A political movement is a collective attempt by a group of people to change government policy or social values . Political movements are usually in opposition to an element of the status quo , and are often associated with a certain ideology . Some theories of political movements are the political opportunity theory , which states that political movements stem from mere circumstances, and the resource mobilization theory which states that political movements result from strategic organization and relevant resources. Political movements are also related to political parties in the sense that they both aim to make an impact on the government and that several political parties have emerged from initial political movements. While political parties are engaged with a multitude of issues, political movements tend to focus on only one major issue.
188-650: Anti-communism is political and ideological opposition to communist beliefs, groups, and individuals. Organized anti-communism developed after the 1917 October Revolution in Russia , and it reached global dimensions during the Cold War , when the United States and the Soviet Union engaged in an intense rivalry. Anti-communism has been an element of many movements and different political positions across
376-697: A Marxist–Leninist state , is a one-party state in which the totality of the power belongs to a party adhering to some form of Marxism–Leninism , a branch of the communist ideology . Marxism–Leninism was the state ideology of the Soviet Union , the Comintern after its Bolshevisation , and the communist states within the Comecon , the Eastern Bloc , and the Warsaw Pact . After the peak of Marxism–Leninism, when many communist states were established,
564-447: A Soviet economy that remained capitalist to a significant degree ." This changed with the introduction of the command economy , and the term socialist law was conceived to reflect this in the 1930s. Hungarian legal theorist Imre Szabó acknowledged similarities between socialist law and civil law, but he noted that "four basic types of law may be distinguished: the laws of the slave, feudal, capitalist, and socialist societies." Using
752-545: A civil law system . The countries of Eastern Europe had formally been governed by the Austro-Hungarian Empire , German Empire , and Russian Empire —all of whom had a civil law legal system. Cuba had a civil law system imposed on them by Spain, while China introduced civil law to overlay with Confucian elements, and Vietnam used French law. Since the establishment of the Soviet Union, there has been
940-637: A communist society . Other terms used by communist states include national-democratic , people's democratic , socialist-oriented , and workers and peasants' states. Academics, political commentators, and other scholars tend to distinguish between communist states and democratic socialist states, with the first representing the Eastern Bloc and the latter representing Western Bloc countries that have been democratically governed by socialist parties such as France , Sweden , and Western social-democracies in general, among others. During
1128-433: A "great number of legal institutions and legal relations remain the same in socialist law", further stating that it is "necessary and justified" to put them to use if they are "in conformity with the corresponding interests of the ruling class in the state in question." Importantly, socialist law had retained civil law institutions, methodology, and organisation. This can be discerned by the fact that East Germany retained
1316-588: A U.S.-based Christian rights group, in 2006, Gao was sentenced to a suspended three-year sentence for " incitement to subversion " against the communist state, and ultimately was imprisoned in Xinjiang in December 2011. Released from prison in August 2014, he was placed under house arrest. In a memoir published in 2016, Gao recounted the torture sessions and three years of solitary confinement, during which he said he
1504-463: A broader 'segment of society' [...] than the court itself." Despite this, it does not mean that the communist states use legislatures to strengthen their communication with the populace—the party, rather than the legislature, could take that function. Ideologically, it has another function, namely, to prove that communist states do not only represent the interests of the working class but all social strata. Communist states are committed to establishing
1692-576: A classless society and use legislatures to show that all social strata, whether bureaucrat, worker, or intellectual, are committed and have interests in building such a society. As is the case in China, national institutions such as the legislature "must exist which brings together representatives of all nationalities and geographic areas." It does not matter if the legislatures only rubber stamp decisions because by having them, it shows that communist states are committed to incorporating minorities and areas of
1880-403: A decision has been reached, all people have a duty to account to that decision. When used within a political party, democratic centralism is meant to prevent factionalism and splits. When applied to an entire state, democratic centralism creates a one-party system . The constitutions of most communist states describe their political system as a form of democracy. They recognize the sovereignty of
2068-624: A few days. When the unitary legislature is not in session, its powers are transferred to a smaller council (often called a presidium ) which acts as a collective head of state . In some systems, the presidium is composed of crucial communist party members who vote the resolutions of the communist party into law. A feature of communist states is the existence of numerous state-sponsored social organisations (associations of journalists, teachers, writers and other professionals, consumer cooperatives , sports clubs , trade unions , youth organisations , and women's organisations ) which are integrated into
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#17327905985012256-486: A given country. It deals with states that define themselves either as a socialist state or as a state led by a governing Marxist–Leninist party in their constitutions. For this reason alone, these states are often called communist states. All communist political systems practice unitary state power . This means that the legislature, usually defined as the highest organ of state power, has executive, legislative and judicial power and can interfere in these organs as long as
2444-685: A government sponsored rally against potential North Korean military aggression on Yeouido Island in Seoul to an audience of around 1 million. In 1976, Moon established News World Communications , an international news media conglomerate which publishes The Washington Times newspaper in Washington, D.C., and newspapers in South Korea, Japan, and South America, partly to promote political conservatism. According to The Washington Post , "the Times
2632-624: A high critical campaign against the Leninist regime denouncing the atrocities committed by them against him and the Hungarian people. The Leninist government accused him and demanded that the Vatican remove him the title of Archbishop of Esztergom and forbid him to make public speeches against communism. The Vatican eventually annulled the excommunication imposed on his political opponents and stripped him of his titles. Pope Paul VI , who declared
2820-463: A lie fabricated by a handful of anti-China people to tarnish China's reputation. The virulent accusations made during the hearing had already been robustly refuted seven years before, not only by Chinese authorities but also by diplomats and journalists of several other countries who conducted their own conscientious investigations in China, including officers and staff of the U.S. Embassy in Beijing and
3008-522: A news conference at which he confirmed that none of the human bodies exhibited had come from China. The statement made by Hagens refuted the Falun Gong's rumors. According to Chinese government officials, "[t]he allegations that Falun Gong members are being murdered in China for organ harvesting, as well as the Kilgour-Matas report, have long before been found false and proved to be nothing but
3196-500: A notable voice of dissent against the Communist Party by founding organizations such as the far-right Epoch Times , New Tang Dynasty Television and others that criticize the Communist Party. Falun Gong activists repeatedly alleged that they were tortured while they were in custody. The Chinese government rejects the allegations, stating that deaths which occurred in custody occurred due to factors such as natural causes and
3384-527: A path for China, recording what has been won in China and what is yet to be conquered." A constitution in a communist state has an end. The preamble of the 1954 Chinese constitution outlines the historical tasks of the Chinese communists, "step by step, to bring about the socialist industrialisation of the country and, step by step, to accomplish the socialist transformation of agriculture, handicraft and capitalist industry and commerce." In communist states,
3572-525: A political party, a political organization seeks to influence or control government policy through conventional methods, usually by nominating their candidates and seating candidates in politics and governmental offices. However, political parties and movements both aim to influence government in one way or another and both are often related to a certain ideology. Parties also participate in electoral campaigns and educational outreach or protest actions aiming to convince citizens or governments to take action on
3760-656: A public protest against the Soviet Union in response to its shooting down of Korean Airlines Flight 007 . In 1984, the HSA–UWC founded the Washington Institute for Values in Public Policy, a Washington, D.C. think tank that underwrites conservative-oriented research and seminars at Stanford University , the University of Chicago , and other institutions. In the same year, member Dan Fefferman founded
3948-490: A reprobate category, the Romanist laws and the common law, is the fact that they reason less as jurists and more as philosophers and Marxists; it is in taking a not strictly legal viewpoint that they affirm the originality of their socialist law." However, some socialist legal theorists, such as Romanian jurist Victor Zlatescu differentiated between type of law and family of law. According to Zlatescu, "[t]he distinction between
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#17327905985014136-455: A scholarly debate on whether socialist law is a separate legal system or is a part of the civil law tradition. Legal scholar Renè David wrote that the socialist legal system "possesses, in relation to our French law, particular features that give it a complete originality, to the extent that it is no longer possible to connect it, like the former Russian law, to the system of Roman law ." Similarly, Christoper Osakwe concludes that socialist law
