Mediaboss Marketing

Mr Murray was chief of staff for Unite the Union from 2011 until he moved to Labour headquarters in May 2017 to help with the general election campaign. His appointment as Mr Corbyns policy adviser in 2018 was controversial, with one Labour Party source telling The Huffington Post: Corbyns Labour has gone full Trump. Andrew Murray is the hard-lefts Steven Bannon.

Mr Bannon is the co-founder and former executive chairman of the alt-right news site Breitbart.

He was the chief executive officer of Donald Trumps 2016 presidential bid and served as White House Chief Strategist for the first seven months of his administration.

Despite being close allies, Mr Bannon was disavowed by the President in January last year for comments reported in the book Fire and Fury.

Like Mr Bannons, Mr Murrays ideas have existed on the fringes of mainstream politics for many years, but are now coming to the fore with a surge in both right- and left-wing populism.

READ MORE:Labour Party divided: How Andy Burnham blasted freedom of movement

Mr Murray joined the Community Party of Great Britain in 1976 and became involved with trade unions since the 1980s.

During this time, he became a close friend of Mr Corbyns other top aide Seumas Milne through the Straight Left faction those within the Communist Party who opposed Eurocommunism.

Mr Murrays allies at this time were described by contemporary historian Francis Beckett as more extreme than most Stalinists I knew.

Mr Beckett added: The Stalinists were known as tankies, but Murrays lot were super-tankies.

Following the dissolution of the party in 1991, Mr Murray became leader of the Communist Liaison group, which itself dissolved in 1995, with its members joining the Communist Party of Britain.

Mr Murray served on the partys executive committee from 2000 to 2004 and again from 2008 to 2011.

He had contact with Mr Corbyn through the Stop the War Coalition, which opposed the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

He also helped organise the largest political demonstration in the UKs history the protest against the Iraq War in 2003.

DON'T MISSFarage hopes Brexit Party will scare the daylights out of Tories[QUOTE]Farage interview reveals why Brexit Party politicians WONT back down[INSIGHT]Brexit U-turn: How Nick Boles backed Boris Johnson to lead UK exit[REVEALED]

Mr Murary was the chair of Stop the War from 2001 to 2011, when Mr Corbyn succeeded him.

He later returned to the role when Mr Corbyn was elected Leader of the Labour Party.

When questioned on his appointment as a policy adviser, Mr Corbyn said Mr Murray is a person of enormous abilities and professionalism.

He added: To manage a very large union and a large number of staff takes special skills and Andrew has them.

Shadow Chancellor John McDonnel told Radio 4: He has left the Communist Party and joined Labour.

We are converting people to democratic socialism.

That said, Mr Murrays political beliefs do not appear to have shifted much over the years.

He told John Harris in 2015: Communism still represents, in my view, a society worth working towards albeit not by the methods of the 20th century, which failed.

Two former Labour MPs Angela Smith and Mike Gapes both cited Mr Murrays involvement with the Labour Party as factors in them leaving.

Ms Smith, who co-founded Change UK and later joined the Liberal Democrats, said: It is a disgrace that we have a former member of the Communist Party asserting such influence over the leader of one of Britains major parties, especially given that he has not moved on from those views.

Corbyn and his acolytes present a serious threat to national security and this is one of the major reasons behind by decision to leave the Labour Party.

Mr Gapes, who also joined Change UK, said: One of the issues surrounding my resignation was the people around Jeremy Corbyn including Seumas Milne and Andrew Murray and other people who came from far-left groups, who have got into senior positions of influence around the leader of the Labour Party.

However, Mr Murrays Lawyer insisted: Mr Murray is no threat to national security. He has been rigorously security vetted for his parliamentary pass by the police and security services.

The security services see him as no threat whatsoever to this country.

