[Atheistic communism and torture]]

== Atrocities and Repression ==
Communist regimes have engaged in mass killings on a scale of millions of individuals.<ref>http://www.gmu.edu/departments/economics/bcaplan/museum/comfaq.htm#part3</ref> A work entitled ''[[The Black Book of Communism]]'' published by the [[Harvard]] Press focuses on the crimes, terror, and repression of modern communist regimes over a 70-year period.<ref>http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog/COUBLA.html</ref> This book is fairly controversial partly due to the various estimates regarding the millions of people who died under communist regimes.<ref>Multiple references:
*Anticommunist (April 14, 2004). [http://web.archive.org/web/20130607125427/http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2004/04/289239.html "The Human Cost of Communism - 100 million"]. UK Indymedia. Retrieved from June 7, 2013 archive at Internet Achive.
*[http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~hpcws/lelivrenoir.htm "''The Black Book of Communism''"]. Harvard University, Faculty of Arts and Sciences website: Cold War Studies.
*White, Matthew (February 2011). [http://necrometrics.com/20c5m.htm "Source list and detailed death tolls for the primary megadeaths of the twentieth century"]. Necrometrics.
*Higgins, David (June 22, 2007). [http://web.archive.org/web/20071008035420/http://www.sarasotamagazine.com/blog/template_permalink.asp?id=365 "Memory and ideology: Washington's newest statue is the Victims Of Communism Memorial"]. Sarasota Magazine website. Retrieved from October 8, 2007 archive at Internet Archive
*Radosh, Ronald (February 2000). [http://www.firstthings.com/article.php3?id_article=2526 "''The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression''"]. First Things [journal] website.</ref>

Similarly, an influential book which concerns itself with Russian communist torture, repression and atrocities is [[Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn]]'s ''[[The Gulag Archipelago]]'' which won Solzhenitsyn a [[Nobel Prize]].<ref>http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/03/01/home/solz-gulag.html</ref> In 1983, Alexander Solzhenitsyn in which he gave his explanation of the cause of why millions of people died under Russian communism:
{{Cquote|Over a half century ago, while I was still a child, I recall hearing a number of old people offer the following explanation for the great disasters that had befallen Russia: "Men have forgotten God; that's why all this has happened. Since then I have spent well-nigh 50 years working on the history of our revolution; in the process I have read hundreds of books, collected hundreds of personal testimonies, and have already contributed eight volumes of my own toward the effort of clearing away the rubble left by that upheaval. But if I were asked today to formulate as concisely as possible the main cause of the ruinous revolution that swallowed up some 60 million of our people, I could not put it more accurately than to repeat: "Men have forgotten God; that's why all this has happened.}}
In communist [[North Korea]], abuse and killing in prison camps is occurring today.<ref>http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=5596</ref><ref>http://www.kimsoft.com/korea/nkdefec3.htm</ref> In addition, the North Korean government practices brutal repression and atrocities against North Korean Christians.<ref>http://www.nysun.com/article/23082?page_no=1</ref><ref>http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2003/5/7/120250.shtml</ref>

In 1999, the publication [[Christian Century]] reported that "China has persecuted religious believers by means of "harassment, prolonged detention, and incarceration in prison or `reform-through-labor' camps and police closure of places of worship."<ref>http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1058/is_26_116/ai_56249447</ref> In 2003, owners of Bibles in China were sent to prison camps and 125 Chinese churches were closed.<ref>http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=35818</ref> China continues to practice religious oppression today.<ref>http://theworldnow.wordpress.com/tag/around-the-world/asia/china/</ref>

== Sloth in atheistic communist countries vs. Protestant work ethic ==

''See also:'' [[Atheism and sloth]] and [[Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism]]
[[File:Flag of the PRC.png|thumbnail|left|250px|In [[China]], the growth in religion has accompanied China’s fast economic growth over the last twenty years.<ref>[http://blog.tifwe.org/the-protestant-work-ethic-alive-well-in-china/ The Protestant Work Ethic: Alive & Well…In China] By Hugh Whelchel on September 24, 2012</ref>]]
Atheism is a part of Marxist-Leninist and [[Mao Zedong|Maoist]]/Chinese communist ideology (See: [[Atheism and communism]]).

Widespread sloth in the former [[Soviet Union]] helped cause much poverty.<ref>[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2255693/Last-pictures-life-iron-curtain-collapse-USSR.html Poverty, prostitutes and the long, slow death of the Soviet Union: Haunting pictures show desperate struggle to survive in last days of USSR, ''The Daily Mail'']</ref><ref>[http://www.nytimes.com/1989/01/29/world/soviet-openness-brings-poverty-out-of-the-shadows.html?_r=0 Soviet Openness Brings Poverty Out of the Shadows], ''New York Times''</ref> A study performed in the former Soviet Union found that over 50% of the work force admitted to drinking alcohol while on the job (See also: [[Atheism and alcoholism]]).<ref>[http://cs.stanford.edu/people/eroberts/cs201/projects/communism-computing-china/workethic.html Communism and computer ethics]</ref> In the former [[Soviet Union]], a popular joke was that the workers pretended to work and the Soviet Union pretended to pay them.<ref>[http://ipezone.blogspot.com/2015/08/you-pretend-to-work-putin-pretends-to.html You Pretend to work and Putin pretends to pay you]</ref>

On the other hand, [[Harvard University]] historian Niall Ferguson declared: "Through a mixture of hard work and thrift the [[Protestantism|Protestant]] societies of the North and West Atlantic achieved the most rapid economic growth in history."<ref>[http://blog.tifwe.org/the-protestant-work-ethic-alive-well-in-china/ The Protestant Work Ethic: Alive & Well…In China] By Hugh Whelchel on September 24, 2012</ref>

In [[China]], the growth in religion has accompanied China’s fast economic growth over the last twenty years.<ref>[http://blog.tifwe.org/the-protestant-work-ethic-alive-well-in-china/ The Protestant Work Ethic: Alive & Well…In China] By Hugh Whelchel on September 24, 2012</ref> Christianity is seeing rapid growth in China and the historian Niall Ferguson attributes this recent economic growth to the Protestant work ethic being more incorporated into Chinese society.<ref>[http://blog.tifwe.org/the-protestant-work-ethic-alive-well-in-china/ The Protestant Work Ethic: Alive & Well…In China] By Hugh Whelchel on September 24, 2012</ref> See also: [[Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism|Protestant work ethic]] and [[Growth of Christianity in China]]

== Similarities between Communism, Nazism and liberalism ==

''See also:'' [[Similarities between Communism, Nazism and liberalism]]

{| class="wikitable"
|-
!
!Communist Manifesto
![[Nazi]] Party Platform
!Analysis
|-
|1
|"Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes."
|"We demand an agrarian reform in accordance with our national requirements, and the enactment of a law to expropriate the owners without compensation of any land needed for the common purpose. The abolition of ground rents, and the prohibition of all speculation in land."
|The stripping away of land from private owners. [[Liberalism]] today demands "eminent domain" on property.
|-
|2
|"A heavy progressive or graduated income tax."
|"We demand the nationalization of all trusts...profit-sharing in large industries...a generous increase in old-age pensions...by providing maternity welfare centers, by prohibiting juvenile labor...and the creation of a national (folk) army."
|The points raised in the [[Nazi]] platform demand an increase in taxes to support them. Liberalism today demands heavy progressive and graduated income taxes.
|-
|3
|"Abolition of all rights of inheritance."
|"That all unearned income, and all income that does not arise from work, be abolished."
|Liberalism today demands a "death tax" on anyone inheriting an estate.
|-
|4
|"Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels."
|"We demand that all non-Germans who have entered Germany since August 2, 1914, shall be compelled to leave the Reich immediately."
|The Nuremberg Laws of 1934 allowed Germany to take Jewish property.
|-
|5
|"Centralisation of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly."
|"We demand the nationalization of all trusts."
|Central control of the financial system.
|-
|6
|"Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State."
|"We demand that there be a legal campaign against those who propagate deliberate political lies and disseminate them through the press...editors and their assistants on newspapers published in the German language shall be German citizens...Non-German newspapers shall only be published with the express permission of the State...the punishment for transgressing this law be the immediate suppression of the newspaper..."
|Central control of the press. Liberals today demand control or suppression of talk radio and Fox News.
|-
|7
|"Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children’s factory labour in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, &c, &c."
|"In order to make it possible for every capable and industrious German to obtain higher education, and thus the opportunity to reach into positions of leadership, the State must assume the responsibility of organizing thoroughly the entire cultural system of the people. The curricula of all educational establishments shall be adapted to practical life. The conception of the State Idea (science of citizenship) must be taught in the schools from the very beginning. We demand that specially talented children of poor parents, whatever their station or occupation, be educated at the expense of the State. "
|Central control of education, with an emphasis on doing things their way. Liberals today are doing things ''their way'' in our schools.
|-
|}