4324-433: A single centralised communist party apparatus. These parties are usually Marxist–Leninist or some national variation thereof such as Maoism or Titoism . There have been several instances of communist states with functioning political participation (i.e. Soviet democracy ) processes involving several other non-party organisations such as direct democratic participation, factory committees , and trade unions , although
4512-413: A socialist state. A socialist state is more than a form of government and can only exist in countries with a socialist economy . There are examples of several states that have instituted a socialist form of government before achieving socialism. The former socialist states of Eastern Europe were established as people's democracies (a developmental stage between capitalism and socialism ). Regarding
4700-419: A tool to defend the socialist nature of the state and attack its enemies. This contrasts with the liberal conception of constitutionalism that "law, rather than men, is supreme." Unlike the relatively constant (and, in some instances, permanently fixed ) nature of democratic constitutions, a Marxist–Leninist constitution is ever-changing. Andrey Vyshinsky , a Procurator General of the Soviet Union during
4888-768: A view to then rejoining the "purged" ALP, the DLP preferenced the Liberal Party of Australia (LPA), enabling them to remain in power for over two decades. The strategy was unsuccessful and after the Whitlam government during the 1970s the majority of the DLP decided to wind up the party in 1978, although the small federal and state-based Democratic Labour Party continued based in Victoria, with state parties reformed in New South Wales and Queensland in 2008. After
5076-553: A well known anarchist school of thought, there are also anarchists who oppose communism. Anti-communist anarchists include anarcho-primitivists and other green anarchists , who critique communism for its need of industrialisation and its perceived authoritarianism. In The Communist Manifesto , Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels outlined some provisional short-term measures that could be steps towards communism . They noted that "these measures will, of course, be different in different countries. Nevertheless, in most advanced countries,
5264-407: Is "Six famous men tell how they changed their minds about communism." Anatoliy Golitsyn and Oleg Kalugin were both former KGB officers, the latter being a general. Dmitri Volkogonov was a Soviet general who got access to soviet archives following glasnost , and wrote a critical biography dismantling the cult of Lenin by refuting Leninist ideology. Whittaker Chambers was a former spy for
5452-427: Is "an autonomous legal system to be essentially distinguished from the other contemporary families of law." Proponents of socialist law as a separate legal system have identified the following features: Legal officials argue differently for their cases compared to Westerners. For instance, "[t]he predominant view among Soviet jurists in the 1920s was that Soviet law of that period was Western-style law appropriate for
5640-406: Is "considered by some to be one of the most important books on political theory of the 20th century". The God That Failed is a 1949 book which collects together six essays with the testimonies of a number of famous former communists who were writers and journalists. The common theme of the essays is the authors' disillusionment with and abandonment of communism. The promotional byline to the book
5828-772: Is also why amendments to constitutions are not enough and major societal changes need a novel constitution which corresponds with the reality of the new class structure. With Nikita Khrushchev 's repudiation of Stalin's practices in the " Secret Speech " and the Chinese Communist Party's repudiation of certain Maoist policies, Marxist–Leninist legal theories began to emphasise "the formal, formerly neglected constitutional order." Deng Xiaoping , not long after Chairman Mao Zedong 's death, noted that "[d]emocracy has to be institutionalised and written into law, to make sure that institutions and laws do not change whenever
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6016-505: Is different from country to country. In the Soviet Union, the Supreme Soviet did "little more than listen to statements from Soviet political leaders and to legitimate decisions already made elsewhere" while in the legislatures of Poland, Vietnam, and Yugoslavia it has been more active and had an impact on rule-making. Marxist–Leninists view the constitution as a fundamental law and as an instrument of force. The constitution
6204-569: Is led by a communist party is termed a mass organization by the party and a "Communist front" by detractors. Some of the theories behind social movements have also been applied to the emergence of political movements in specific, like the political opportunity theory and the resource mobilization theory. The political opportunity theory asserts that political movements occur through chance or certain opportunities and have little to do with resources, connections or grievances in society. Political opportunities can be created by possible changes in
6392-440: Is ruled by the bourgeoisie class, and socialism, where the proletariat leads, the socialist-oriented state represents a broad and heterogeneous group of classes that seek to consolidate national independence. Since peasants were usually the largest class in socialist-oriented states, their role was emphasised—similar to the working class in other socialist states. However, Marxist–Leninists admitted that these states often fell under
6580-642: Is that the socialist-oriented state was divided into two stages: a national-democratic socialist-oriented state and a people's democratic socialist-oriented state. Countries belonging to the national-democratic socialist-oriented state category were also categorised as national-democratic states. Examples of national-democratic socialist-oriented states are Algeria , ruled by the National Liberation Front , Ba'athist Iraq , and Socialist Burma . In contrast, people's democratic socialist-oriented states had to be guided by Marxism–Leninism and accept
6768-590: Is the most common and is currently in use in China. Marxism–Leninism was mentioned in the Soviet constitution . Article 6 of the 1977 Soviet constitution stated: "The Communist Party, armed with Marxism–Leninism, determines the general perspective of the development of society and the course of the domestic and foreign policy of the USSR." This contrasts with the 1976 Albanian constitution which stated in Article 3: "In
6956-637: Is the source of law and legality. Unlike in liberal democracies , the Marxist–Leninist constitution is not a framework to limit the power of the state. To the contrary, a Marxist–Leninist constitution seeks to empower the state—believing the state to be an organ of class domination and law to be the expression of the interests of the dominant class. Marxist–Leninists believe that all national constitutions do this to ensure that countries can strengthen and enforce their own class system. In this instance, it means that Marxist–Leninists conceive of constitutions as
7144-433: Is to create the conditions for socialism in countries where the social, political, and economic conditions for socialism do not exist. The second feature to be met is the establishment of a revolutionary-democratic party which has to establish itself as the leading force and guide the state by using Marxist–Leninist ideology. While introduced in these states, democratic centralism is rarely upheld. Unlike capitalism which
7332-553: The 1896 German civil code until 1976 while Poland used existing Austrian, French, German, and Russian civil codes until adoption of its own civil code in 1964. Scholar John Quigley wrote that "[s]ocialist law retains the inquisitorial style of trial, law-creation predominantly by legislatures rather than courts, and a significant role for legal scholarship in construing codes." Communist states have established two types of civil-military systems. The armed forces of most socialist states have historically been state institutions based on
7520-543: The Anti-Comintern Pact . Italy joined as a signatory in 1937 and other countries in or affiliated with the Axis Powers such as Finland and Spain joined in 1941. In the first article of the treaty, Germany and Japan agreed to share information about Comintern activities and to plan their operations against such activities jointly. In the second article, the two parties opened the possibility of extending
7708-463: The Civic Union for Stability, Justice & Progress , Constructive Ecological Movement , Russian Democratic Reform Movement , Dignity and Mercy , and Women of Russia . Even though these movements were not successful in contesting the election, they displayed how there was still a strong support of anti-communism after the collapse of the Soviet Union. All of these movements were all critical of
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7896-754: The French Revolution that had swept over Europe and other parts of the world and thus also created as a counter-revolutionary reaction. Historian James H. Billington describes, in the book Fire in the Minds of Men , the historical frame of revolutions that extended from the waning of the French Revolution in the late eighteenth century and that culminated in the Russian Revolution . Most exiled Russian White émigré that included exiled Russian liberals were actively anti-communist in
8084-478: The Great Depression , when they organized street battles against German Communist formations. When Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933, his propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels set up the " Anti-Komintern ". It published massive amounts of anti-Bolshevik propaganda , with the goal of demonizing Bolshevism and the Soviet Union before a worldwide audience. In 1936, Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan signed
8272-604: The Iron Curtain broke under public pressure during a wave of mostly non-violent movements as part of the Revolutions of 1989 which led to the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. China's socio-economic structure has been referred to as "nationalistic state capitalism" and the Eastern Bloc ( Eastern Europe and the Third World ) as "bureaucratic-authoritarian systems." Today, the existing communist states in
8460-639: The Italian Communist Party (PCI) from reaching power. From 1945 onward, the Australian Labor Party (ALP) leadership accepted the assistance of an anti-communist Roman Catholic movement, led by B. A. Santamaria to oppose alleged communist subversion of Australian trade unions, of which Catholics were an important traditional support base. Bert Cremean , Deputy Leader of State Parliamentary Labor Party and Santamaria, met with ALP's political and industrial leaders to discuss