Go here to read the rest:
Jeremy Corbyn aide was dedicated Communist Party member and hard-lefts Steve Bannon - Express

During the time of the Soviet Union(1922-1991), communist countries could be found in Eastern Europe, Asia, and Africa. Some of these nations, like the People's Republic of China, were (and still are) global players in their own right. Other communist countries, such as East Germany, were essentially satellites of the U.S.S.R. that played a significant role during the Cold War but no longer exist.

Communismis both a political system and an economic one. Communist parties have absolute power over governance, and elections are single-party affairs. The party controls the economic system as well, and private ownership is illegal, although this facet of communist rule has changed in some countries like China.

By contrast, socialist nations are generally democratic with multiparty political systems. The Socialist Party does not have to be in power for socialist principles, such as a strong social safety net and government ownership of key industries and infrastructure, to be part of a nation's domestic agenda. Unlike communism, private ownership is encouraged in most socialist nations.

The basic principles of communism were articulatedin the mid-1800s by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, two German economic and political philosophers. But it wasn't until the Russian Revolution of 1917 that a communist nation the Soviet Union was born. By the middle of the 20th century, it appeared that communism could supersededemocracy as the dominant political and economic ideology. Yet today, only five communist countries remain in the world.

Mao Zedong took control over China in 1949 and proclaimed the nation as the People's Republic of China, a communist country. China has remained consistently communist since 1949 although economic reforms have been in place for several years. China has been called "Red China" due to the Communist Party's control over the country.

China does have political parties other than the Communist Party of China (CPC), and open elections are held locally throughout the country. That said, however, the CPC has control over all political appointments, and little opposition typically exists for the ruling Communist Party.

As China has opened up to the rest of the world in recent decades, the resulting disparities of wealth have eroded some of the principles of communism, and in 2004 the country's constitution was changed to recognize private property.

A revolution in 1959 led to the takeover of the Cuban government by Fidel Castroand his associates. By 1961, Cuba became a fully communist country and developed close ties to the Soviet Union. At the same time, the United States imposed a ban on all trade with Cuba. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Cuba was forced to find new sources for trade and financial subsidies, which the nation did, with countries including China, Bolivia, and Venezuela.

In 2008, Fidel Castro stepped down, and his brother, Raul Castro, became president; Fidel died in 2016. Under U.S. President Barack Obama, relations between the two nations were relaxed and travel restrictions loosened during Obama's second term. In June 2017, however, President Donald Trump tightened travel restrictions on Cuba.

Korea, which was occupied by Japan in World War II, was divided following the war into a Russian-dominated north and an American-occupied south. At the time, no one thought the partition would be permanent.

North Korea did not become a communist country until 1948 when South Korea declared its independence from the North, which quickly declared its own sovereignty. Backed by Russia, Korean communist leader Kim Il-Sung was installed as leader of the new nation.

The North Korean government doesn't consider itself communist, even if most world governments do.Instead, the Kim family has promoted its own brand of communism based on the concept of juche(self-reliance).

First introduced in the mid-1950s, juche promotes Korean nationalism as embodied in the leadership of (and cultlike devotion to) the Kims. Juche became official state policy in the 1970s and was continued under the rule of Kim Jong-il, who succeeded his father in 1994, and Kim Jong-un, who rose to power in 2011.

In 2009, the country's constitution was changed to remove all mention of the Marxist and Leninist ideals that are the foundation of communism, and the very word communism was also removed.

Go here to read the rest:
A List of Current Communist Countries in the World

What is Communism?

Communism is a political and economic ideology that positions itself in opposition to liberal democracy and capitalism, advocating instead a classless system in which the means of production are owned communally and private property is nonexistent or severely curtailed.

"Communism" is an umbrella term that encompasses a range of ideologies. The term's modern usage originated with Victor d'Hupay, an 18th-century French aristocrat who advocated living in "communes" in which all property would be shared and "all may benefit from everybody's work." The idea was hardly new even at that time, however: the Book of Acts describes first-century Christian communities holding property in common according to a system known askoinonia, which inspired later religious groups such as the 17th-centuryEnglish "Diggers" to reject private ownership.

