Communist revolution

A communist revolution is a proletarian revolution inspired by the ideas of Marxism that aims to replace capitalism with communism. Depending on the type of government, the term socialism can be used to indicate an intermediate stage between Capitalism and Communism (especially in Marxist-Leninist views). The idea that a proletarian revolution is needed is a cornerstone of Marxism; Marxists believe that the workers of the world must unite and free themselves from capitalist oppression to create a world run by and for the working class.[1] Thus, in the Marxist view, proletarian revolutions need to happen in countries all over the world.

Theory

Leninism argues[2] that a communist revolution must be led by a vanguard of "professional revolutionaries", men and women who are fully dedicated to the communist cause and who can then form the nucleus of the revolutionary movement. Some Marxists disagree with the idea of a vanguard as put forth by Lenin, especially left communists. Some who continue to consider themselves Marxist–Leninists also oppose the vanguard despite disagreeing with the majority of left communism.[3] These critics insist that the entire working class—or at least a large part of it—must be deeply involved and equally committed to the socialist or communist cause in order for a proletarian revolution to be successful. To this end, they seek to build massive communist parties with very large memberships.

Communist revolutions throughout history

The following is a list of successful and unsuccessful communist revolutions throughout history. Among the lesser known revolutions, a number of borderline cases have been included which may or may not have been communist revolutions. The nature of unsuccessful revolutions is particularly contentious since one can only speculate as to the kinds of policies that would have been implemented by the revolutionaries had they achieved victory.

Start date End date Duration Event(s) State Rebel group Revolutionary base area Deaths Result Notes
18 March 1871 28 May 1871 (72 days) Paris Commune  France Paris 7,544 killed overall[11][12] Revolt suppressed[13]
  • Disbanding the Second National Guard by the French government
24 April 1916 29 April 1916 (6 days) Easter Rising  United Kingdom
Dublin 485 killed[14][15][16] Unconditional surrender of rebel forces, execution of most leaders While not explicitly Communist in Nature, the Easter Rising of 1916 was supported by Marxist groups such as the Irish Citizen Army.
29 October 1918 11 August 1919 (287 days) German Revolution of 1918–19  German Empire
 German Republic
Communist revolutionaries

Soviet Republics:

Various regions of Germany 150–196[18]
23 March 1919 1 August 1919 (132 days) Hungarian Soviet Republic
(* Revolutions and interventions in Hungary (1918–1920)
* Hungarian–Romanian War)
 First Hungarian Republic  Hungarian Soviet Republic[19] Hungary 6,670 killed[20] Led by Béla Kun, defeated after five months.
1 August 1927 7 August 1950 (23 years, 7 days)  Republic of China Chinese Communist Party Communist-controlled China cca. 8 million Communist victory
19 July 1936 25 May 1937 (311 days) Spanish Revolution of 1936  Spain CNT-FAI[23][24] Various regions of Spain  primarily Madrid, Catalonia, Aragon, Andalusia, and parts of Levante, Spain. Suppressed after ten-month period.
16 June 1948 31 July 1960 (12 years, 46 days) Malayan Emergency Malayan Communist Party British Malaya 11,107[25][26]
1 November 1955 30 April 1975[27] (19 years, 181 days) Vietnam War  South Vietnam Viet Cong Memot District (1966–72)
Lộc Ninh (1972–75)
1,326,494–3,447,494[28] Communist victory
23 May 1959 2 December 1975 (16 years, 194 days) Laotian Civil War  Laos Lao People's Party Xam Neua 20,000–62,000 killed[29] Communist victory
19 July 1961 17 July 1979 (17 years, 364 days) Nicaraguan Revolution  Nicaragua Sandinistas
  • Sandinista Popular Army
North Caribbean Coast Autonomous Region 30,000+ killed Communist victory
c.December 1962 3 November 1990 (27 years, 338 days) Communist insurgency in Sarawak  Malaysia North Kalimantan Communist Party
  • North Kalimantan People's Army
Sarawak 400–500 killed Government victory
1965 1983 18 years Communist insurgency in Thailand  Thailand Communist Party of Thailand
  • People's Liberation Army of Thailand
Nakhon Phanom Province 1,450+ soldiers, police, and officials killed Government victory
18 May 1967 Present (56 years, 1 day)  India Communist Party of India (Maoist) Red corridor cca. 14,000 Ongoing
17 January 1968 17 April 1975 (7 years, 91 days) Cambodian Civil War  Cambodia Communist Party of Kampuchea Ratanakiri Province 275,000–310,000 killed Communist victory
29 March 1969 Present (54 years, 51 days) Communist rebellion in the Philippines  Philippines Communist Party of the Philippines Samar more than 40,000 Ongoing
12 September 1972 Present (50 years, 249 days) Maoist insurgency in Turkey  Turkey Communist Party of Turkey/Marxist–Leninist
  • Liberation Army of the Workers and Peasants of Turkey
Tunceli Province 500+ Maoists killed Ongoing
17 May 1980 Present (43 years, 2 days) Internal conflict in Peru  Peru Communist Party of Peru–Shining Path
  • People's Guerilla Army
Ayacucho Region 70,000+ killed Ongoing
  • The internal conflict in Peru comprised two rebellions by two different Marxist organizations. One, the Shining Path, fought a bloody war beginning in 1980 with successive Peruvian governments, both democratic and authoritarian in nature. Another organization, known as the Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA), named after an Incan warrior Túpac Amaru began their own rebellion in 1982. The MRTA and Shining Path quickly became bitter enemies and fought one another as well as the government of Peru. Fighting goes on today with a small number of Shining Path cadres, however the movement has mostly been crushed and only operates in a very remote jungle region. The Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement was largely destroyed in 1997 after the Japanese embassy hostage crisis.
13 February 1996 21 November 2006 (10 years, 282 days) Nepalese Civil War  Nepal Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) Rapti Zone 17,800 killed overall Comprehensive Peace Accord
2 April 1948,
August 2021
21 September 1988,
Present
(40 years, 173 days)
(1 year, 291 days)
Communist insurgency in Myanmar  Myanmar Communist Party of Burma
  • People's Army of Burma
Shan State 3,000+ killed Ongoing