==Communists cite scripture==

Some Communist ideology has made its way into the Church as a [[Social Gospel]], interpreting the Gospel as less redemptive of sin and more of a public works campaign and activism. They often cite Jesus feeding the masses and warnings to the wealthy who believed self-seeking is all this world has to offer. Communists often cite the Acts of the Apostles, as early Christians practicing some form of sharing for the common good:
{{Cquote|And all that believed were together, and had all things common; And sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need. (Acts 2:44-45, KJV)

Neither was there any among them that lacked: for as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the prices of the things that were sold,

And laid them down at the apostles' feet: and distribution was made unto every man according as he had need.

And Joses, who by the apostles was surnamed Barnabas, (which is, being interpreted, The son of consolation,) a Levite, and of the country of Cyprus,

Having land, sold it, and brought the money, and laid it at the apostles' feet.(Acts 4:34-7, KJV)}}

But as Arnold Toynbee has pointed out, this Marxist view denies the most crucial points,
{{Cquote|The passage in the Acts represents the philanthropy of the primitive Christian Society as flowing from a God-given grace which was the fruit of a belief in the divinity of Jesus. In other words, the charity which is here depicted as moving the primitive Christians to go—in their mutual concern for one another's welfare—to the extreme length of sharing all their worldly goods is not a mere love of Man for Man (which is the limited literal meaning of the word ‘philanthropy’), but is a spiritual relation to which God is a party as well as His human creatures. In fact, this Christian Socialism is a practical application, on the economic surface of life, of the fundamental religious truth that the brotherhood of man is a consequence of the fatherhood of God - a truth which is driven home with special force by a religion which teaches that God is not only the Father and Creator of man, but also his Savior, Who has been incarnate in human shape and has suffered, and triumphed over, death.<ref>Arnold Toynbee, ''A Study of History'', Annex II to Vol. V, Part C (i) (c) 2, p. 585, ''Marxism, Socialism, and Christianity''.</ref>}}

==Communists shared totalitarian ideals with facism and nazism==

[[Adolf Hitler]] noted that Communists made excellent converts to [[National Socialism]] (a.k.a. [[Nazi]]sm), because the same personality type was attracted to both. "[T]here is more that binds us to [[Bolshevik|Bolshevism]] than separates us from it. There is, above all, genuine, revolutionary feeling, which is alive everywhere in Russia except where there are Jewish Marxists. I have always made allowance for this circumstance, and given orders that former Communists are to be admitted to the party at once. The petit bourgeois [[Social democracy|Social-Democrat]] and the trade-union boss will never make a [[National Socialist]], but the Communists always will."<ref>quoted in Hermann Rauschning, ''Hitler Speaks''</ref> [[Josef Stalin]] also recognized that ex-Nazis and ex-[[fascist]]s were natural recruits for post-war Communist regimes. As Stanley Payne notes in his ''A History of Fascism: 1914-1945'', "All over Soviet-occupied eastern Europe (should be: Central and Eastern Europe), most rank-and-file former fascist party members, together with many lower-level leaders, were welcomed to fill the ranks of the initially exiguous local Communist parties. The psychological transition seems to have been an easy one, for obvious reasons."<ref>http://www.lietuvos.org/istorija/communism/</ref>

==Cuban communism==
[[Cuba]] remains a communist state controlled by the Castro brothers since 1960 and under U.S economic sanctions.

==Asian communism==
The [[CCP]] in China retains an autocratic regime controlled by the Communist party, which allows no democracy or dissent. However it does allow capitalism, and has experienced a very rapid growth of the private sector and the middle class. Observers expect that the regime's efforts to control public opinion and forestall the will of the people will be more and more difficult.

[[North Korea]] remains a brutal dictatorship controlled by the same family. [[Laos]], and [[Vietnam]] are also run by the old Communist cliques.

==Collapse of the Soviet bloc==
[[File:Timecommiecover.jpg|thumb|[[Time magazine]] from 1989]]

The shooting down by the Soviets on Sept. 1, 1983 of [[Korean Airlines Flight 007]] may have been a contributing factor for the downfall of the Soviet Union as well as for the whole Soviet block. It being a catalyst for the collapse of the Soviet Union may be inferred from the fact that NATO had decided, under the impetus of the U.S. administration, to deploy Pershing II and cruise missiles in Europe, primarily West Germany. This deployment would have placed missiles just 6–10 minutes striking distance from Moscow. But support for the deployment was wavering and many doubted that the missile deployment would find enough support to effect it. When the Soviet Union shot down Flight 007 with 269 people aboard, including conservative Democratic Congressman [[Larry McDonald]] —an act which U.S. President Ronald Reagan characterized as a "massacre"—enough support was galvanized for the deployment. The deployment caused great resources of the Soviet Union to be diverted from inner economic use to military expenditures to counter the U.S. and NATO missile deployment.

Between 1989 and 1991, many communist governments fell. The [[Berlin Wall]] in [[Germany]], which had become a symbol for the division between the communist states and the rest of Europe, was torn down largely in response to Ronald Reagan in 1989, and there was also a large revolution against Romanian dictator [[Nicolaie Ceausescu]]. In 1991, the USSR broke up into several countries - each which reformed to capitalism. Some of these remained under autocratic governments, but some have embraced democracy. With the collapse the remnants of Communist parties have dropped their old names and ideologies, but still operate on the left of the political spectrum.

==End of Communism==

In 1992, [[George H. W. Bush]] told a joint session of Congress, "Communism died this year."<ref>[http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=20544 Address Before a Joint Session of the Congress on the State of the Union] - January 28, 1992</ref>

*Russian President Yeltsin announced that Communism in the former Soviet Union was dead. [http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/BorisY]

==American communism==
[[Image:America Under Communism.jpg|thumb|right|250px|Is This Tomorrow - America Under Communism]]
:''Main article : [[Committees of Correspondence]]''
With the collapse of Soviet communism and the conversion of Chinese communism to "state run capitalism," the spiritual and ideological center of world of communism and the [[Marxist-Leninist]] tradition shifted to the [[United States]]. Several prominent American communists, rudderless without [[Moscow]] direction, formed a new organization in 1992 called the [[Committees of Correspondence for Democratic Socialism]].

The initial organizational conference was held in [[Berkeley]], [[California]], July 17–19, 1992. Charlene Mitchell, a former leader of the California Communist Party, speaking at the conference said, "the collapse of [[socialism]] in [[Central Europe]] and the [[Soviet Union]] left the [[United States]] in a near unchallenged position of world leadership." Mitchell continued,
{{Cquote|What began as a moment to take stock and ponder where to go from there has now become a very different entity. People from the Communist Party, from CrossRoads, from the [[Democratic Socialists of America]], from NCIPA [National Committee for Independent Political Action], from Solidarity, from the Socialist Organizing Network and many others, including independent leftists and independent socialists, have come together here in Berkeley.}}
Criticizing U.S. actions in the [[First Gulf War]], Mitchell stated,
{{Cquote|[[progressive]] forces were nearly powerless in the face of an onslaught of demagogic, [[patriotic]] [[jingoism]] and yellow ribbons. This war, fought for no legitimate reason, was the crowning height of [[George H.W. Bush|President [George H.W.] Bush]]'s [[New World Order]]. Previously, the Soviet Union helped to provide a certain balance to rein in the crazies in this country. Now, that balance is no longer there. It is now up to us, the American people, to rein in our own crazies. The [[left]] must take a major responsibility in organizing this task.}}

== Decline of the secular left expected in the 21st century ==

''See also:'' [[Decline of the secular left]]

Historically, the largest advances of the [[secular left]] has been through utilizing the power of the state (see: [[State atheism]] and [[Atheism and communism]]). For example, secular leftists use the power of the state to promote [[evolution]]ary ideology and to censor [[creationism|creationist]]/[[intelligent design]] models of origins (See: [[Suppression of alternatives to evolution]] and [[Atheist indoctrination]]).