Modern communist ideology began to develop during the French Revolution, and its seminal tract, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels' "Communist Manifesto," was published in 1848. That pamphlet rejected the Christian tenor of previous communist philosophies, laying out a materialist and its proponents claim scientific analysis of the history and future trajectory of human society. "The history of all hitherto existing society," Marx and Engels wrote, "is the history of class struggles."

The Communist Manifesto presented the French Revolution as a major historical turning point, when the "bourgeoisie" the merchant class that was in the process of consolidating control over the "means of production" overturned the feudal power structure and ushered in the modern, capitalist era. That revolution replaced the medieval class struggle, which pitted the nobility against the serfs, with the modern one pitting the bourgeois owners of capital against the "proletariat," the working class who sell their labor for wages. (See also,What Is the Difference Between Communism and Socialism?)

In the Communist Manifesto and later works, Marx, Engels and their followers advocated (and predicted as historically inevitable) a global proletarian revolution, which would usher in first an era of socialism, then of communism. This final stage of human development would mark the end of class struggle and therefore of history: all people would live in social equilibrium, without class distinctions, family structures, religion or property. The state, too, would "wither away." The economy would function, as a popular Marxist slogan puts it, "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs."

Marx and Engels' theories would not be tested in the real world until after their deaths. In 1917, during Word War I, an uprising in Russia toppled the czar and sparked a civil war that eventually saw a group of radical Marxists led by Vladimir Lenin gain power in 1922. The Bolsheviks, as this group was called, founded the Soviet Union on former Imperial Russian territory and attempted to put communist theory into practice.

Prior to the Bolshevik Revolution, Lenin had developed the Marxist theory of vanguardism, which argued that a close-knit group of politically enlightened elites was necessary to usher in the higher stages of economic and political evolution: socialism and finally communism. Lenin died shortly after the civil war ended, but the "dictatorship of the proletariat," led by his successor Joseph Stalin, would pursue brutal ethnic and ideological purges as well as forced agricultural collectivization. Tens of millions died during Stalin's rule, from 1922 to 1952, on top of the tens of millions who died as a result of the war with Nazi Germany.

Rather than withering away, the Soviet state became a powerful one-party institution that prohibited dissent and occupied the "commanding heights" of the economy. Agriculture, the banking system and industrial production weresubject to quotas and price controls laid out in a series of Five Year Plans. This system of central planning enabled rapid industrialization, and from 1950 to 1965 growth in Soviet gross domestic product (GDP) outpaced that of the U.S. In general, however, the Soviet economy grew at a much slower pace than its capitalist, democratic counterparts.

Weak consumer spending was a particular drag on growth. Central planners' emphasis on heavy industry led to chronic underproduction of consumer goods, and long lines at understocked grocery stores were a fixture of Soviet life even during periods of relative prosperity. Thriving black markets termed the "second economy" by some academics catered to demand for cigarettes, shampoo, liquor, sugar, milk and especially prestige goods such as jeans smuggledin from the West. While these networks were illegal, they were essential to the party's functioning: they alleviated shortages that, left unchecked, threatened to spark another Bolshevik Revolution; they provided party propagandists with a scapegoat for shortages; and they lined the pockets of party officials, who would either take payoffs to look the other way or grow rich running black market operations themselves.

The Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, following a push to reform the economic and politic system and provide greater room for private enterprise and free expression. These reform pushes, known as perestroikaandglasnost, respectively, did not halt the economic decline the Soviet Union suffered in the 1980s and likely hastened the Communist state's end by loosening its grip on sources of dissent.

In 1949, following more than 20 years of war with the Chinese Nationalist Party and Imperial Japan, Mao Zedong's Communist Party gained control of China to form the world's second major Marxist-Leninist state. Mao allied the country with the Soviet Union, but the Soviets' policies of de-Stalinization and "peaceful coexistence" with the capitalist West led to a diplomatic split with China in 1956.