See also

References

  1. Engels, Friedrich (October–November 1847). The Principles of Communism via Marxists Internet Archive. Further, it has co-ordinated the social development of the civilized countries to such an extent that, in all of them, bourgeoisie and proletariat have become the decisive classes, and the struggle between them the great struggle of the day. It follows that the communist revolution will not merely be a national phenomenon but must take place simultaneously in all civilized countries – that is to say, at least in England, America, France, and Germany.
  2. Lenin, V.I. (1972) [18–23 March 1919]. "Eighth Congress of the R.C.P.(B.)". Lenin's Collected Works. Vol. 29 (4th English ed.). Moscow: Progress Publishers. pp. 141–225 via Marxists Internet Archive.
  3. Chomsky, Noam (March 12, 2013). "Noam Chomsky on Revolutionary Violence, Communism and the American Left". Pax Marxista (Interview). Interviewed by Christopher Helali. Archived from the original on July 29, 2015 via chomsky.info.
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  11. Milza, Pierre (2009a). L'année terrible: La Commune (mars–juin 1871) [The terrible year: La Commune (March–June 1871)] (in French). Paris: Perrin. ISBN 978-2-262-03073-5.
  12. "annexe au procès verbal de la session du 20 juillet 1875" [appendix to the minutes of the session of July 20, 1875], Rapport d'ensemble de M. le Général Appert sur les opérations de la justice militaire relatives à l'insurrection de 1871 [Overall report by General Appert on the operations of military justice relating to the 1871 insurrection] (in French), Versailles: Assemblée nationale, 1875
  13. "Third Party Address [The Paris Commune]". Marxists Internet Archive. May 1871.
  14. "1916 Necrology" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on December 14, 2017.
  15. "1916 list". Glasnevin Trust. Archived from the original on April 5, 2017.
  16. Sinn Fein Rebellion handbook, Easter, 1916. Irish Times. 1916. p. 52.
  17. Hoffrogge, Ralf (2011). "From Unionism to Workers' Councils – The Revolutionary Shop Stewards in Germany 1914–1918". In Ness, Immanuel; Azzellini, Dario (eds.). Ours to Master and to Own: Worker's Control from the Commune to the Present. Chicago.
  18. Jones, Mark (2016). Founding Weimar: Violence and the German Revolution of 1918–1919. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 196–199. ISBN 978-1-107-11512-5 via Google Books.
  19. Völgyes, Iván (1970). "The Hungarian Dictatorship of 1919: Russian Example versus Hungarian Reality". East European Quarterly. 1 (4). ISSN 0012-8449.
  20. Clodfelter, Micheal (2017). Warfare and Armed Conflicts: A Statistical Encyclopedia of Casualty and Other Figures, 1492–2015. McFarland. pp. 344–345. ISBN 978-1-4766-2585-0 via Google Books.
  21. Yang, Benjamin; Saich, Tony (2016). The Rise to Power of the Chinese Communist Party: Documents and Analysis. New York: Routledge. ISBN 978-1-56324-154-3.
  22. Rocker, Rudolf (2004). Anarcho-Syndicalism Theory and Practice. Oakland, Edinburgh: AK Press. pp. 66–67. ISBN 1-902593-928.
  23. Dolgoff, Sam (1974). The Anarchist Collectives: Workers' Self-management in the Spanish Revolution, 1936–1939. Black Rose Books Ltd. p. 5. ISBN 978-0-919618-20-6.
  24. "Royal Malaysian Police (Malaysia)". Crwflags.com. Archived from the original on August 14, 2018. Retrieved January 3, 2014.
  25. Smith, Harry (August 1, 2015). Long Tan: The Start of a Lifelong Battle. Big Sky Publishing. ISBN 978-1-922132-32-1. Archived from the original on January 3, 2021. Retrieved November 1, 2020 via Google Books.
  26. The Paris Agreement on Vietnam: Twenty-five Years Later (Conference Transcript). Washington, DC: The Nixon Center. April 1998. Retrieved September 5, 2012 via International Relations Department, Mount Holyoke College.
  27. Rummel, R. J. "Table 6.1B: Vietnam Democide Estimates, Sources, and Calculations" (GIF). University of Hawaiʻi. Lines 777–785. Retrieved November 24, 2014.
  28. Obermeyer, Ziad; Murray, Christopher J. L.; Gakidou, Emmanuela (2008). "Fifty years of violent war deaths from Vietnam to Bosnia: analysis of data from the world health survey programme". British Medical Journal. 336 (7659): 1482–6. doi:10.1136/bmj.a137. PMC 2440905. PMID 18566045. See Table 3.
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