Socialism

Generally, it refers to scientific socialism, which was founded by Marx and Engels. It encompasses the acts of proletariat opposing capitalist exploitation and oppression, overthrowing the rule of the bourgeoisie, establishing a socialist system with the communal ownership of the means of production and distribution according to contribution and emancipating all mankind as its chief economic features. Broadly speaking, it also includes the theories about socialism and communism before the establishment of scientific socialism.

The word socialism originated from the Latin word socialis, which means “social” and “sociable”. In 1826, the word “socialist” was first used in the British Owenite Co-operative Magazine. In 1832, the French newspaper Le Globe first used the word “socialism”. In 1834, Leroux’ paper On Individualism and Socialism made the word popular in Western Europe.

Socialism has gone through a development from a utopia to a science. Before the emergence of scientific socialism, doctrines related to socialism already existed, and there were many schools. It has been more than 500 years since the publication of Utopia by the Englishman Thomas More in 1516, followed by the The City of the Sun by the Italian Tommaso Campanella, the illusions about the “Millennial Kingdom” of the German Thomas Müntzer and The Law of Freedom by the leader of the British “Diggers” Gerrard Winstanley. In this period, the ideal society depicted by the utopians still remained fantasies, only “communist notions”. After further development in the 18th century, by the beginning of the 19th century, the doctrine of utopian socialism reached its highest phase, and its chief representatives were Saint-Simon and Fourier of France and Owen of England.

They inherited the spirit of criticism of capitalism and the results of exploration of the future ideal society from the predecessors of utopian socialism, and made the doctrine of utopian socialism a complete ideological system. Their main theoretical views were as follows: they held that social development is a process, and that the capitalist society is only a phase of development of society and cannot be eternal; they resolutely denied capitalist private property, which they considered to be the “main scourge” of the capitalist system, the “new form of slavery”, and held that “private property made men into devils, and the world into hell.” They put forth the future direction of development of society on the basis of their critique of capitalism, and envisioned a new social system different from capitalism. Saint-Simon called this society “industrial system”, Fourier the “harmonious society”, and Owen the “communist commune”. In the ideal society, the realization of planned organization of production, distribution according to contribution and democratic management, abolition of class distinctions and exploitation of one individual by another embody the essential features of socialism. Utopian socialism has provided abundant important intellectual material for the emergence of scientific socialism. Marx pointed out that “utopianism, before the time of materialistic-critical socialism concealed the germs of the latter within itself”. Engels said: “Utopianism… with genius anticipated countless matters whose accuracy we now demonstrate scientifically.” However, the reason why utopian socialism was utopian was that it was not yet based on historical materialism, and secondly, it was divorced from the workers’ movement and the actual struggle. The crude theories of utopian socialism corresponded to the crude conditions of capitalistic production and the crude class conditions of the epoch in which they arose.

The founders of Marxism have critically drawn on the valuable intellectual achievements of utopian socialism, and, in the light of the then workers’ movement, studied the contradictions and class relations of capitalist society with the viewpoint and method of historical materialism, and scientifically explained a series of fundamental principles of socialism. Their theory on scientific socialism is embodied in The Communist Manifesto in a concentrated manner. On the basis of explaining the general laws of development of human society, Marx and Engels discussed the particular laws of movement of the capitalist society and class struggle, explained the principle of “Two Inevitables”, and pointed out that “the fall of the bourgeoisie and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable.” The basic feature of communism is, economically, “the abolition of private property”, which “merely expresses, in general terms, actual relations springing from an existing class struggle, from a historical movement going on under our very eyes”. Politically, the proletariat must conquer the political power and establish its “political rule”, i.e., the dictatorship of the proletariat. Ideologically, it must radically break with traditional ideas and establish its ideological supremacy. They finally put forth the idea of establishing an association of free men and achieving the free and full development of man.

Marx clearly distinguished the first phase of communism from the higher phase of communism in his Critique of the Gotha Programme, and made a further analysis of the first phase. He pointed out that: “ What we have to deal with here is a communist society, not as it has developed on its own foundations, but, on the contrary, just as it emerges from capitalist society; which is thus in every respect, economically, morally, and intellectually, still stamped with the birthmarks of the old society from whose womb it emerges.” Speaking of the first phase of communism, Lenin also pointed out: “From capitalism mankind can pass directly only to socialism, i.e., to the social ownership of the means of production and the distribution of products according to the amount of work performed by each individual.” Lenin expressed the first phase of communism as “socialism”.

The October Revolution in Russia established the first socialist state in the world. Subsequently, China and other relatively backward countries economically and from other aspects in Europe and Asia also successively won the victory of the socialist revolution and established the socialist system. While establishing and developing the socialist system, socialist countries have been accumulating experience in socialist construction and deepening their knowledge of socialism. Deng Xiaoping put forth that the essence of socialism is to liberate and develop the productive forces, abolish exploitation, eliminate polarization and ultimately achieve common prosperity. The practice of socialism in every country must be combined with the concrete national conditions of that country. Socialism with Chinese characteristics is a product of combining the fundamental principles of scientific socialism with the concrete reality in China. It both upholds the general principles of scientific socialism and has Chinese characteristics.

The socialist system is constantly developing and perfecting, and there will be twists and turns and repetitions in the process of development of socialism, but socialism is an irreversible general trend in the development of the history of society, and it has incomparable superiority over any social system that has appeared before in history. Socialism is bound to gradually triumph through the paths chosen voluntarily by the people of each country and suited to their national characteristics.