Mao's rule in China resembled Stalin's in its violence, deprivation and insistence on ideological purity. During the Great Leap Forward from 1958 to 1962, the Communist Party ordered the rural population to produce enormous quantities of steel in an effort to jumpstart an industrial revolution in China. Families were coerced into building backyard furnaces, where they smelted scrap metal and household items into low-quality pig iron that offered little domestic utility and held no appeal for export markets. Since rural labor was unavailable to harvest crops, and Mao insisted on exporting grain to demonstrate his policies' success, food became scarce. The resulting Great Chinese Famine killed at least 15 million people and perhaps more than 45 million. The Cultural Revolution, an ideological purge that lasted from 1966 until Mao's death in 1976, killed at least another 400,000 people.

After Mao's death, Deng Xiaoping introduced a series of market reforms that have remained in effect under his successors. The U.S. began normalizing relations with China when President Nixonvisited in 1972, prior to Mao's death. The Chinese Communist Party remains in power, presiding over a largely capitalist system, though state-owned enterprises continue form a large part of the economy. Freedom of expression is significantly curtailed; elections are banned (except in the former British colony of Hong Kong, where candidates must be approved by the party and voting rights are tightly controlled); and meaningful opposition to the party is not permitted.

The U.S. emerged from World War II the world's richest and most militarily powerful nation. As a liberal democracy that had just defeated fascist dictatorships in two theaters, the country if not all of its people felt a sense of exceptionalism and historical purpose. So did the Soviet Union, its ally in the fight against Germany and the world's only revolutionary Marxist state. The two powers promptly divided Europe into spheres of political and economic influence: Winston Churchill called this dividing line the "Iron Curtain."

The two superpowers, both of which possessed nuclear weapons after 1949, engaged in a long standoff known as the Cold War. Due to the doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction the belief that a war between the two powers would lead to a nuclear holocaust no direct military engagements occurred between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, and the Iron Curtain was largely quiet. Instead they fought a global proxy war, with each sponsoring friendly regimes in post-colonial nations in Africa, Asia and Latin America. The U.S. and Soviet Union both sponsored coups to install such regimes in various countries.

The closest the U.S. came to a direct military conflict with the Soviet Union was the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. The U.S. did fight a prolonged hot war in Vietnam, however, in which its military supported South Vietnamese forces fighting the Chinese- and Soviet-supported North Vietnamese army and South Vietnamese communist guerrillas. The U.S. withdrew from the war and Vietnam was united under communist rule in 1975.

The Cold War ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

While there has been extensive study of the reasons for communism's failure, researchers have pinpointed a couple of common factors that contributed to its demise.

The first is an absence of incentives among citizens to produce for profit. The profit incentive leads to competition and innovation in a society. But an ideal citizen in a communist society was selflessly devoted to societal causes and rarely stopped to think about his or her welfare. "At all times and all questions a party member should give first consideration to the interests of the Party as a whole and put them in the foremost and place personal matters and interests second," wrote Liu Shaoqi, the second chairman of the People's Republic of China.

The second reason for communism's failure were the system's inherent inefficiencies, such as centralized planning. This form of planning requires aggregation and synthesis of enormous amounts of data at a granular level. Because all projects were planned centrally, this form of planning was also complex. In several instances, growth data was fudged or error-prone in order to make facts fit into planned statistics and create an illusion of progress.

The concentration of power into the hands of select few also bred inefficiency and, paradoxically enough, provided them with incentives to game the system for their benefit and retain their hold on power. Corruption and laziness became endemic features of this system and surveillance, such as the one that characterized East German and Soviet societies, was common. It also disincentivized industrious and hard working people. The end result was that the economy suffered.

See the original post here:
Communism Definition - Investopedia

The Suppression of Communism Act 44 of 1950 (renamed the Internal Security Act in 1976) was legislation of the national government in apartheid South Africa, passed on 26 June 1950 (and coming into effect on 17 July)[1] which formally banned the Communist Party of South Africa and proscribed any party or group subscribing to communism according to a uniquely broad definition of the term.

