World Wide Communist Party 

It is important to distinguish the difference between Communism and Marxism.

Marxism is basically a system of analysis, and a way to view the world. Communism, on the other hand, is basically a political movement, a form of government, a condition of society.

It is also important to understand the difference between "communism" and the Communist Party.

No country has ever had a communist system of government. The countries that we call "Communist" are countries where the dominant political party was/is the Communist Party. Communist Parties are generally political parties who have working towards achieving "communism" as part of their party platform.

The difference between working towards communism and "communism" itself is like the difference between building a house and living in a house. The Soviet Union, for example, never claimed to have achieved communism. In theory, what was taking place in the Soviet Union was an attempt to do the work needed to construct a communist society. Just as building a house is hard work, that has to be done in order to have a house to live in, the Stalinist system of the Soviet Union was seen as the hard work that was being done by everyone to build a communist system. It was never seen by any of the Communists as "communism" itself, any more than a construction foreman would think that the act of building a home is the same as lounging on the couch inside a home. In truth, most Communists today recognize that the Soviet Union was mostly just a large, corrupt, top down bureaucracy that didn't represent the ideals of Marxism or Communism.

The "state of communism" is described by Marx and Engels as the condition in which "the State" no longer exists and people live and work together in harmony in a society based on equality where the fruits of labor are shared with all members of society and no one is exploited.

Contrary to popular misconception, the goal of Communists was ultimately to abolish the State altogether. Basic Communist ideology holds that the purpose of "the State" is to enforce social and economic disparity. According to Marxist thinking the State developed as a tool for a minority of people to oppress other people. Marxists contend that we are all naturally relatively equal, and that significant inequality among people can only exist through the use of State force. Historically the State has always been used as a means to support a wealthy and powerful minority. From the Sumerians and Egyptians to the British Empire and beyond, the traditional role of the State has been to protect the interests of the wealthy and facilitate wealth transfer from the working masses to the wealthy property owners, as Adam Smith noted:

It is in the age of shepherds, in the second period of society, that the inequality of fortune first begins to take place, and introduces among men a degree of authority and subordination which could not possibly exist before. It thereby introduces some degree of that civil government which is indispensably necessary for its own preservation: and it seems to do this naturally, and even independent of the consideration of that necessity. The consideration of that necessity comes no doubt afterwards to contribute very much to maintain and secure that authority and subordination. The rich, in particular, are necessarily interested to support that order of things which can alone secure them in the possession of their own advantages. Men of inferior wealth combine to defend those of superior wealth in the possession of their property, in order that men of superior wealth may combine to defend them in the possession of theirs. All the inferior shepherds and herdsmen feel that the security of their own herds and flocks depends upon the security of those of the great shepherd or herdsman; that the maintenance of their lesser authority depends upon that of his greater authority, and that upon their subordination to him depends his power of keeping their inferiors in subordination to them. They constitute a sort of little nobility, who feel themselves interested to defend the property and to support the authority of their own little sovereign in order that he may be able to defend their property and to support their authority. Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defence of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all

- Adam Smith; The Wealth of Nations - 1776

The State is the means through which property rights are enforced. Communists view the enforcement of property rights by the State as the root source of inequality, disparity, and exploitation. Communists also viewed the enforcement of property rights as the primary role of the State and the means through which the State used force to protect the interests of the minority over the majority. It has always been the case that the majority of property is owned by a minority of people and this condition tends to increase as a civilization becomes more advanced and governments gain strength.

The rationale of the Communists was that if inequality could be eliminated then there would no longer be any need to have a State. There were splits among the Communists though. Some thought that it would be impossible to ever eliminate the State, and others did not.

In The Origin of the Family Engels wrote that the State, "has not existed from all eternity. . . . The society that organizes production anew on the basis of free and equal association of the producers will put the whole State machine where it will then belong: in the museum of antiquities, side by side with the spinning wheel and the bronze axe."

So, contrary to all the popular misconception, "Communism" itself is not about the dominance of the State, in fact it is the opposite; Communism is ultimately about the abolition of the State.

Marxist socialism is, in theory, what was being practiced by all of the countries that we call "Communist". The objective of Marxist socialism is to use the State to prepare society for communism by communalizing all of the productive forces of the society, i.e. by making all of the means of production public property. The policies and procedures of the Soviet Union were not seen as policy of an "end result", but rather as part of a process. The policies of the Soviet Union were seen as steps in a plan to achieve an end result. According to basically all Communists, and to the leadership of the Soviet Union itself, that end result was never achieved.

As was said earlier, the countries that we call "Communist" were countries in which the Communist Party had become the dominant, or in many cases only, political party.

The Communist Party evolved out of The International Working Man's Association, which later became the Comintern, or Communist International. The Communist Party was the first truly international major political party. The goal of the Communists was ultimately to put an end to all exploitation, stop imperialism, bring working class people into political power all around the world, stop all war, and create a single unified global community where all people in the world were equal with equal rights in a global democratic society where everyone shared everything. In a nutshell, that's what it was all about

Great Topic.

Improved my Understanding by tons!