The historian Martin Van Crevel points out that sovereign states are losing power/influence due to technology democratizing access to information, welfare states increasingly failing, [[fourth-generation warfare]] being waged against countries and sovereign states increasingly losing their ability to maintain internal order.<ref>[The Fate of the State] by MARTIN VAN CREVELD</ref><ref>[https://www.sonshi.com/martin-van-creveld-interview.html Martin van Creveld interview]</ref> See also: [[Decline of the secular left]]

==Notorious communists==

Well known communists include:
*[[Salvador Allende]]
*[[William Ayers]]
*[[Fidel Castro]]
*[[Raul Castro]]
*[[Hugo Chavez]]
*[[Carl Davidson]]
*[[Frank Marshall Davis]]
*[[Bernardine Dohrn]]
*[[Friedrich Engels]]
*[[Che Guevara]]
*[[Jim Jones]]
*[[Van Jones]]
*[[Kim Il Sung]]
*[[Kim Jong Il]]
*[[Kim Jong Un]]
*[[Lazar Kaganovich]]
*[[Vladimir Lenin]]
*[[Mao Zedong]]
*[[Karl Marx]]
*[[Ho Chi Minh]]
*[[Pol Pot]]
*[[Paul Robeson]]
*[[Joseph Stalin]]
*[[Yakov Sverdlov]]
*[[Leon Trotsky]]
*[[Genrikh Yagoda]]
*[[Yakov Yurovsky]]
*[[Choummaly Sayasone]]
*[[Hu Jintao]]
*The [[Occupy Democrats]]
*[[Bernie Sanders]]
*[[Noam Chomsky]]
*[[Henry Wallace]]

==Further reading==
* Pipes, Richard. ''Communism: A History'' (2003), by a leading conservative historian
** Pipes, Richard. ''History of Communism: A Brief History'' (2002)
* Priestland, David. ''The Red Flag: A History of Communism'' (2009)
*[http://www.archive.org/stream/100thingsyoushou1949unit#page/n3/mode/2up 100 Things You Should Know About Communism'']

==See also==
* [[Bernie Sanders]] and [[Democratic socialism]]
* [[List of Communist States]]
* [[List of Socialist States]]
* [[Communist Party of the United States of America]]
* [[Cold War]]
* [[List of atheist and agnostic pseudosciences]]
* [[Capitalism]]
* [[Iron Curtain]]
* [[Progressives for Obama]]
* [[Socialism]]
* [[Social Effects of the Theory of Evolution]]
* [[Korean Airlines Flight 007]] for the connection of the shootdown by the Soviets of KAL 007, with 269 people aboard, on Sept. 1, 1983 with the heightened U.S./Soviet confrontations of 1983-4.
* [[The Soviet/ U.S naval confrontation]] over KAL 007
* [[KAL 007 and the Soviet Top Secret Memos]]
* [[Communist Racism]]
* [[National Bolshevik Party]]
* [[The Soviet Story]]
* [[Communism and feminism]]
* [[American Anti-Communist Alliance]]
* [[Big government]] [[Welfare state]] leads to [[Nanny state]], leads to [[Police state]]
* [[Liberal totalitarianism]]
* [[Big government]] [[liberal]] [[Welfare state]] leads to [[socialist]] [[Nanny state]], leads to [[communist]] [[Police state]] - Don't think Communism is incompatible with [[Islam]].
* [[Gun control]] - [[Ammunition control]] - [[Gun free zone]]s - key elements to create a police state
* [[Anti-Americanism]]
* [[Nazi Party|National Socialist German Workers' Party]] (Nazi Party)
* [[National Socialism]] - the Nazis were elitist [[Police state]] [[liberals]] not [[conservative]]s
*[[Communism and cannibalism]]

==Notes and references==
{{reflist|2}}

==External links==
*[http://www.aim.org/wls/category/communism/ What Liberals Say - Category: Communism], [[Accuracy In Media]]
*[https://archive.org/details/IsThisTomorrowAmericaUnderCommunismCatecheticalGuild Is This Tomorrow - America Under Communism], Catechetical Guild

[[Category:Communism]]
[[Category:Oppression]]
[[Category:Marxist Terminology]]
[[Category:Forms of Government]]
[[Category:Anti-American]]
[[Category:Atheism]]
[[Category:Liberalism]]
[[Category:Police State]]
[[Category:Welfare State]]
[[Category:Man-Made Disasters]]
[[Category:Threats]]
[[Category:Anti Second Amendment]]

Communism

2017-07-28T13:19:14Z

JaqenHgar: The 20th century left-wing dictatorships should be referred to as socialist, since even they themselves did not claim to have reached pure "communism".

[[Image:HammerAndSickle.png|right|175px]]
'''Communism''' is a [[left-wing]] [[materialist]]ic and often violently [[Atheism|atheist]]ic ideology created to justify the overthrow of [[Capitalism]], replacing [[free market]] [[economics]] and [[democracy]] with a "[[dictatorship of the proletariat]]". Under Communism, the [[political]] system replaces the [[private property|private ownership]] of the means of production with "collective ownership" of the [[economy]], this is to be accomplished through direct "[[democratic]]" control by the workers.<ref>http://www.marxists.org/archive/mandel/1968/11/workersdem.htm</ref>
Twentieth century Socialism was based on [[Karl Marx]]'s manifesto which proposed to establishment of a "[[classless society]]." However, all Socialist states have had a [[class structure]], notably the [[USSR]], which was dominated by a self-appointed [[elitist]] ''[[Nomenklatura]]''.

In the belief that "people cannot change", governments under the banner of Communism have caused the death of somewhere between 40 million to 260 million human lives.<ref>Multiple references:
*Anticommunist (April 14, 2004). [http://web.archive.org/web/20130607125427/http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2004/04/289239.html "The Human Cost of Communism - 100 million"]. UK Indymedia. Retrieved from June 7, 2013 archive at Internet Archive.
*[http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~hpcws/lelivrenoir.htm "''The Black Book of Communism''"]. Harvard University, Faculty of Arts and Sciences website: Cold War Studies.
*Rummel, R. J. (November 1993). [http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/COM.ART.HTM "How many did communist regimes murder?"] University of Hawaii website; Freedom, Democracy, Peace; Power, Democide, and War.
*White, Matthew (February 2011). [http://necrometrics.com/20c5m.htm "Source list and detailed death tolls for the primary megadeaths of the twentieth century"]. Necrometrics.
*Higgins, David (June 22, 2007). [http://web.archive.org/web/20071008035420/http://www.sarasotamagazine.com/blog/template_permalink.asp?id=365 "Memory and ideology: Washington's newest statue is the Victims Of Communism Memorial"]. Sarasota Magazine website. Retrieved from October 8, 2007 archive at Internet Archive
*Radosh, Ronald (February 2000). [http://www.firstthings.com/article.php3?id_article=2526 "''The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression''"]. First Things [journal] website.</ref> Dr. R. J. Rummel, professor emeritus of political science at the University of Hawaii, is the scholar who first coined the term [[democide]] (death by government). Dr. R. J. Rummel's mid estimate regarding the loss of life due to communism is that it caused the death of approximately 148,286,000 people between 1917 and 1987.<ref>Rummel, R. J. (November 1993). [http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/COM.ART.HTM "How many did communist regimes murder?"] University of Hawaii website; Freedom, Democracy, Peace; Power, Democide, and War.</ref>