8648-550: The Kremlin has," for dividing the bipartisan foreign policy of the United States. Liberal anti-communists like Edward Shils and Daniel Moynihan had a contempt for McCarthyism. As Moynihan put it, "reaction to McCarthy took the form of a modish anti anti-communism that considered impolite any discussion of the very real threat Communism posed to Western values and security." After revelations of Soviet spy networks from
8836-712: The Narodniks in Russia, it is now associated with communist states. A number of the short-lived communist states which formed during World War I and its aftermath called themselves people's republics. Many of these sprang up in the territory of the former Russian Empire following the October Revolution . Additional people's republics emerged following the Allied victory in World War II, mainly within
9024-577: The Petrov affair blamed "subversive" activities of the "Groupers" for the defeat. After bitter public dispute, many Groupers (including most members of the New South Wales and Victorian state executives and most Victorian Labor branches) were expelled from the ALP and formed the historical Democratic Labor Party (DLP). In an attempt to force the ALP reform and remove alleged Communist influence, with
9212-542: The Revolutions of 1989 brought down most of the communist states; however, Communism remained the official ideology of the ruling parties of China , Cuba , Laos , Vietnam , and to a lesser extent, North Korea . During the later part of the 20th century, before the Revolutions of 1989, around one-third of the world's population lived in communist states. Communist states are typically authoritarian and are typically administered through democratic centralism by
9400-513: The Soviet Union under the rule of Joseph Stalin . Also on the left-wing, Arthur Koestler —a former member of the Communist Party of Germany —explored the ethics of revolution from an anti-communist perspective in a variety of works. His trilogy of early novels testified to Koestler's growing conviction that utopian ends do not justify the means often used by revolutionary governments. These novels are The Gladiators (which explores
9588-860: The Soviet occupation of Hungary during the final stages of the Second World War, many clerics were arrested. The case of the Archbishop József Mindszenty of Esztergom , head of the Catholic Church in Hungary, was the most known. He was accused of treason to the Communist ideas and was sent to trials and tortured during several years between 1949 and 1956. During the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 against Marxism–Leninism and Soviet control, Mindszenty
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#17327905985019776-848: The Vichy regime and the Legion of French Volunteers against Bolshevism ( Wehrmacht Infantry Regiment 638) in France; and in South America movements such as the Argentine Anticommunist Alliance and Brazilian Integralism . Historians Ian Kershaw and Joachim Fest argue that in the early 1920s the Nazis were only one of many nationalist and fascist political parties contending for the leadership of Germany's anti-communist movement. The Nazis only came to dominance during
9964-695: The animal rights movement , or the inclusive human rights movement. Some have represented class interests, such as the labour movement , socialism , and communism , while others have expressed national aspirations, including both anticolonialist movements, such as Rātana and Sinn Féin , as well as colonialist movements such as Manifest destiny . Political movements can also involve struggles to decentralize or centralize state control, as in anarchism , fascism , and Nazism . Famous recent social movements can be classified as political movements as they have influenced policy changes at all levels of government. Political movements that have recently emerged within
10152-407: The ecology movement , alter-globalization and the anti-globalization movement . With globalization , global citizens movements may have also emerged. Many political movements have aimed to establish or broaden the rights of subordinate groups, such as abolitionism , the women's suffrage movement, the civil rights movement , feminism , gay rights movement , the disability rights movement ,
10340-524: The mainstream media and the alternative press , and many members of them said that it could lead to World War Three and a nuclear holocaust . The movement's anti-communist activities received financial support from Japanese millionaire and activist Ryōichi Sasakawa . In 1972, Moon predicted the decline of communism , based on the teachings of his book, the Divine Principle : "After 7,000 biblical years—6,000 years of restoration history plus
10528-514: The mass line and learning from the people." This reasoning gives communist legislatures the right to interfere in every state institution unless the legislature itself has made a law that bars it from it. This also means there are no limits to politicisation, unlike in liberal democracies, where politicians are legally barred from interfering in judicial work. This is a firm rejection of the separation of powers found in liberal democracies since no institution can legally enforce checks and balances on
10716-422: The political spectrum , including anarchism , centrism , conservatism , fascism , liberalism , nationalism , social democracy , socialism , leftism , and libertarianism , as well as broad movements resisting communist governance . Anti-communism has also been expressed by several religious groups , and in art and literature . The first organization which was specifically dedicated to opposing communism
10904-410: The totalitarian and atheistic ideologies that have been associated with 'communism' in modern times. ... Regulating the economy solely by centralized planning perverts the basis of social bonds ... [Still,] reasonable regulation of the marketplace and economic initiatives, in keeping with a just hierarchy of values and a view to the common good, is to be commended". Pope John Paul II ,
11092-644: The 1920s and 1930s. Many of them had been active in the White movements that functioned as a big tent movement representing an array of political opinions in Russia united in their opposition to the Bolsheviks. In Britain, anti-communism was widespread among the British foreign policy elite in the 1930s with its strong upperclass connections. The upper-class Cliveden set was strongly anti-communist in Britain. In
11280-605: The 1930s, notes that the "Soviet constitutions represent the total of the historical path along which the Soviet state has travelled. At the same time, they are the legislative basis of subsequent development of state life." That is, the constitution sums up what has already been achieved. This belief is also shared by the Chinese Communist Party , which argued that "the Chinese Constitution blazes
11468-603: The 1930s. Liberal and social democrats in Germany formed the Iron Front to oppose communists, Nazi fascists, and revanchist conservative monarchists alike. In 1936, the Anti-Comintern Pact , initially between Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan , was formed as an anti-communist alliance. In Asia , Imperial Japan and the Kuomintang (Chinese Nationalist Party) were the leading anti-communist forces in this period. By 1945,
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#173279059850111656-664: The 1986–2006 period, active military figures sitting in the CPV Central Committee stood at an average of 9,2 per cent. Military figures are also represented in the national legislature (the National Assembly ) and other representative institutions. In China, the two CMC vice chairmen have had by right office seats in the CCP Politburo since 1987. A Marxist–Leninist party has led every communist state. This party seeks to represent and articulate
11844-641: The 20th anniversary party for the Times , Moon said: "The Washington Times will become the instrument in spreading the truth about God to the world." In 1980, members founded CAUSA International , an anti-communist educational organization based in New York City. In the 1980s, it was active in 21 countries. In the United States, it sponsored educational conferences for evangelical and fundamentalist Christian leaders as well as seminars and conferences for Senate staffers, Hispanic Americans and conservative activists. In 1986, CAUSA International sponsored
12032-540: The 20th century, the world's first constitutionally communist state was Soviet Russia at the end of 1917. In 1922, it joined other former territories of the empire to become the Soviet Union . After World War II , the Soviet Army occupied much of Eastern Europe and helped bring the existing communist parties to power in those countries. Originally, the communist states in Eastern Europe were allied with
12220-688: The Archdiocese of Esztergom officially vacated, refused to fill the seat while Mindszenty was still alive. According to the Christian Science Monitor , Gao Zhisheng , a Christian lawyer in China, is "one of the most persistent and courageous thorns" against China under communist rule. Gao gained acclaim for challenging the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) by defending coal miners, migrant workers, political activists, and people persecuted for their religious beliefs, including Christians and Falun Gong adherents. According to ChinaAid ,
12408-488: The Bolshevik regime, which they saw as betraying the war effort with peace with Germany, followed by annexed portions of the Soviet Union losing their self-determination. Later, knowledge of Stalinist show trials and other repressions in the USSR , from 1922 onward, led to a liberal anti-communist consensus by the start of WWII, which temporarily gave way during the WWII alliance with the Soviet Union. Historian Richard Powers distinguishes two main forms of anti-communism during
12596-439: The CPSU Central Committee was responsible for implementing the party personnel policies and supervised the KGB , the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Ministry of Defense. In the Chinese party-state model, the People's Liberation Army (PLA) is a party institution. In the preamble of the Constitution of the Chinese Communist Party , it is stated: "The Communist Party of China (CPC) shall uphold its absolute leadership over
12784-407: The Chairman of the Council for National Defense and Security of Vietnam), National Supervisory institutions (such as the Director of China's National Supervisory Commission ) and other institutions if they exist. Moreover, in all communist states, the ruling party has either had a clear majority, such as China or held every seat as they did in the Soviet Union, in their Supreme Soviet. A majority in
