Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A theoretical economic system characterized by the collective ownership of property and by the organization of labor for the common advantage of all members.
  • noun A system of government in which the state plans and controls the economy and a single, often authoritarian party holds power, claiming to make progress toward a higher social order in which all goods are equally shared by the people.
  • noun The Marxist-Leninist doctrine advocating revolution to overthrow the capitalist system and establish a dictatorship of the proletariat that will eventually evolve into a perfectly egalitarian and communal society.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun An economic system, or theory, which rests upon the total or partial abolition of the right of private property, actual ownership being ascribed to the community as a whole or to the state.
  • noun Communalism.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A scheme of equalizing the social conditions of life; specifically, a scheme which contemplates the abolition of inequalities in the possession of property, as by distributing all wealth equally to all, or by holding all wealth in common for the equal use and advantage of all.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Any political philosophy or ideology advocating holding the production of resources collectively.
  • noun Any political social system that implements a communist political philosophy.
  • noun The international socialist society where classes and the state no longer exist.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a political theory favoring collectivism in a classless society
  • noun a form of socialism that abolishes private ownership

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[French communisme, from commun, common, from Old French, from Latin commūnis; see commune.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

A calque of the German word Kommunismus (from Marx and Engels's Manifesto of the German Communist Party), in turn a calque of the French word communisme, which was formed from commun ("common"), from Latin communis, and the suffix -isme ("-ism").

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Examples

  • The pair, with Engels, continued to agonize over a clear definition of what they meant by the term communism and over a statement of principles—a mission statement—for a communist party.

    Emancipation Michael Goldfarb 2009

  • Hess had introduced Marx to the term communism, and now Marx had convinced Hess that the definition of communism had to come out of an understanding of political economy.

    Emancipation Michael Goldfarb 2009

  • Throwing out the term communism has all the demagoguery of Sen. Joseph McCarthy and recalls a dark chapter in American history.

    Byron Williams: Facts Left the Health Care Debate Long Ago, Emotion Is the Driver Now! 2009

  • In the 1840s the term communism came into use to denote loosely a militant leftist form of socialism; it was associated with the writings of Étienne Cabet and his theories of common ownership.

    Yahoo! News: Business - Opinion 2010

  • In the 1840s the term communism came into use to denote loosely a militant leftist form of socialism; it was associated with the writings of Étienne Cabet and his theories of common ownership.

    Yahoo! News: Business - Opinion 2010

  • In the 1840s the term communism came into use to denote loosely a militant leftist form of socialism; it was associated with the writings of Étienne Cabet and his theories of common ownership.

    Yahoo! News: Business - Opinion 2010

  • The term communism was associated with the revolutionary transformation of the means of production and other private property into property of the society, subsuming therefore the very concept of property - such was the character of what can be considered to be the first modern communist movement, the

    Political Affairs Magazine 2009

  • The term communism was associated with the revolutionary transformation of the means of production and other private property into property of the society, subsuming therefore the very concept of property - such was the character of what can be considered to be the first modern communist movement, the

    Political Affairs Magazine 2009

  • Stalin reserves the term communism exclusively to what Marx called the "higher phase" of communism.

    Capitalism Magazine (CapMag.com) 2008

  • Newer: « cure for obama communism is a new era of mccarthyism

    beached dildo | My[confined]Space 2009

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