President [[Ronald Reagan]] in an address before the British [[House of Commons]] said,
{{Cquote|'''What I am describing now is a plan and hope for the long term — the march of [[freedom]] and [[democracy]] which will leave Marxism-Leninism on the ash heap of history as it has left other tyrannies which stifle the freedom and muzzle the self-expression of the people.'''<ref>President Ronald Reagan [http://www.iri.org/history_ReaganSpeech.asp Speech to the British Parliament], June 8, 1982. Retrieved from International Republican Institute 05/24/07.</ref>}}

Today, communism continues to rule over at least one-fifth of the world's people.<ref>[http://www.victimsofcommunism.org/history_communism.php Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation], Documenting Communism's Crimes Against Humanity.</ref>
__TOC__
{{clear}}

==Communist Theory and Practice==

[[Image:Captive-nations-01b----07-19-06.jpg|thumbnail|180px|left|[[Victims of Communism Memorial|A monument to the Captive Nations stands at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation in Washington, D.C.]]]]
Communism is based upon [[Marxism]], a philosophy which uses [[materialism]] to explain all physical and social phenomena. The theory of [[evolution]] influenced the thinking of the Communists, including Marx, [[Friedrich Engels|Engels]], [[Vladimir Lenin]], and [[Joseph Stalin]].<ref>http://www.icr.org/index.php?module=articles&action=view&ID=276</ref> Marx wrote, "[[Charles Darwin|Darwin]]'s book is very important and serves me as a basis in natural science for the [[class struggle]] in history." Marx offered to dedicate the second German edition of his polemic ''[[Das Kapital]]'' to [[Charles Darwin]], but Darwin declined the "honour." <ref>http://www.icr.org/index.php?module=articles&action=view&ID=276</ref><ref>Karl Marx's Social and Political Thought, Bob Jessop, ISBN 0415193265 (pg 476)</ref>

Economically, communism advocates a [[socialist]] economy in which the [[government]] owns the [[means of production]]. In countries where communism has been imposed, the government has taken ownership of farms, factories, stores and so on in the name of the people; see "[[dictatorship of the proletariat]]". This drives all [[free market|market-based]] economic activity underground and leads to inefficiencies and shortages. In both the Soviet Union and Red [[China]], the number of people who starved to death when the government confiscated their farm products (animals and grain) is estimated in the tens of millions.

Even more important, one party controls every organization from the local labor union to the army to the national government. The party is not elected. Its top officials (the "Politburo") select replacements when there is a vacancy. usually a dictator (like Stalin, Mao or Castro) controls the Politburo, but sometimes power is shared among five or six people. No dissent is allowed—all [[news]] media are controlled, and the Internet is heavily censored.

Elites do not disappear. Members of the ruling party (see [[Nomenklatura]]) have special stores in which ordinary people are barred, stores which are allegedly immune to the shortages which the lower class must endure.

Various communist doctrines have evolved or been adapted to the time and place they have been implemented. [[Marxism]], developed by [[Karl Marx]], and its modifications under [[Vladimir Ilyich Lenin|Vladimir Lenin]], [[Joseph Stalin]], and [[Mao Zedong]], advocates the overthrow of the existing order by a [[revolution]] of the proletariat, the social group which does not control the means of production. The goal of Marxism is supposedly to create a classless society which would result in no longer the need for any [[government]] (Communism).

The most famous government to label itself "communist" is the former [[USSR]] or the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics; the Communist Party controlled its government from 1918 to 1991. This government was officially atheist and attempted to suppress all [[religion]] until [[World War II]], when it discovered religion was needed to rally the people against the [[Nazi]] invaders. Like all authoritarian regimes, it tried to cultivate reverence for the state as a psychological substitute for religion.

Marxist theory is intended to appeal to its adherents with the phrase, "from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs", which essentially states point blank a worker does not get paid according to his abilities, and there is no [[incentive]] within the economic theory. Another quote by Marx was, "The theory of the Communism may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property," or as some have phrased it, legalized theft.

== Communism and militant atheism ==

''See also:'' [[Atheism and communism]]

According to the [[University of Cambridge]], historically, the "most notable spread of [[atheism]] was achieved through the success of the 1917 Russian Revolution, which brought the [[Marxism-Leninism|Marxist-Leninists]] to power."<ref name="Marxism-Leninism">{{cite web|url=http://web.archive.org/web/20130728215151/http://www.investigatingatheism.info/marxism.html|title=Investigating atheism: Marxism|publisher = [[University of Cambridge]]|quote=The most notable spread of atheism was achieved through the success of the 1917 Russian Revolution, which brought the Marxist-Leninists to power. For the first time in history, atheism thus became the official ideology of a state.|year=2008|accessdate=July 17, 2014}}</ref>

[[Karl Marx]] believed atheism to be a key part of communism. He is often very famously quoted as saying, "Religion ... is the opium of the masses."<ref>Marx, K. [http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/31765.html Introduction to A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right] (Classic Quotations) (Standard translation from the original German).</ref> His full quote was: "Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people."<ref>http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1843/critique-hpr/intro.htm#05</ref> He believed it was part of the "superstructure," a false culture built to maintain the status quo. Thus he denigrated Christianity as a fictional religion. Instead, Marx was an avowed atheist, as he wrote, "Communism begins from the outset with [[atheism]]; but atheism is at first far from being communism; indeed, that atheism is still mostly an abstraction."<ref>Marx, Karl, [http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/manuscripts/comm.htm Private Property and Communism], 1944.</ref>

[[Vladimir Lenin]] similarly wrote: "A Marxist must be a materialist, i. e., an enemy of religion, but a dialectical materialist, i. e., one who treats the struggle against religion not in an abstract way, not on the basis of remote, purely theoretical, never varying preaching, but in a concrete way, on the basis of the class struggle which is going on ''in practice'' and is educating the masses more and better than anything else could."<ref>Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich, ''Proletary'', No. 45, May 13 (26), 1909, translated by Andrew Rothstein and Bernard Issacs, quote from [http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1909/may/13.htm].</ref>

In 1955, [[China|Chinese]] communist leader Chou En-lai declared, "We Communists are atheists".<ref>Noebel, David, The Battle for Truth, Harvest House, 2001.</ref> In 2015, the [[Communist Party of China]] reaffirmed that members of their party must be atheists.<ref>[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/02/china-communist-party-atheism-zhejiang-ban-religious-members-christianity_n_6599722.html China's Communist Party Bans Believers, Doubles Down On Atheism]</ref>

The [[atheism]] in communist regimes has been and continues to be [[militant atheism]] and various acts of repression including the razing of thousands of religious buildings and the killing, imprisoning, and oppression of religious leaders and believers.<ref>http://www.academia.org/campus_reports/2000/March_2000_4.html</ref><ref>http://www.orthodoxinfo.com/ecumenism/frroman1.aspx</ref><ref>http://www.nysun.com/article/23082?page_no=1</ref><ref>http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2003/5/7/120250.shtml</ref><ref>http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1058/is_26_116/ai_56249447</ref><ref>http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=35818</ref><ref>http://theworldnow.wordpress.com/tag/around-the-world/asia/china/</ref>

Marxists justification for its persecution of the Russian Orthodox Church was based upon the claim that the Church was a "willing tool of Tsarism."<ref>http://www.marxist.com/religion-soviet-union170406-6.htm</ref>

The clergy openly stated its support for the counter-revolution (White Revolution). Lenin proclaimed that a communist regime must show itself to be merciless toward the question of religion. There was no place for the church in Lenin's regime. This led to anti-religious decrees and propaganda. All church property was expropriated by the new Soviet government.<ref>http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-42047/Union-of-Soviet-Socialist-Republics#277888.hook</ref>

During the late 1930s and later 1940s the restrictions on church activity were loosened as Stalin needed all the support he could get for the war. This doctrine of co-operation between the church and state continued throughout the existence of the Soviet republics and the other Warszawa pact nations. Though never going as far as a leader of the Soviet Union asking [http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/simon_barrow/2007/03/hiding_behind_god.html god to bless the country] the clause in the Soviet Unions constitution addressing the separation of church and state was rendered useless.