12972-462: The Chinese Communist Party general secretary Xi Jinping , who stated in 2013 that "[n]o organisation or individual has the privilege to overstep the Constitution and law." After Soviet Union general secretary Joseph Stalin 's death, several communist states have experimented with some sort of constitutional supervision. These organs were designed to safeguard the supreme power of the legislature from circumvention by political leaders. Romania
13160-463: The Chinese working class, the Chinese people, and the Chinese nation." As noted by both communist parties, the ruling parties of communist states are vanguard parties . Vladimir Lenin theorised that vanguard parties were "capable of assuming power and leading the whole people to socialism, of directing and organising the new system, of being the teacher, the guide, the leader of all the working and exploited people in organising their social life without
13348-438: The Civil War, Grand Duke Kirill Vladimirovich of Russia and Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich of Russia . Fascism is often considered to be a reaction to communist and socialist uprisings in Europe. Italian Fascism , founded and led by Benito Mussolini , took power after years of leftist unrest led many disgruntled conservatives to fear that a communist revolution was inevitable. Nazi Germany 's massacres and killings included
13536-872: The Cold War ended. Nevertheless, anti-communism remains an important intellectual element of many contemporary political movements. Organized anti-communist movements remain in opposition to the People's Republic of China and other communist states . Since the split of the communist parties from the socialist Second International to form the Marxist–Leninist Third International , social democrats have been critical of communism for its anti-liberal nature. Examples of left-wing critics of Marxist–Leninist states and parties are Friedrich Ebert , Boris Souvarine , George Orwell , Bayard Rustin , Irving Howe , and Max Shachtman . The American Federation of Labor
13724-555: The Communist Party headquarters ( Zhongnanhai ) in a silent protest following an incident in Tianjin. Two months later, the Communist Party banned the practice, initiated a security crackdown and launched a propaganda campaign against it. Since 1999, Falun Gong practitioners in China have reportedly been subjected to torture , arbitrary imprisonment , beatings, forced labor , organ harvesting and psychiatric abuses . Falun Gong responded with their own media campaign and have emerged as
13912-454: The Communist ideology." Therefore, the sole ideological purpose of communist states is to spread socialism and to reach that goal these states have to be guided by Marxism–Leninism. The communist states have opted for two ways to achieve this goal, namely govern indirectly by Marxism–Leninism through the party (Soviet model), or commit the state officially through the constitution to Marxism–Leninism (Maoist China–Albania model). The Soviet model
14100-538: The Contras , in addition to paying for flights by rebel leaders. CAUSA's aid to the Contras escalated after Congress cut off CIA funding for them. According to contemporary CIA reports, supplies for the anti-Sandinista forces and their families came from a variety of sources in the US ranging from Moon's Unification Church to U.S. politicians, evangelical groups and former military officers. In 1983, some American members joined
14288-539: The Frankfurt School and Theodor Adorno, ultimately leading to a major American study of the authoritarian personality (1950), as a basis for xenophobia and anti-Semitism. Another early theme was the relationship between masses and elites, both outside and within such movements (Gaetano Mosca, Vilfredo Pareto, Robert Michels, Moisey Ostrogorski). Communist state Former parties Former parties Former parties A communist state , also known as
14476-680: The International Coalition for Religious Freedom in Virginia , which is active in protesting what it considers to be threats to religious freedom by governmental agencies. In August 1985, the Professors World Peace Academy , an organization founded by Moon, sponsored a conference in Geneva to debate the theme "The situation in the world after the fall of the communist empire." After the dissolution of
14664-511: The Main Political Directorate supervises not only the military, but also intelligence, the security services, and counterespionage work. Unlike in liberal democracies, active military personnel are members and partake in civilian institutions of governance. This is the case in all communist states. The Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) has elected at least one active military figure to its CPV Politburo since 1986. In
14852-463: The Marxist theory of historical materialism , Szabó argues that socialist law cannot belong to the same law family since the material structure is different from the capitalist countries as their superstructure (state) has to reflect these differences. In other words, law is a tool by the ruling class to govern. As Renè David notes, socialist jurists "isolate their law, to put into another category,
15040-545: The Marxist–Leninist-ruled countries of Africa and the Middle East, the Soviet Union deemed none of them socialist states—referring to them as socialist-oriented states. While many countries with constitutional references to socialism and countries ruled by long-standing socialist movements exist, within Marxist–Leninist theory a socialist state is led by a communist party that has instituted a socialist economy in
15228-520: The People's Liberation Army and other people's armed forces." The PLA carries out its work in accordance with the instructions of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party . Mao Zedong described the PLA's institutional situation as follows: "Every communist must grasp the truth, ' Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun .' Our principle is that the party commands the gun, and
15416-433: The People's Socialist Republic of Albania the dominant ideology is Marxism–Leninism. The entire social order is developing on the basis of its principles." The 1975 Chinese constitution had a similar tone, stating in Article 2 that "Marxism–Leninism–Mao Zedong Thought is the theoretical basis guiding the thinking of our nation." The 1977 Soviet constitution did also use phrases such as "building socialism and communism", "on
15604-573: The Soviet Union in 1991 the Unification movement promoted extensive missionary work in Russia and other former Soviet nations. In the Muslim parts of the Soviet Union ( Caucasus and Central Asia), the party-state suppressed Islamic worship, education, association, and pilgrimage institutions that were seen as obstacles to ideological and social change along communist lines. Where the Islamic state
15792-849: The Soviet Union who testified against his fellow spies before the House Un-American Activities Committee ; Bella Dodd was another American anticommunist. Other anti-communists who were once Marxists include the writers Max Eastman , John Dos Passos , James Burnham , Morrie Ryskind , Frank Meyer , Will Herberg , Sidney Hook , the contributors to the book The God That Failed : Louis Fischer , André Gide , Arthur Koestler , Ignazio Silone , Stephen Spender Tajar Zavalani and Richard Wright . Anti-communists who were once socialists, liberals or social democrats include John Chamberlain , Friedrich Hayek , Raymond Moley , Norman Podhoretz , David Horowitz , and Irving Kristol . A wave of revolutionary impulses since
15980-507: The Soviet Union's Eastern Bloc . In Asia, China became a people's republic following the Chinese Communist Revolution and North Korea also became a people's republic. During the 1960s, Romania and Yugoslavia ceased to use the term people's republic in their official name, replacing it with the term socialist republic as a mark of their ongoing political development. Czechoslovakia also added
16168-534: The Soviet Union. Yugoslavia would declare itself non-aligned , and Albania later took a different path. After a war against Japanese occupation and a civil war resulting in a Communist victory, the People's Republic of China was established in 1949. Communist states were also established in Cambodia , Cuba , Laos , North Korea , and Vietnam . In 1989, the communist states in Eastern Europe collapsed after
16356-559: The Soviet government was known as the Council of Ministers and identical names were used for the governments of Albania , East Germany , Hungary , Poland , and Romania . It was independent of the other central agencies such as the legislature and its standing committee, but the Supreme Soviet was empowered to decide on all questions it wished. The Soviet government was responsible to the legislature, and in between sessions of
16544-515: The Soviet model, but in China, Laos, North Korea, and Vietnam, the armed forces are party-state institutions. However, several differences exist between the statist (Soviet) and the party-state models (China). In the Soviet model, the Soviet armed forces was led by the Council of Defense (an organ formed by the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union ) while the Council of Ministers
16732-1054: The Soviet one, the NPC is the highest organ of the state and elects a Standing Committee (the Soviets had a Presidium ), the government (named the State Council in China and the Council of Ministers in the Soviet Union), the Supreme Court (such as the Supreme Court of East Germany), the Supreme Procuratorate (such as the Supreme People's Procuracy of Vietnam ), the Chairman of the National Defence Council (for example,
16920-609: The Stalinist policy of the USSR, and some leftist parties and organizations within the movements called it an "unmitigated disaster for socialists" Milovan Djilas was a former Yugoslav communist official who became a prominent dissident and critic of communism. Leszek Kołakowski was a Polish communist who became a famous anti-communist. He was best known for his critical analyses of Marxist thought, especially his acclaimed three-volume history, Main Currents of Marxism , which
17108-515: The Supreme Soviet's Presidium, union republic constitutions and laws, some central administrative decrees, Supreme Court explanations, and other central normative documents." If the committee deemed the legislature to have breached legality, the legislature was obliged to discuss the issue, but it could reject it if more than two-thirds voted against the findings of the Constitutional Supervision Committee. While it
17296-808: The U.S. Consulate-General in Shenyang". In 2006, allegations emerged that a large number of Falun Gong practitioners had been killed to supply China's organ transplant industry . The Kilgour-Matas report found that "the source of 41,500 transplants for the six-year period 2000 to 2005 is unexplained" and concluded that "there has been and continues today to be large scale organ seizures from unwilling Falun Gong practitioners". Ethan Gutmann estimated that 65,000 Falun Gong practitioners were killed for their organs from 2000 to 2008. In 2009, courts in Spain and Argentina indicted senior Chinese officials for genocide and crimes against humanity for their role in orchestrating