The Act defined communism as any scheme aimed at achieving change--whether economic, social, political, or industrial--"by the promotion of disturbance or disorder" or any act encouraging "feelings of hostility between the European and the non-European races...calculated to further [disorder]". The government could deem any person to be a communist if it found that person's aims to be aligned with these aims. After a nominal two-week appeal period, the person's status as a communist became an unreviewable matter of fact, and subjected the person to being barred from public participation, restricted in movement, or imprisoned.[2][3]

Passage of the Act was justified by the involvement of members of the South African Communist Party being involved in the anti-apartheid movement.[4]

The Act was frequently used to silence critics of racial segregation and apartheid. Justice Frans Rumpff, presiding in the 1952 trial of African National Congress leaders, observed such "statutory communism" might have "nothing to do with communism as it is commonly known."[5]

The Act facilitated the government suppression of organisations such as the ANC and PAC and others which advocated for black equal rights.[4] The Suppression of Communism Act forced these groups to go underground with their activism. Because of this Act, groups such as uMkhonto we Sizwe, led by Nelson Mandela as a branch of the ANC, did seek financial support from the Communist Party.[citation needed]

Most of the Act was replaced in 1982 by the Internal Security Act, 1982.[6]

Go here to read the rest:
Suppression of Communism Act, 1950 - Wikipedia

Credit: Yvette Cardozo PREMIUM/Getty Images

Updated December 19, 2018

Communism is an economic system where the groupowns thefactors of production. In countries, the government represents the group. The means of production arelabor, entrepreneurship,capital goods,andnatural resources. Although the labor force aren't legally owned by the government, the central planners tell the people where they should work.

German philosopher Karl Marx developed the theory of communism.

He said it was, "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need." In his view, capitalistic owners would no longer siphon off all the profits. Instead, the proceeds would go to the workers.

To Marx, "From each according to his ability," meant people would work at what they loved and did well. They happily contributed these skills for the good of all. The economy would prosper because they would work harder than in capitalism.

"To each according to his need" meantthe community would take care of those who couldn't work. It would distribute goods and services to everyone as they required them. Those who were able to workwould be motivated by enlightened self-interest.

In the Communist Manifesto, Marx and co-auther Friedrich Engels outlined the following 10 points:

The manifesto mentions state ownership in its last three points. That makes even this pure vision of communismsoundlike socialism. But Marx argued that state ownership is a valid stage in the transition to communism.

In a true communist economy, the community makes decisions. In most communist countries, thegovernment makes those decisions on their behalf. This system is called acommand economy. The leaders create a plan that outlines their choices. It's executed with laws,regulations,and directives.

The goal of the plan is to give to "each according to his need." Communist countries have freehealth care, education, and other services. The plan also seeks to increase the nation'seconomic growth. It secures national defense and maintains infrastructure.

The state owns businesses on behalf of the workers. In effect, the government owns amonopoly. The government rewards company managers for meeting the targets detailed in the plan.

In communism, central planners replace the forces of competition and the laws of supply and demand that operate in amarket economy. They also replace the customs that guide atraditional economy.

Communism is most similar to socialism. In both, the people own the factors of production. The most significant difference is that output is distributed according to need in communism, and according to ability under socialism. Communism is most different fromcapitalism, where private individuals are the owners. It is similar to fascism in that both use central plans.

But fascists allow individuals to retain factors of production. Many countries turned to fascism to ward off communism.

Advantages

Communism has a centrally planned economy. It can quickly mobilize economic resources on a large scale. It is able to execute massive projects and create industrial power.

Communism can move so effectively because it overrides individual self-interest. It subjugates the welfare of the general population to achieve imperative social goals.

Communist command economies can whollytransform societies to conform to the planner's vision. Examples includeStalinistRussia, MaoistChina, and Castro's Cuba. Russia's command economy built up the military might to defeat the Nazis.It then quickly rebuilt the economy after World War II.