Dr. [[Martin Luther King]] said, "for the Communist there is no divine government, no absolute moral order, there are no fixed, immutable principles; consequently almost anything - force, violence, murder, lying - is a justifiable means." <ref>''Stride Toward Freedom : The Montgomery Story'', Martin Luther King, Jr., Harper and Rowe, New York, 1958, p. 92.</ref>
[[File:Stalin-kill.jpg|thumb|300px|left|Exhumed skeletons of [[class war]] victims murdered by communists.<ref>[http://www.mega.nu/ampp/rummel/rm1.stalin.kill.htm.]</ref> Apologists maintain communism has never really been tried. ]]

=== Atheistic communism and torture of the religious ===

''See also:'' [[Atheistic communism and torture]]

The website Victimsofcommunism.org declares concerning atheistic communism and the use of torture:
{{cquote|Significantly, communists did not merely try to block or halt religious faith but to reverse it. This was particularly true for [[Romania]], even before the Nicolai Ceausescu era. This meant not just forbidding religious practice and jailing ministers and believers but employing torture to force them to renounce their faith. It was not enough to contain, silence, even punish believers in prison; it was decided they must be tortured in truly unimaginably degrading ways to attempt to undo religious faith.<ref>[http://victimsofcommunism.org/the-war-on-religion/ The War on religion]</ref>}}

For additional information please see: [[Atheistic communism and torture]]

== Atrocities and Repression ==
Communist regimes have engaged in mass killings on a scale of millions of individuals.<ref>http://www.gmu.edu/departments/economics/bcaplan/museum/comfaq.htm#part3</ref> A work entitled ''[[The Black Book of Communism]]'' published by the [[Harvard]] Press focuses on the crimes, terror, and repression of modern communist regimes over a 70-year period.<ref>http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog/COUBLA.html</ref> This book is fairly controversial partly due to the various estimates regarding the millions of people who died under communist regimes.<ref>Multiple references:
*Anticommunist (April 14, 2004). [http://web.archive.org/web/20130607125427/http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2004/04/289239.html "The Human Cost of Communism - 100 million"]. UK Indymedia. Retrieved from June 7, 2013 archive at Internet Achive.
*[http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~hpcws/lelivrenoir.htm "''The Black Book of Communism''"]. Harvard University, Faculty of Arts and Sciences website: Cold War Studies.
*White, Matthew (February 2011). [http://necrometrics.com/20c5m.htm "Source list and detailed death tolls for the primary megadeaths of the twentieth century"]. Necrometrics.
*Higgins, David (June 22, 2007). [http://web.archive.org/web/20071008035420/http://www.sarasotamagazine.com/blog/template_permalink.asp?id=365 "Memory and ideology: Washington's newest statue is the Victims Of Communism Memorial"]. Sarasota Magazine website. Retrieved from October 8, 2007 archive at Internet Archive
*Radosh, Ronald (February 2000). [http://www.firstthings.com/article.php3?id_article=2526 "''The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression''"]. First Things [journal] website.</ref>

Similarly, an influential book which concerns itself with Russian communist torture, repression and atrocities is [[Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn]]'s ''[[The Gulag Archipelago]]'' which won Solzhenitsyn a [[Nobel Prize]].<ref>http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/03/01/home/solz-gulag.html</ref> In 1983, Alexander Solzhenitsyn in which he gave his explanation of the cause of why millions of people died under Russian communism:
{{Cquote|Over a half century ago, while I was still a child, I recall hearing a number of old people offer the following explanation for the great disasters that had befallen Russia: "Men have forgotten God; that's why all this has happened. Since then I have spent well-nigh 50 years working on the history of our revolution; in the process I have read hundreds of books, collected hundreds of personal testimonies, and have already contributed eight volumes of my own toward the effort of clearing away the rubble left by that upheaval. But if I were asked today to formulate as concisely as possible the main cause of the ruinous revolution that swallowed up some 60 million of our people, I could not put it more accurately than to repeat: "Men have forgotten God; that's why all this has happened.}}
In communist [[North Korea]], abuse and killing in prison camps is occurring today.<ref>http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=5596</ref><ref>http://www.kimsoft.com/korea/nkdefec3.htm</ref> In addition, the North Korean government practices brutal repression and atrocities against North Korean Christians.<ref>http://www.nysun.com/article/23082?page_no=1</ref><ref>http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2003/5/7/120250.shtml</ref>

In 1999, the publication [[Christian Century]] reported that "China has persecuted religious believers by means of "harassment, prolonged detention, and incarceration in prison or `reform-through-labor' camps and police closure of places of worship."<ref>http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1058/is_26_116/ai_56249447</ref> In 2003, owners of Bibles in China were sent to prison camps and 125 Chinese churches were closed.<ref>http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=35818</ref> China continues to practice religious oppression today.<ref>http://theworldnow.wordpress.com/tag/around-the-world/asia/china/</ref>

== Sloth in atheistic communist countries vs. Protestant work ethic ==

''See also:'' [[Atheism and sloth]] and [[Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism]]
[[File:Flag of the PRC.png|thumbnail|left|250px|In [[China]], the growth in religion has accompanied China’s fast economic growth over the last twenty years.<ref>[http://blog.tifwe.org/the-protestant-work-ethic-alive-well-in-china/ The Protestant Work Ethic: Alive & Well…In China] By Hugh Whelchel on September 24, 2012</ref>]]
Atheism is a part of Marxist-Leninist and [[Mao Zedong|Maoist]]/Chinese communist ideology (See: [[Atheism and communism]]).

Widespread sloth in the former [[Soviet Union]] helped cause much poverty.<ref>[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2255693/Last-pictures-life-iron-curtain-collapse-USSR.html Poverty, prostitutes and the long, slow death of the Soviet Union: Haunting pictures show desperate struggle to survive in last days of USSR, ''The Daily Mail'']</ref><ref>[http://www.nytimes.com/1989/01/29/world/soviet-openness-brings-poverty-out-of-the-shadows.html?_r=0 Soviet Openness Brings Poverty Out of the Shadows], ''New York Times''</ref> A study performed in the former Soviet Union found that over 50% of the work force admitted to drinking alcohol while on the job (See also: [[Atheism and alcoholism]]).<ref>[http://cs.stanford.edu/people/eroberts/cs201/projects/communism-computing-china/workethic.html Communism and computer ethics]</ref> In the former [[Soviet Union]], a popular joke was that the workers pretended to work and the Soviet Union pretended to pay them.<ref>[http://ipezone.blogspot.com/2015/08/you-pretend-to-work-putin-pretends-to.html You Pretend to work and Putin pretends to pay you]</ref>

On the other hand, [[Harvard University]] historian Niall Ferguson declared: "Through a mixture of hard work and thrift the [[Protestantism|Protestant]] societies of the North and West Atlantic achieved the most rapid economic growth in history."<ref>[http://blog.tifwe.org/the-protestant-work-ethic-alive-well-in-china/ The Protestant Work Ethic: Alive & Well…In China] By Hugh Whelchel on September 24, 2012</ref>

In [[China]], the growth in religion has accompanied China’s fast economic growth over the last twenty years.<ref>[http://blog.tifwe.org/the-protestant-work-ethic-alive-well-in-china/ The Protestant Work Ethic: Alive & Well…In China] By Hugh Whelchel on September 24, 2012</ref> Christianity is seeing rapid growth in China and the historian Niall Ferguson attributes this recent economic growth to the Protestant work ethic being more incorporated into Chinese society.<ref>[http://blog.tifwe.org/the-protestant-work-ethic-alive-well-in-china/ The Protestant Work Ethic: Alive & Well…In China] By Hugh Whelchel on September 24, 2012</ref> See also: [[Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism|Protestant work ethic]] and [[Growth of Christianity in China]]