17484-701: The US are the Black Lives Matter Movement , and the Me Too Movement . While political movements that have happened in recent years within the Middle East is the Arab Spring . While in some cases these political movements remained movements, in others they escalated into revolutions and changed the state of government. Movements may also be named by outsiders, as with the Levellers political movement in 17th century England, which
17672-662: The Unification Church began supporting anti-communist organizations, including the World League for Freedom and Democracy founded in 1966 in Taipei , Republic of China (Taiwan), by Chiang Kai-shek , and the Korean Culture and Freedom Foundation , an international public diplomacy organization which also sponsored Radio Free Asia. The Unification movement was criticized for its anti-communist activism by
17860-471: The United States, anti-communist fervor was at its highest during the late 1940s and early 1950s, when a Hollywood blacklist was established, the House Un-American Activities Committee held the televised Army–McCarthy hearings , led by Senator Joseph McCarthy , and the John Birch Society was formed. The White movement was a loose confederation of anti-communist forces that fought against
18048-410: The agency in question failed to heed its advice, it needed to petition the legislature. In 1989, the Soviets established the Constitutional Supervision Committee, which "was subordinate only to the USSR constitution." It was empowered "to review the constitutionality and legality of a range of state acts of the USSR and its republics. Its jurisdiction included laws [passed by the legislature], decrees of
18236-618: The armed forces through the Main Political Directorate (MPD) of the Ministry of Defense , a state organ that functioned "with the authority of a department of the CPSU Central Committee ." The MPD organised political indoctrination and created political control mechanisms at the centre to the company level in the field. Formally, the MPD was responsible for organising party and Komsomol organs as well as subordinate organs within
18424-440: The armed forces; ensuring that the party and state retain control over the armed forces; evaluates the political performance of officers; supervising the ideological content of the military press; and supervising the political-military training institutes and their ideological content. The head of the MPD was ranked fourth in military protocol, but it was not a member of the Council of Defense. The Administrative Organs Department of
18612-760: The communist Bolsheviks , also known as the Reds , in the Russian Civil War . After the civil war, the movement continued operating to a lesser extent as militarized associations of insurrectionists both outside and within Russian borders in Siberia until roughly World War II . During the Russian Civil War, the White movement functioned as a big-tent political movement representing an array of political opinions in Russia united in their opposition to
18800-483: The communist Bolsheviks. They ranged from the republican-minded liberals and Kerenskyite social-democrats on the left through monarchists and supporters of a united multinational Russia to the ultra-nationalist Black Hundreds on the right. Following the military defeat of the Whites, remnants and continuations of the movement remained in several organizations, some of which only had narrow support, enduring within
18988-684: The communist Soviet Union was among major Allied nations fighting against the Axis powers in World War II (WII.) Shortly after the end of the war, rivalry between the Marxist–Leninist Soviet Union and liberal capitalist United States resulted in the Cold War . During this period, the United States government played a leading role in supporting global anti-communism as part of its containment policy. Military conflicts between communists and anti-communists occurred in various parts of
19176-438: The communist legislature. The legislature passes the constitution, which can only be amended by the legislature. Soviet legal theorists denounced judicial review and extra-parliamentary review as bourgeoisie institutions. They also perceived it as a limitation of the people's supreme power. The legislature, together with its suborgans, oversaw the constitutional order. Since the legislature is the supreme judge of constitutionality,
19364-412: The communist party remained the centre of power. As a term, communist state is used by Western historians, political scientists, and media to refer to these countries. However, these states do not describe themselves as communist nor do they claim to have achieved communism — they refer to themselves as socialist states that are in the process of constructing socialism and progressing toward
19552-618: The communist party. This shows that legislatures are tools to garner popular support for the government in which leading figures campaign and spread information about the party's policies and ideological development. Furthermore, Western researchers have devoted little attention to legislatures in communist states. The reason is that there are no significant bodies of political socialisation compared to legislatures in liberal democracies. While political leaders in communist states are often elected as members of legislatures, these posts are not relevant to political advancement. The role of legislatures
19740-435: The concept of the national-democratic state "never received full theoretical elaboration as a political system." However, one feature was clearly defined, namely, that these states did not need to be led by a Marxist–Leninist party. A socialist-oriented state seeks to reach socialism by non-capitalist development. As a term, it substantially differs from the concept of the national-democratic state. The singular difference
19928-478: The conduct of processes of production. The state is not 'abolished'. It dies out." In "The Tax in Kind", Vladimir Lenin argued: "No one, I think, in studying the question of the economic system of Russia, has denied its transitional character. Nor, I think, has any Communist denied that the term Soviet Socialist Republic implies the determination of the Soviet power to achieve the transition to socialism, and not that
20116-413: The constitution was a tool to analyse the development of society. The Marxist–Leninist party in question would have to study the correlation of forces, literally society's class structure, before enacting changes. Several terms were coined for different developmental states by Marxist–Leninist legal theorists, including new democracy , people's democracy , and the primary stage of socialism . This
20304-460: The control of certain cliques such as the military in Ethiopia . The establishment of a legal system and coercive institutions are also noted to safeguard the socialist-oriented nature of the state. The fifth feature is that the socialist-oriented state must take over the media and educational system while establishing mass organisations to mobilize the populace. Unlike the Soviet economic model,
20492-470: The country by including them in the composition of the legislature. In communist states, there is usually a high proportion of members who are government officials. In this instance, it might mean that it is less important what legislatures do and more important who its representatives are. The members of such legislatures at central and local levels are usually either government or party officials, leading figures in their community, or national figures outside
20680-508: The country was re-unified under the communist party in 1976 and the 1992 Constitution of the Republic of Cuba states that the role of the communist party is to "guide the common effort toward the goals and construction of socialism." The DPRK's constitution outlines a socialist economy and the ruling Workers' Party of Korea remains ideologically committed to communism. Communist states share similar institutions, which are organised on
20868-767: The creation of mass movements as a means to overthrow a government and create their own government, the mass movement then being used afterwards to protect the government from being overthrown itself; whereas liberals seek mass participation in the system of representative democracy. The social scientific study of mass movements focuses on such elements as charisma, leadership, active minorities, cults and sects, followers, mass man and mass society, alienation, brainwashing and indoctrination, authoritarianism and totalitarianism. The field emerged from crowd or mass psychology (Le Bon, Tarde a.o.), which had gradually widened its scope from mobs to social movements and opinion currents, and then to mass and media society. One influential early text
21056-406: The declassified Venona project , Moynihan wondered: "Might less secrecy have prevented the liberal overreaction to McCarthyism as well as McCarthyism itself?" Chancellor Konrad Adenauer , who presided over postwar West Germany as a market liberal democracy, signaled that the Soviet Union was the "greatest threat to liberty", an idea that exerted major domestic and international influence. After
21244-699: The documentary film Nicaragua Was Our Home , about the Miskito Indians of Nicaragua and their persecution at the hands of the Nicaraguan government. It was filmed and produced by USA-UWC member Lee Shapiro , who later died while filming with anti-Soviet forces during the Soviet–Afghan War . At this time CAUSA international also directly assisted the United States Central Intelligence Agency in supplying
21432-451: The economy of the socialist-oriented states are mixed economies that seek to attract foreign capital and which seeks to maintain and develop the private sector . In the words of Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev , these states were in the process of taking over the commanding heights of the economy and instituting a state-planned economy. According to Soviet sources, Laos was the one socialist-oriented state that has managed to develop into
21620-418: The election process by "universal suffrage in the various wards and towns." While the institution of such a legislature might not be important in itself, they "have a place in the literature and rhetoric of the ruling parties which cannot be ignored—in the language of the party's intimacy with working masses, of its alleged knowledge about interests of working people, of social justice and socialist democracy, of