Some say communism's advantages mean it is the next obvious step for any capitalistic society. They see income inequality as a sign oflate stage capitalism. They believe that capitalism's flaws mean it has evolved past its usefulness to society.

They don't realize that capitalism's flaws are endemic to the system, regardless of the phase it is in. America's Founding Fathers included promotion of the generalwelfare in the Constitution to balance these flaws. It instructed thethe government to protect the rights of all to pursue their idea of happiness as outlined in theAmerican Dream. It's the government's role to create a level playing field to allow that to happen. That can happen without throwing out capitalism in favor of another system.

The most significant disadvantage of communism stems from its elimination of the free market. The laws ofsupplyanddemanddon't set prices, the government does. Planners losethe valuable feedback these prices provide about what the people want. They can't get up-to-date information about consumers' needs.As a result, there is often a surplus of one thing and shortages of others.

To compensate, citizens create a black market to tradethe things the planners don't provide. This destroys the trust inMarx's pure communism. People no longer feel the government can give "to each according to his needs."

The last five remaining Communist countries are China, Cuba, Laos, North Korea, and Vietnam.They aren't pure communism butare transitioning from socialism. That's where the state owns the components ofsupply. According to Marx, that is a necessary midway point between capitalismand the ideal communist economy. Modern communist societies rely on amixed economy.

China. In October 1949, Mao Tse Tung established the Chinese Communist party. In the late 1970s, China began moving toward a mixed economy. It phased-out collective farms and allowed private businesses. But it still strictly follows a five-year economic plan. The government's policies favor state-owned enterprises in sectors vital to its goals. In 2010, China became the world's largest exporter. In 2016, it became the world's largest economy.

Cuba. In April 1960, Fidel Castro proclaimed thePartido Communista de Cubato be the ruling party. The Soviet Union gave economic support to the impoverished country. In return, Cuba supported it patron in the Cold War against its neighbor, the United States. After the fall of the USSR, Cuba suffered. In April 2011, it began allowing economic reforms. Cubans can now buy appliances, cell phones, real estate, and cars. More than 400,000 Cubans have created their own businesses. For example, farmers can now sell goods to hotels.

Laos. In 1949, the nation won independence from France. In 1986, it began decentralizing control and encouraging private businesses. It's created tax incentives to encourage foreign direct investment. It wants to expand its economy beyond exporting its natural resources.

North Korea. In 1953, its allies China and Russia helped create North Korea to endthe Korean War. The country followed strict central planning with communal farming. It suffered famine and poor living conditions in the 1990s and 2000s. In 2002, it allowed semi-private markets to sell some goods.

Vietnam. In 1945, communist leader Ho Chi Minh declaredhis country'sindependencefrom France. The French, backed by the United States, seized southern Vietnam. Ho, backed by China, took the northern part. In 1954, the French agreed to divide Vietnam at the 17th parallel. But in 1964, Ho led Viet Cong soldiers to reunite the country. In 1975, the communists were successful. In 1986, Vietnam began transitioningtowards a more market-based economy. It still needs to reform state-owned enterprises, reduce red tape, and increase financial sector transparency.

In 1922, the Union ofSoviet Socialist Republics was established with six communist countries: Russia, Belorussia, Ukraine, and the Transcaucasian Federation. In 1936, the Federation became Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Armenia.

By 1992, when it dissolved, the USSR contained 15 countries. The remaining nine were Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.

In 1955, the USSR created theWarsaw Pact with other communist military allies. They included:Albania,Bulgaria, East Germany, Hungary,Poland, and Romania.

The USSR had many other communist allies. Many became communist in the 1970s, but shifted to another form of government after the USSR collapsed. They included:Afghanistan,Angola,Benin, Congo, Ethiopia, Mongolia, Mozambique, Somalia,South Yemen, andYugoslavia.

Cambodiawas a communist country from 1975 to 1979. In his misguided attempts to create an agricultural communist society, he killed 2 million people.

Originally posted here:
Communism: Definition, Pros, Cons, Examples, Countries