== Similarities between Communism, Nazism and liberalism ==

''See also:'' [[Similarities between Communism, Nazism and liberalism]]

{| class="wikitable"
|-
!
!Communist Manifesto
![[Nazi]] Party Platform
!Analysis
|-
|1
|"Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes."
|"We demand an agrarian reform in accordance with our national requirements, and the enactment of a law to expropriate the owners without compensation of any land needed for the common purpose. The abolition of ground rents, and the prohibition of all speculation in land."
|The stripping away of land from private owners. [[Liberalism]] today demands "eminent domain" on property.
|-
|2
|"A heavy progressive or graduated income tax."
|"We demand the nationalization of all trusts...profit-sharing in large industries...a generous increase in old-age pensions...by providing maternity welfare centers, by prohibiting juvenile labor...and the creation of a national (folk) army."
|The points raised in the [[Nazi]] platform demand an increase in taxes to support them. Liberalism today demands heavy progressive and graduated income taxes.
|-
|3
|"Abolition of all rights of inheritance."
|"That all unearned income, and all income that does not arise from work, be abolished."
|Liberalism today demands a "death tax" on anyone inheriting an estate.
|-
|4
|"Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels."
|"We demand that all non-Germans who have entered Germany since August 2, 1914, shall be compelled to leave the Reich immediately."
|The Nuremberg Laws of 1934 allowed Germany to take Jewish property.
|-
|5
|"Centralisation of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly."
|"We demand the nationalization of all trusts."
|Central control of the financial system.
|-
|6
|"Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State."
|"We demand that there be a legal campaign against those who propagate deliberate political lies and disseminate them through the press...editors and their assistants on newspapers published in the German language shall be German citizens...Non-German newspapers shall only be published with the express permission of the State...the punishment for transgressing this law be the immediate suppression of the newspaper..."
|Central control of the press. Liberals today demand control or suppression of talk radio and Fox News.
|-
|7
|"Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children’s factory labour in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, &c, &c."
|"In order to make it possible for every capable and industrious German to obtain higher education, and thus the opportunity to reach into positions of leadership, the State must assume the responsibility of organizing thoroughly the entire cultural system of the people. The curricula of all educational establishments shall be adapted to practical life. The conception of the State Idea (science of citizenship) must be taught in the schools from the very beginning. We demand that specially talented children of poor parents, whatever their station or occupation, be educated at the expense of the State. "
|Central control of education, with an emphasis on doing things their way. Liberals today are doing things ''their way'' in our schools.
|-
|}

==Communists cite scripture==

Some Communist ideology has made its way into the Church as a [[Social Gospel]], interpreting the Gospel as less redemptive of sin and more of a public works campaign and activism. They often cite Jesus feeding the masses and warnings to the wealthy who believed self-seeking is all this world has to offer. Communists often cite the Acts of the Apostles, as early Christians practicing some form of sharing for the common good:
{{Cquote|And all that believed were together, and had all things common; And sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need. (Acts 2:44-45, KJV)

Neither was there any among them that lacked: for as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the prices of the things that were sold,

And laid them down at the apostles' feet: and distribution was made unto every man according as he had need.

And Joses, who by the apostles was surnamed Barnabas, (which is, being interpreted, The son of consolation,) a Levite, and of the country of Cyprus,

Having land, sold it, and brought the money, and laid it at the apostles' feet.(Acts 4:34-7, KJV)}}

But as Arnold Toynbee has pointed out, this Marxist view denies the most crucial points,
{{Cquote|The passage in the Acts represents the philanthropy of the primitive Christian Society as flowing from a God-given grace which was the fruit of a belief in the divinity of Jesus. In other words, the charity which is here depicted as moving the primitive Christians to go—in their mutual concern for one another's welfare—to the extreme length of sharing all their worldly goods is not a mere love of Man for Man (which is the limited literal meaning of the word ‘philanthropy’), but is a spiritual relation to which God is a party as well as His human creatures. In fact, this Christian Socialism is a practical application, on the economic surface of life, of the fundamental religious truth that the brotherhood of man is a consequence of the fatherhood of God - a truth which is driven home with special force by a religion which teaches that God is not only the Father and Creator of man, but also his Savior, Who has been incarnate in human shape and has suffered, and triumphed over, death.<ref>Arnold Toynbee, ''A Study of History'', Annex II to Vol. V, Part C (i) (c) 2, p. 585, ''Marxism, Socialism, and Christianity''.</ref>}}

==Communists shared totalitarian ideals with facism and nazism==

[[Adolf Hitler]] noted that Communists made excellent converts to [[National Socialism]] (a.k.a. [[Nazi]]sm), because the same personality type was attracted to both. "[T]here is more that binds us to [[Bolshevik|Bolshevism]] than separates us from it. There is, above all, genuine, revolutionary feeling, which is alive everywhere in Russia except where there are Jewish Marxists. I have always made allowance for this circumstance, and given orders that former Communists are to be admitted to the party at once. The petit bourgeois [[Social democracy|Social-Democrat]] and the trade-union boss will never make a [[National Socialist]], but the Communists always will."<ref>quoted in Hermann Rauschning, ''Hitler Speaks''</ref> [[Josef Stalin]] also recognized that ex-Nazis and ex-[[fascist]]s were natural recruits for post-war Communist regimes. As Stanley Payne notes in his ''A History of Fascism: 1914-1945'', "All over Soviet-occupied eastern Europe (should be: Central and Eastern Europe), most rank-and-file former fascist party members, together with many lower-level leaders, were welcomed to fill the ranks of the initially exiguous local Communist parties. The psychological transition seems to have been an easy one, for obvious reasons."<ref>http://www.lietuvos.org/istorija/communism/</ref>

==Cuban communism==
[[Cuba]] remains a communist state controlled by the Castro brothers since 1960 and under U.S economic sanctions.

==Asian communism==
The [[CCP]] in China retains an autocratic regime controlled by the Communist party, which allows no democracy or dissent. However it does allow capitalism, and has experienced a very rapid growth of the private sector and the middle class. Observers expect that the regime's efforts to control public opinion and forestall the will of the people will be more and more difficult.

[[North Korea]] remains a brutal dictatorship controlled by the same family. [[Laos]], and [[Vietnam]] are also run by the old Communist cliques.

==Collapse of the Soviet bloc==
[[File:Timecommiecover.jpg|thumb|[[Time magazine]] from 1989]]

The shooting down by the Soviets on Sept. 1, 1983 of [[Korean Airlines Flight 007]] may have been a contributing factor for the downfall of the Soviet Union as well as for the whole Soviet block. It being a catalyst for the collapse of the Soviet Union may be inferred from the fact that NATO had decided, under the impetus of the U.S. administration, to deploy Pershing II and cruise missiles in Europe, primarily West Germany. This deployment would have placed missiles just 6–10 minutes striking distance from Moscow. But support for the deployment was wavering and many doubted that the missile deployment would find enough support to effect it. When the Soviet Union shot down Flight 007 with 269 people aboard, including conservative Democratic Congressman [[Larry McDonald]] —an act which U.S. President Ronald Reagan characterized as a "massacre"—enough support was galvanized for the deployment. The deployment caused great resources of the Soviet Union to be diverted from inner economic use to military expenditures to counter the U.S. and NATO missile deployment.

Between 1989 and 1991, many communist governments fell. The [[Berlin Wall]] in [[Germany]], which had become a symbol for the division between the communist states and the rest of Europe, was torn down largely in response to Ronald Reagan in 1989, and there was also a large revolution against Romanian dictator [[Nicolaie Ceausescu]]. In 1991, the USSR broke up into several countries - each which reformed to capitalism. Some of these remained under autocratic governments, but some have embraced democracy. With the collapse the remnants of Communist parties have dropped their old names and ideologies, but still operate on the left of the political spectrum.