21808-710: The established parties may have neglected this issue in the past. Political scientists Santos and Mercea argue that, in recent years, "the rise of movement parties across Europe has disrupted traditional notions of party politics and opened up new avenues for citizen engagement and political mobilisation. Movement parties are the reflection of a wider socio-political transformation of increasing interconnection between electoral and non-electoral politics". They identify four types of movement parties: green / left-libertarian , far-right , eclectic , and centrist . For groups seeking to influence policy, social movements can provide an alternative to formal electoral politics. For example,
21996-447: The establishment in order to fully develop. Thus, at the beginning and core of a political movement there lies a strategic mobilization of individuals. Political movements are different from political parties since movements are usually focused on a single issue and they have no interest in attaining office in government. A political movement is generally an informal organization and uses unconventional methods to achieve their goals. In
22184-497: The establishment of the state-controlled Vietnam Buddhist Sangha . Thích Quảng Độ was a Vietnamese Buddhist monk and an anti-communist dissident. In January 2008, the Europe-based magazine A Different View chose Thích Quảng Độ as one of the 15 Champions of World Democracy. The Catholic Church has a long history of anti-communism. The most recent Catechism of the Catholic Church states: "The Catholic Church has rejected
22372-661: The existence of the Soviet Union, anti-communism became an important feature of many different political movements and governments across the world. In the United States , anti-communism came to prominence during the First Red Scare of 1919–1920. During the 1920s and 1930s, opposition to communism in America and in Europe was promoted by conservatives, monarchists, fascists, liberals, and social democrats. Fascist governments rose to prominence as major opponents of communism in
22560-461: The existing economic system is recognised as a socialist order." The introduction of the first five-year plan in the Soviet Union got many communists to believe that the withering away of the state was imminent. However, Joseph Stalin warned that the withering away of the state would not occur until after the socialist mode of production had achieved dominance over capitalism. Soviet jurist Andrey Vyshinsky echoed this assumption and said that
22748-618: The existing framework until 2018, when the Constitution and Law Committee of the National People's Congress was bestowed the right of constitutional review. The government of communist states is usually defined as the "executive organ of the highest state organ of power" or as the "highest administrative agency of state power". It functions as the executive organ of the legislature. This model has been introduced with variations in all communist states. For most of its existence,
22936-421: The fall of Gorbachev and the Soviet Union in 1991 , the anti-communist movement grew rapidly. In the early 1990s, many new anti-communist movements emerged in the former Soviet bloc as a result of failed elections and Boris Yeltsin's Palace Coup . When this seizure of power occurred, more than thirty electoral blocs set out to contest the election. Some of these anti-Stalinist groups were: Choice of Russia ,
23124-540: The following will be pretty generally applicable." Ludwig von Mises described this as a "10-point plan" for the redistribution of land and production and argued that the initial and ongoing forms of redistribution constitute direct coercion. Neither Marx's 10-point plan nor the rest of the manifesto say anything about who has the right to carry out the plan. Milton Friedman argued that the absence of voluntary economic activity makes it too easy for repressive political leaders to grant themselves coercive powers. Friedman's view
23312-442: The form of a powerful All-Russian Soviet power; the object of which is to secure complete suppression of the bourgeoisie, the abolition of exploitation of man by man, and the establishment of Socialism, under which there shall be neither class division nor state authority". The communist state is the dictatorship of the proletariat , where the advanced elements of the proletariat are the ruling class. In Marxist–Leninist thinking,
23500-583: The growth of labor unions , the Civil Rights Movement , and the War on Poverty and simultaneously opposed what they saw as Communist totalitarianism abroad. As such, they supported efforts to contain Soviet communism and other forms of communism. President Harry Truman formulated the Truman Doctrine to stop Soviet expansionism. Truman also called Joseph McCarthy "the greatest asset
23688-608: The gun must never be allowed to command the Party." The Central Military Commission (CMC) is both an organ of the state and the party—it is an organ of the CCP Central Committee and an organ of the national legislature, the National People's Congress. The CCP General Secretary is ex officio party CMC Chairman and the President of the People's Republic of China is by right state CMC Chairman. The composition of
23876-470: The inauguration of the July Theses . Hungary and Poland experimented with constitutional supervision in the early 1980s. Hungary established the Council of Constitutional Law, which was elected by the legislature and consisted of several leading jurists. It was empowered to review the constitutionality and legality of statutes, administrative regulations, and other normative documents; however, if
24064-602: The information which the Western media obtains about Falun Gong is distributed by the Rachlin media group which is described as a public relations firm for Falun Gong. According to reports which were released by the Vienna Radio Network on July 12, Gunther von Hagens , a famous German anatomist, recently held an exhibition of human bodies which provoked Falun Gong's allegations of live organ harvesting. Hagens held
24252-426: The interests of the classes exploited by capitalism . It seeks to lead the exploited classes to achieve communism. However, the party cannot be identified with the exploited class in general. Its membership comprises members with advanced consciousness above sectional interests. Therefore, the party represents the advanced section of the exploited classes and, through them, leads the exploited classes by interpreting
24440-583: The issues and concerns which are the focus of the movement. Some political movements have turned into or launched political parties. For example, the 15-M Movement against austerity in Spain led to the creation of the populist party Podemos and the labor movements in Brazil helped form the Brazilian Workers' Party . These types of movement parties serve to raise awareness on the main issue of their initial political movement in government, since
24628-556: The law does not illegalise it. This is because both Marx and Lenin abhorred the parliamentary systems of bourgeois democracy , but neither sought to abolish the legislature as an institution. Lenin wrote that it would be impossible to develop proletarian democracy "without representative institutions." Both of them considered the governing model of the Paris Commune of 1871 , in which executive and legislative were combined in one body, to be ideal. More importantly, Marx applauded
24816-457: The law of the socialist countries and the law of the capitalist countries is not of the same nature as the difference between Roman-German law and the common law, for example. Socialist law is not a third family among the others, as in certain writings of Western comparatists." In other words, socialist law is civil law, but it is a different type of law for a different society. Yugoslav jurist Borislav Blagojević [ sr ] noted that
25004-464: The leadership changes or whenever the leaders change their views. [...] The trouble now is that our legal system is incomplete. [...] Very often what leaders say is taken as law and anyone who disagrees is called a lawbreaker." In 1986, Li Buyan wrote that "the policies of the Party usually are regulations and calls which to a certain extent are only principles. The law is different; it is rigorously standardised. It explicitly and concretely stipulates what
25192-418: The leadership of the communist party. In communist states, the government may not tolerate criticism of policies that have already been implemented in the past or are being implemented in the present. According to Marxist–Leninist thought, the state is a repressive institution led by a ruling class . This class dominates the state and expresses its will through it. By formulating law, the ruling class uses
25380-462: The legislature ensures the centralised and unitary leadership of the central committee of the ruling Marxist–Leninist party over the state. By having legislatures, the Marxist–Leninist parties try to keep ideological consistency between supporting representative institutions and safeguarding the party's leading role. They seek to use the legislatures as a linkage between the rulers and the ruled. These institutions are representative and usually mirror
25568-402: The legislature's acts cannot be unconstitutional. Moreover, this means that judicial independence in communist states does not mean the same as in liberal democracies. In communist states, judicial independence means stopping all interference not granted by law, but interference in itself is not barred. The Supreme Soviet was the first socialist legislature, and the Soviet legislative system
25756-557: The legislature, it reported to the legislature's standing committee. The standing committee could reorganise and hold the Soviet government accountable, but it could not instruct the government. In communist states, the government was responsible for the overall economic system, public order, foreign relations, and defense. The Soviet model was more or less identically implemented in Bulgaria , Czechoslovakia , East Germany, Hungary, Poland, and Romania, with few exceptions. One exception
25944-574: The millennium, the time of completion—communism will fall in its 70th year. Here is the meaning of the year 1978. Communism, begun in 1917, could maintain itself approximately 60 years and reach its peak. So 1978 is the border line and afterward communism will decline; in the 70th year it will be altogether ruined. This is true. Therefore, now is the time for people who are studying communism to abandon it." In 1973, he called for an "automatic theocracy " to replace communism and solve "every political and economic situation in every field". In 1975, Moon spoke at
26132-406: The movements assisting their opposition to what they alleged was Communist subversion of Australian trade unionism . To oppose Communist infiltration of unions, Industrial Groups were formed. The groups were active from 1945 to 1954, with the knowledge and support of the ALP leadership, until after Labor's loss of the 1954 election, when federal leader H. V. Evatt in the context of his response to
26320-479: The name of the" National People's Congress , and through it, the Chinese Communist Party . These bodies are responsible to and report on their work to the legislature. For instance, the Prosecutor-General of Vietnam's Supreme People's Procuracy delivers an annual Work Report to the legislature, the National Assembly , every year. Moreover, all communist states have been established in countries with
26508-463: The national liberation movements took power and instituted an anti-imperialist foreign policy and sought to construct a form of socialism were considered national-democratic states by Marxist–Leninists. An example of a national-democratic state is Egypt under Gamal Abdel Nasser which was committed to constructing Arab socialism . Except Cuba, none of these states developed socialism. According to scholar Sylvia Woodby Edington, this might explain why
26696-562: The pact to other countries "whose domestic peace is endangered by the disruptive activities of the Communist Internationale". Such invitations to third parties would be undertaken jointly and after the expressed consent by both parties. Communists were among the first people targeted by the Nazis, with Dachau concentration camp when it first opened being for the holding of communists, leading socialists and other "enemies of
26884-565: The party CMC and the state CMC are identical. The CMC is responsible for the command of the PLA and determines national defence policies. fifteen departments report directly to the CMC and that are responsible for everything from political work to administration of the PLA. Of significance is that the CMC eclipses by far the prerogatives of the CPSU Administrative Organs Department while the Chinese counterpart to
27072-508: The people as embodied in a series of representative parliamentary institutions. Such states do not have a separation of powers and instead have one national legislative body (such as the Supreme Soviet in the Soviet Union), which is bestowed with unitary power and is often defined as the highest organ of state power. Unitary power means that the legislature has the power of the judiciary, legislature and executive but chooses to delegate these powers to other institutions. In communist states,
27260-483: The people should, can, or cannot do." These legal developments were echoed in later years in Cuba, Laos, and Vietnam. This has led to the development of the communist concept of socialist rule of law, which runs parallel to, and is distinct from, the liberal term of the same name. In the last years, this emphasis on the constitution as both a legal document and a paper which documents society's development has been noted by
27448-415: The period, liberal anti-communism and countersubversive anti-communism . The countersubversives, he argues, derived from a pre-WWII isolationist tradition on the right. Liberal anti-communists believed that political debate was enough to show Communists as disloyal and irrelevant, while countersubversive anticommunists believed that Communists had to be exposed and punished. Cold War liberals supported
27636-509: The persecution of communists and among the first to be sent to concentration camps. In Europe, numerous right and far-right activists including conservative intellectuals, capitalists and industrialists were vocal opponents of communism. During the late 1930s and the 1940s, several other anti-communist regimes and groups supported fascism. These included the Falange Española Tradicionalista y de las JONS in Spain;
27824-419: The political scientist S. Laurel Weldon has shown that women's movements and women's policy agencies have tended to be more effective in reducing violence against women than the presence of women in the legislatures. High barriers to entry to the political competition can disenfranchise political movements. Some political movements have aimed to change government policy, such as the anti-war movement ,
28012-416: The political system, structure or by other developments in the political sphere and they are the driving force for political movements to be established. The resource mobilization theory states that political movements are the result of careful planning, organizing and fundraising rather than spontaneous uprisings or societal grievances . This theory postulates that movements rely on resources and contact to
28200-596: The political system. In communist states, the social organisations are expected to promote social unity and cohesion, to serve as a link between the government and society and to provide a forum for the recruitment of new communist party members. Historically, the political organisation of many socialist states has been dominated by a one-party monopoly. Some communist governments such as those in China , Czechoslovakia , or East Germany have or had more than one political party, but all minor parties are or were required to follow
28388-466: The population in areas such as ethnicity and language , "yet with occupations distributed in a manner skewed towards government officials." Unlike in liberal democracies, legislatures of communist states are not to act as a forum for conveying demands or interest articulation—they meet too infrequently for this to be the case. This might explain why communist states have not developed terms such as delegates and trustees to give legislature representatives
28576-448: The power to vote according to their best judgement or in the interest of their constituency. Scholar Daniel Nelson has noted: "As with the British parliament before the seventeenth-century turmoil secured its supremacy, legislative bodies in communist states physically portray the 'realm' ruled by (to stretch an analogy) 'kings'. Members of the assemblies 'represent' the population to whom the rulers speak and over whom they govern, convening
28764-436: The premise that the communist party is a vanguard of the proletariat and represents the long-term interests of the people. The doctrine of democratic centralism , developed by Vladimir Lenin as a set of principles to be used in the internal affairs of the communist party, is extended to society at large. According to democratic centralism, the people must elect all leaders, and all proposals must be debated openly, but once
28952-556: The refusal to accept medical treatment. According to David Ownby, "[t]he Chinese government has suppressed movements like the Falun Gong hundreds of times over the course of Chinese history ", adding that the Chinese Communist government did "the same thing the imperial state had always done, which was to arrest and generally, not always, execute the leaders and pretend to reeducate the others and send them back home and hope that they would be good people from there on". Most of
29140-416: The road to communism", "to build the material and technical basis of communism" and "to perfect socialist social relations and transform them into communist relations" in the preamble. The people's democratic state was implemented in Eastern Europe after World War II. It can be defined as a state and society in which feudal vestiges have been liquidated and where the system of private ownership exists, but
29328-417: The slave uprising led by Spartacus in the Roman Empire as an allegory for the Russian Revolution ), Darkness at Noon (based on the Moscow Trials , this was a very widely read novel that made Koestler one of the most prominent anti-communist intellectuals of the period), The Yogi and the Commissar and Arrival and Departure . Political movement An organization in a political movement that
29516-400: The socialist state is the last repressive state since the next stage of development is that of pure communism , a classless and stateless society. Friedrich Engels commented on the state, writing: "State interference in social relations, becomes, in one domain after another, superfluous, and then dies out of itself; the government of persons is replaced by the administration of things, and by
29704-451: The socialist state was necessary "in order to defend, to secure, and to develop relationships and arrangements advantageous to the workers, and to annihilate completely capitalism and its remnants." Ideology permeates these states. According to scholar Peter Tang, "[t]he supreme test of whether a Communist Party-state remains revolutionarily dedicated or degenerates into a revisionist or counterrevolutionary system lies in its attitude toward
29892-408: The state to oppress other classes and form a class dictatorship. However, the goal of the communist state is to abolish that state. The Soviet Russia Constitution of 1918 stated: "The principal object of the Constitution of the R.S.F.S.R., which is adapted to the present transition period, consists in the establishment of a dictatorship of the urban and rural proletariat and the poorest peasantry, in
30080-457: The state" in 1933. Thích Huyền Quang was a prominent Vietnamese Buddhist monk and anti-communist dissident. In 1977, Quang wrote a letter to Prime Minister Phạm Văn Đồng detailing accounts of oppression by the Marxist–Leninist regime. For this, he and five other senior monks were arrested and detained. In 1982, Quang was arrested and subsequently placed under permanent house arrest for opposition to government policy after publicly denouncing
30268-407: The state-owned enterprises in the field of industry, transport, and credit eclipse it. In the words of Eugene Varga , "the state itself and its apparatus of violence serve the interests, not of the monopolistic bourgeoisie, but of the toilers of town and country." Soviet philosopher N. P. Farberov stated: "People's democracy in the people's republics is a democracy of the toiling classes, headed by
30456-483: The suppression of Falun Gong. In the 1940s, Unification Church founder Sun Myung Moon cooperated with Communist Party of Korea members in support of the Korean independence movement against Imperial Japan . After the Korean War (1950–1953), he became an outspoken anti-communist. Moon viewed the Cold War between liberal democracy and communism as the final conflict between God and Satan , with divided Korea as its primary front line . Soon after its founding,
30644-426: The term socialist republic into its name during this period; it had become a people's republic in 1948, but the country had not used that term in its official name. Albania used both terms in its official name from 1976 to 1991. The concept of the national-democratic state tried to theorize how a state could develop socialism by bypassing the capitalist mode of production . While Vladimir Lenin first articulated
30832-408: The theory of non-capitalist development, the novelty of this concept was applying it to the progressive elements of the national liberation movements in the Third World . The term national-democratic state was introduced shortly after the death of Stalin , who believed colonies to be mere lackeys of Western imperialism and that the socialist movement had few prospects there. The countries where