==End of Communism==

In 1992, [[George H. W. Bush]] told a joint session of Congress, "Communism died this year."<ref>[http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=20544 Address Before a Joint Session of the Congress on the State of the Union] - January 28, 1992</ref>

*Russian President Yeltsin announced that Communism in the former Soviet Union was dead. [http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/BorisY]

==American communism==
[[Image:America Under Communism.jpg|thumb|right|250px|Is This Tomorrow - America Under Communism]]
:''Main article : [[Committees of Correspondence]]''
With the collapse of Soviet communism and the conversion of Chinese communism to "state run capitalism," the spiritual and ideological center of world of communism and the [[Marxist-Leninist]] tradition shifted to the [[United States]]. Several prominent American communists, rudderless without [[Moscow]] direction, formed a new organization in 1992 called the [[Committees of Correspondence for Democratic Socialism]].

The initial organizational conference was held in [[Berkeley]], [[California]], July 17–19, 1992. Charlene Mitchell, a former leader of the California Communist Party, speaking at the conference said, "the collapse of [[socialism]] in [[Central Europe]] and the [[Soviet Union]] left the [[United States]] in a near unchallenged position of world leadership." Mitchell continued,
{{Cquote|What began as a moment to take stock and ponder where to go from there has now become a very different entity. People from the Communist Party, from CrossRoads, from the [[Democratic Socialists of America]], from NCIPA [National Committee for Independent Political Action], from Solidarity, from the Socialist Organizing Network and many others, including independent leftists and independent socialists, have come together here in Berkeley.}}
Criticizing U.S. actions in the [[First Gulf War]], Mitchell stated,
{{Cquote|[[progressive]] forces were nearly powerless in the face of an onslaught of demagogic, [[patriotic]] [[jingoism]] and yellow ribbons. This war, fought for no legitimate reason, was the crowning height of [[George H.W. Bush|President [George H.W.] Bush]]'s [[New World Order]]. Previously, the Soviet Union helped to provide a certain balance to rein in the crazies in this country. Now, that balance is no longer there. It is now up to us, the American people, to rein in our own crazies. The [[left]] must take a major responsibility in organizing this task.}}

== Decline of the secular left expected in the 21st century ==

''See also:'' [[Decline of the secular left]]

Historically, the largest advances of the [[secular left]] has been through utilizing the power of the state (see: [[State atheism]] and [[Atheism and communism]]). For example, secular leftists use the power of the state to promote [[evolution]]ary ideology and to censor [[creationism|creationist]]/[[intelligent design]] models of origins (See: [[Suppression of alternatives to evolution]] and [[Atheist indoctrination]]).

The historian Martin Van Crevel points out that sovereign states are losing power/influence due to technology democratizing access to information, welfare states increasingly failing, [[fourth-generation warfare]] being waged against countries and sovereign states increasingly losing their ability to maintain internal order.<ref>[The Fate of the State] by MARTIN VAN CREVELD</ref><ref>[https://www.sonshi.com/martin-van-creveld-interview.html Martin van Creveld interview]</ref> See also: [[Decline of the secular left]]

==Notorious communists==

Well known communists include:
*[[Salvador Allende]]
*[[William Ayers]]
*[[Fidel Castro]]
*[[Raul Castro]]
*[[Hugo Chavez]]
*[[Carl Davidson]]
*[[Frank Marshall Davis]]
*[[Bernardine Dohrn]]
*[[Friedrich Engels]]
*[[Che Guevara]]
*[[Jim Jones]]
*[[Van Jones]]
*[[Kim Il Sung]]
*[[Kim Jong Il]]
*[[Kim Jong Un]]
*[[Lazar Kaganovich]]
*[[Vladimir Lenin]]
*[[Mao Zedong]]
*[[Karl Marx]]
*[[Ho Chi Minh]]
*[[Pol Pot]]
*[[Paul Robeson]]
*[[Joseph Stalin]]
*[[Yakov Sverdlov]]
*[[Leon Trotsky]]
*[[Genrikh Yagoda]]
*[[Yakov Yurovsky]]
*[[Choummaly Sayasone]]
*[[Hu Jintao]]
*The [[Occupy Democrats]]
*[[Bernie Sanders]]
*[[Noam Chomsky]]
*[[Henry Wallace]]

==Further reading==
* Pipes, Richard. ''Communism: A History'' (2003), by a leading conservative historian
** Pipes, Richard. ''History of Communism: A Brief History'' (2002)
* Priestland, David. ''The Red Flag: A History of Communism'' (2009)
*[http://www.archive.org/stream/100thingsyoushou1949unit#page/n3/mode/2up 100 Things You Should Know About Communism'']

==See also==
* [[Bernie Sanders]] and [[Democratic socialism]]
* [[List of Communist States]]
* [[List of Socialist States]]
* [[Communist Party of the United States of America]]
* [[Cold War]]
* [[List of atheist and agnostic pseudosciences]]
* [[Capitalism]]
* [[Iron Curtain]]
* [[Progressives for Obama]]
* [[Socialism]]
* [[Social Effects of the Theory of Evolution]]
* [[Korean Airlines Flight 007]] for the connection of the shootdown by the Soviets of KAL 007, with 269 people aboard, on Sept. 1, 1983 with the heightened U.S./Soviet confrontations of 1983-4.
* [[The Soviet/ U.S naval confrontation]] over KAL 007
* [[KAL 007 and the Soviet Top Secret Memos]]
* [[Communist Racism]]
* [[National Bolshevik Party]]
* [[The Soviet Story]]
* [[Communism and feminism]]
* [[American Anti-Communist Alliance]]
* [[Big government]] [[Welfare state]] leads to [[Nanny state]], leads to [[Police state]]
* [[Liberal totalitarianism]]
* [[Big government]] [[liberal]] [[Welfare state]] leads to [[socialist]] [[Nanny state]], leads to [[communist]] [[Police state]] - Don't think Communism is incompatible with [[Islam]].
* [[Gun control]] - [[Ammunition control]] - [[Gun free zone]]s - key elements to create a police state
* [[Anti-Americanism]]
* [[Nazi Party|National Socialist German Workers' Party]] (Nazi Party)
* [[National Socialism]] - the Nazis were elitist [[Police state]] [[liberals]] not [[conservative]]s
*[[Communism and cannibalism]]

==Notes and references==
{{reflist|2}}

==External links==
*[http://www.aim.org/wls/category/communism/ What Liberals Say - Category: Communism], [[Accuracy In Media]]
*[https://archive.org/details/IsThisTomorrowAmericaUnderCommunismCatecheticalGuild Is This Tomorrow - America Under Communism], Catechetical Guild

[[Category:Communism]]
[[Category:Oppression]]
[[Category:Marxist Terminology]]
[[Category:Forms of Government]]
[[Category:Anti-American]]
[[Category:Atheism]]
[[Category:Liberalism]]
[[Category:Police State]]
[[Category:Welfare State]]
[[Category:Man-Made Disasters]]
[[Category:Threats]]
[[Category:Anti Second Amendment]]

John Stuart Mill

2017-07-28T13:14:14Z

JaqenHgar:

[[Image:JohnStuartMill.jpg|right|thumb|John Stuart Mill]]
'''John Stuart Mill''' (London, 1806 - Aviñón, France, 1873) [[philosopher]], political [[writer]], [[economist]]; he was the last of the [[English]] classical economists.

[[Homeschool]]ed by his father with the assistance of [[Jeremy Bentham]] and Francis Place (Following the principles of the [[Jean Jacques Rousseau|Rousseau]]'s ''Emilio''). Mill supported [[laissez-faire]] but with social reforms like redistribution of wealth, shorter working days, and regulation of [[monopoly|monopolies]]. Mill was ahead of his time in advocating the development of [[labor union]]s and farm [[cooperative]]s, and [[emancipation]] (voting) by women. He sympathized with the North in the [[American Civil War]]. He was also an [[atheist]].