31020-529: The unitary legislatures often have a similar structure to the parliaments in liberal republics , with two significant differences. First, the deputies elected to these unitary legislatures are not expected to represent the interests of any particular constituency but rather the long-term interests of the people as a whole; and second, against Karl Marx 's advice, the unitary legislatures of communist states are not in permanent session. Instead, they convene once or several times yearly in sessions that usually last only
31208-521: The universal laws governing human history towards communism. In Foundations of Leninism (1924), Joseph Stalin wrote that "the proletariat [working class] needs the Party first of all as its General Staff, which it must have for the successful seizure of power. [...] But the proletariat needs the Party not only to achieve the [class] dictatorship; it needs it still more to maintain the [class] dictatorship." The current Constitution of Vietnam states in Article 4 that "[t]he Communist Party of Vietnam ,
31396-519: The universal truths of Marxism–Leninism and reject other notions of socialism such as African socialism . The socialist-oriented states had seven defining features, namely, they were revolutionary democracies, had a revolutionary-democratic party, class dictatorship, defense of the socialist-oriented states, had organs of socialisation, initiated socialist construction, and the type of socialist-oriented state (either national-democratic or people's democratic). The political goal of revolutionary democracy
31584-444: The vanguard of the Vietnamese working class, simultaneously the vanguard of the toiling people and of the Vietnamese nation, the faithful representative of the interests of the working class, the toiling people, and the whole nation, acting upon the Marxist–Leninist doctrine and Ho Chi Minh 's thought, is the leading force of the state and society." In a similar form, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) describes itself as "the vanguard of
31772-424: The wider White émigré overseas community until after the fall of the European communist states in the Revolutions of 1989 and the subsequent dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1990–1991. This community-in-exile of anti-communists often divided into liberal-leaning and conservative-leaning segments, with some still hoping for the restoration of the Romanov dynasty . Two claimants to the empty throne emerged during
31960-413: The working class, a broad and full democracy for the overwhelming majority of the people, that is, a socialist democracy in its character and its trend. In this sense, we call it popular." The people's republican state is a socialist state with a republican constitution. Although the term initially became associated with populist movements in the 19th century, such as the German Völkisch movement and
32148-430: The world are in China , Cuba , Laos , Vietnam , and North Korea (DPRK) . These communist states often do not claim to have achieved socialism or communism in their countries but to be building and working toward the establishment of socialism in their countries. The preamble to the Socialist Republic of Vietnam's Constitution states that Vietnam only entered a transition stage between capitalism and socialism after
32336-417: The world, including during the Chinese Civil War , the Korean War , the Malayan Emergency , the Vietnam War , the Soviet–Afghan War , and Operation Condor . NATO was founded as an anti-communist military alliance in 1949, and continued throughout the Cold War. After the Revolutions of 1989 and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, most of the world's communist governments were overthrown, and
32524-415: Was Czechoslovakia, where it had a president and not a collective head of state. Another exception was in Bulgaria, where the State Council was empowered to instruct the Council of Ministers. In every communist state, the judicial and procuratorial bodies are organs of the legislature. For instance, China's Supreme People's Court is the "legislative organ of governance that manages the judicial system in
32712-430: Was a harsh critic of communism as was Pope Pius IX , who issued a Papal encyclical , entitled Quanta cura , in which he called "communism and Socialism" the most fatal error. Popes' anti-communist stances were carried on in Italy by the Christian Democracy (DC), the centrist party founded by Alcide De Gasperi in 1943, which dominated Italian politics for almost fifty years, until its dissolution in 1993, preventing
32900-411: Was also shared by Friedrich Hayek and John Maynard Keynes , both of whom believed that capitalism is vital for freedom to survive and thrive. Ayn Rand was strongly anti-communist. She argued that Communist leaders typically claim to work for the common good, but many or all of them were corrupt and totalitarian. At the end of World War I , liberal internationalists developed an early opposition to
33088-454: Was always strongly anti-communist. The more leftist Congress of Industrial Organizations purged its communists in 1947 and was staunchly anti-communist afterwards. In Britain, the Labour Party strenuously resisted Communist efforts to infiltrate its ranks and take control of locals in the 1930s. The Labour Party became anti-communist and Labour Prime Minister Clement Attlee was a staunch supporter of NATO . Despite anarcho-communism being
33276-538: Was constitutionally powerful, it lacked enforcement powers, it was often ignored, and it failed to defend the constitution during the coup against Mikhail Gorbachev . The Chinese leadership has argued against establishing any corresponding constitutional supervisory committee due to their association with the failed communist states of Europe. None of the surviving communist states (China, Cuba, Laos, and Vietnam) have experimented with constitutional supervision committees or constitutional supervision of any kind outside
33464-465: Was established by Moon to combat communism and be a conservative alternative to what he perceived as the liberal bias of The Washington Post ." Bo Hi Pak , called Moon's "right-hand man", was the founding president and the founding chairman of the board. Moon asked Richard L. Rubenstein , a rabbi and college professor, to join its board of directors. The Washington Times has often been noted for its generally pro-Israel editorial policies. In 2002, during
33652-458: Was established, left-wing politics were often associated with profanity and outlawed. In countries such as Sudan, Yemen, Syria, Iraq and Iran, communists and other leftist parties find themselves in a bitter competition for power with Islamists. George Orwell , a democratic socialist , wrote two of the most widely read and influential anti-totalitarian novels, namely Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm , both of which featured allusions to
33840-403: Was introduced in all communist states. The Supreme Soviet convened twice a year, usually for two or three days each, making it one of the world's first frequently-convened legislatures during its existence. The same meeting frequency was the norm in the Eastern Bloc countries and modern-day China. China's legislature, the National People's Congress (NPC), is modelled on the Soviet one. As with
34028-477: Was named so as a term of disparagement . Yet admirers of the movement and its aims later came to use the term, and it is this term by which they are most known to history. A mass movement denotes a political party or movement which is supported by large segments of a population. Political movements that typically advocate the creation of a mass movement include the ideologies of communism , fascism , and liberalism . Both communists and fascists typically support
34216-450: Was responsible for formulating defence policies. The party leader was ex officio the Chairman of the Council of Defense. Below the Council of Defense, there was the Main Military Council which was responsible for the strategic direction and leadership of the Soviet armed forces. The working organ of the Council of Defense was the General Staff tasked with analysing military and political situations as they developed. The party controlled
34404-415: Was set free and after the failure of the movement he was forced to move to the United States' embassy in Budapest , where he lived until 1971 when the Vatican and the Marxist–Leninist government of Hungary arranged his way out to Austria. In the following years, Mindszenty travelled all over the world visiting the Hungarian colonies in Canada, United States, Germany, Austria, South Africa and Venezuela. He led
34592-423: Was sustained by his Christian faith and his hopes for China. Gao predicted that the communist rule of China would end in 2017, a revelation he reportedly received from God. Gao was " disappeared " in August 2017. As of April 2024, his family has not heard from him or about his whereabouts since his disappearance. In the Indian state of Punjab , communism was opposed by the Damdami Taksal order of Sikhs. Communism
34780-416: Was the Russian White movement , which fought in the Russian Civil War starting in 1918 against the recently established Bolshevik government . The White movement was militarily supported by several allied foreign governments which represented the first instance of anti-communism as a government policy. Nevertheless, the Red Army defeated the White movement and the Soviet Union was created in 1922. During
34968-520: Was the double essay on the herd instinct (1908) by British surgeon Wilfred Trotter. It also influenced the key concepts of the superego and identification in Massenpsychologie (1921) by Sigmund Freud, misleadingly translated as Group psychology. They are linked to ideas on sexual repression leading to rigid personalities, in the original Mass psychology of fascism (1933) by Freudo-Marxist Wilhelm Reich (not to be confused with its totally revised 1946 American version). This then rejoined ideas formulated by
35156-434: Was the first to experiment with constitutional supervision when it established a Constitutional Committee in 1965. It was elected by the legislature, and leading jurists sat on the committee, but it was only empowered to advise the legislature. Keith Hand has commented that "[i]t was not an effective institution in practice", being unable to prevent Nicolae Ceausescu 's emasculation of Romania's Great National Assembly after
35344-471: Was weakened after Sikh youth who had become communists were reinitiated into Sikhism and initiated into the Khalsa by the influence of Damdami Taksal Jathedar Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale . Many communist party members and supporters were assassinated by Taksalis and other Sikh militants. Falun Gong practitioners are against the Chinese Communist Party 's persecution of Falun Gong . In April 1999, over ten thousand Falun Gong practitioners gathered at
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