In his book "On Liberty," Mill advocated that "the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others." This statement is called Mill's harm principle.<ref>[http://www.utexas.edu/courses/phl347/lectures/lec15.html Lectures 15 & 16: Liberty and the Harm Principle]</ref> He advocated freedom of speech, and generally freedom of action too. Mill also advocated [[utilitarianism]], a concept previously proposed by the atheist Jeremy Bentham.

In 1851, John Stuart Mill married Harriet Taylor. She was a significant influence on Mill's work and reinforced his advocacy of women's rights. Mill treated his wife as his intellectual equal<ref>The Voice of Harriet Taylor Mill, Chapter 5</ref> and so Taylor was able to publish a great deal of her own work, such as "The Enfranchisement of Women".

John Stuart Mill is regarded as being a [[classical liberal]]<ref>[ https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/transformingsociety/electionsvoting/womenvote/parliamentary-collections/1866-suffrage-petition/john-stuart-mill/]</ref>, among the likes of [[Thomas Paine]]<ref>Lamb, Robert. "Liberty, Equality, and the Boundaries of Ownership: Thomas Paine's Theory of Property Rights." Review of Politics (2010)</ref> and [[John Locke]]<ref> Steven M. Dworetz, The Unvarnished Doctrine: Locke, Liberalism, and the American Revolution (1989)</ref>. This is due to his favour of free market, albeit with some government intervention such as a tax on alcohol, and his belief in social liberalism, detailed in his magnum opus, [[On Liberty]].

==Quotes==

*"He who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposing side; if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion. [http://www.fallacyfiles.org/onesided.html]
*"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."
*"I never meant to say that the Conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservative. I believe that is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman will deny it."
*“A person may cause evil to others not only by his actions but by his inaction, and in either case he is justly accountable to them for the injury.”

== See also ==

*[[Enterprise]]
*[[Capital]]
*[[Ludwig von Mises]]

==References==
<references/>

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mill, John Stuart}}
[[Category:Economists]]
[[Category:Political Scientists]]
[[Category:Philosophers]]
[[Category:Atheists]]

John Stuart Mill

2017-07-28T13:13:40Z

JaqenHgar:

[[Image:JohnStuartMill.jpg|right|thumb|John Stuart Mill]]
'''John Stuart Mill''' (London, 1806 - Aviñón, France, 1873) [[philosopher]], political [[writer]], [[economist]]; he was the last of the [[English]] classical economists.

[[Homeschool]]ed by his father with the assistance of [[Jeremy Bentham]] and Francis Place (Following the principles of the [[Jean Jacques Rousseau|Rousseau]]'s ''Emilio''). Mill supported [[laissez-faire]] but with social reforms like redistribution of wealth, shorter working days, and regulation of [[monopoly|monopolies]]. Mill was ahead of his time in advocating the development of [[labor union]]s and farm [[cooperative]]s, and [[emancipation]] (voting) by women. He sympathized with the North in the [[American Civil War]]. He was also an [[atheist]].

In his book "On Liberty," Mill advocated that "the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others." This statement is called Mill's harm principle.<ref>[http://www.utexas.edu/courses/phl347/lectures/lec15.html Lectures 15 & 16: Liberty and the Harm Principle]</ref> He advocated freedom of speech, and generally freedom of action too. Mill also advocated [[utilitarianism]], a concept previously proposed by the atheist Jeremy Bentham.

In 1851, John Stuart Mill married Harriet Taylor. She was a significant influence on Mill's work and reinforced his advocacy of women's rights. Mill treated his wife as his intellectual equal<ref>The Voice of Harriet Taylor Mill, Chapter 5</ref> and so Taylor was able to publish a great deal of her own work, such as "The Enfranchisement of Women".

John Stuart Mill is regarded as being a [[classical liberall]]<ref>[ https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/transformingsociety/electionsvoting/womenvote/parliamentary-collections/1866-suffrage-petition/john-stuart-mill/]</ref>, among the likes of [[Thomas Paine]]<ref>Lamb, Robert. "Liberty, Equality, and the Boundaries of Ownership: Thomas Paine's Theory of Property Rights." Review of Politics (2010)</ref> and [[John Locke]]<ref> Steven M. Dworetz, The Unvarnished Doctrine: Locke, Liberalism, and the American Revolution (1989)</ref>. This is due to his favour of free market, albeit with some government intervention such as a tax on alcohol, and his belief in social liberalism, detailed in his magnum opus, [[On Liberty]].

==Quotes==

*"He who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposing side; if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion. [http://www.fallacyfiles.org/onesided.html]
*"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."
*"I never meant to say that the Conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservative. I believe that is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman will deny it."
*“A person may cause evil to others not only by his actions but by his inaction, and in either case he is justly accountable to them for the injury.”

== See also ==

*[[Enterprise]]
*[[Capital]]
*[[Ludwig von Mises]]

==References==
<references/>

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mill, John Stuart}}
[[Category:Economists]]
[[Category:Political Scientists]]
[[Category:Philosophers]]
[[Category:Atheists]]

John Stuart Mill

2017-07-28T13:12:24Z

JaqenHgar: Mill has been categorised as a classical liberal, which has how political philosophers define him. A quotation from "On Liberty" has been added. Some more detail about Harriet Taylor Mill has been added.

[[Image:JohnStuartMill.jpg|right|thumb|John Stuart Mill]]
'''John Stuart Mill''' (London, 1806 - Aviñón, France, 1873) [[philosopher]], political [[writer]], [[economist]]; he was the last of the [[English]] classical economists.

[[Homeschool]]ed by his father with the assistance of [[Jeremy Bentham]] and Francis Place (Following the principles of the [[Jean Jacques Rousseau|Rousseau]]'s ''Emilio''). Mill supported [[laissez-faire]] but with social reforms like redistribution of wealth, shorter working days, and regulation of [[monopoly|monopolies]]. Mill was ahead of his time in advocating the development of [[labor union]]s and farm [[cooperative]]s, and [[emancipation]] (voting) by women. He sympathized with the North in the [[American Civil War]]. He was also an [[atheist]].

In his book "On Liberty," Mill advocated that "the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others." This statement is called Mill's harm principle.<ref>[http://www.utexas.edu/courses/phl347/lectures/lec15.html Lectures 15 & 16: Liberty and the Harm Principle]</ref> He advocated freedom of speech, and generally freedom of action too. Mill also advocated [[utilitarianism]], a concept previously proposed by the atheist Jeremy Bentham.

In 1851, John Stuart Mill married Harriet Taylor. She was a significant influence on Mill's work and reinforced his advocacy of women's rights. Mill treated his wife as his intellectual equal<ref>The Voice of Harriet Taylor Mill, Chapter 5</ref> and so Taylor was able to publish a great deal of her own work, such as "The Enfranchisement of Women".

John Stuart Mill is regarded as being a [[classical liberall]<ref>[ https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/transformingsociety/electionsvoting/womenvote/parliamentary-collections/1866-suffrage-petition/john-stuart-mill/]</ref>, among the likes of [[Thomas Paine]]<ref>Lamb, Robert. "Liberty, Equality, and the Boundaries of Ownership: Thomas Paine's Theory of Property Rights." Review of Politics (2010)</ref> and [[John Locke]]<ref> Steven M. Dworetz, The Unvarnished Doctrine: Locke, Liberalism, and the American Revolution (1989)</ref>. This is due to his favour of free market, albeit with some government intervention such as a tax on alcohol, and his belief in social liberalism, detailed in his magnum opus, [[On Liberty]].

==Quotes==

*"He who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposing side; if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion. [http://www.fallacyfiles.org/onesided.html]
*"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."
*"I never meant to say that the Conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservative. I believe that is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman will deny it."
*“A person may cause evil to others not only by his actions but by his inaction, and in either case he is justly accountable to them for the injury.”

== See also ==

*[[Enterprise]]
*[[Capital]]
*[[Ludwig von Mises]]

==References==
<references/>

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[[Category:Economists]]
[[Category:Political Scientists]]
[[Category:Philosophers]]
[[Category:Atheists]]