Part of the Politics series on Communism

History of communism Politics, sometimes defined as the art and science of government[1], is a process by which collective decisions are made within groups. ... Communism refers to a conjectured future classless, stateless social organization based upon common ownership of the means of production, and can be classified as a branch of the broader socialist movement. ... Image File history File links Hammer_and_sickle. ... This article is in need of attention from an expert on the subject. ... Schools of communism Marxism · Leninism Trotskyism · Maoism Left communism Council communism Anarchist communism Christian communism To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... Vladimir Lenin in 1920 Leninism is a political and economic theory which builds upon Marxism; it is therefore a branch of Marxism. ... Trotskyism is the theory of Marxism as advocated by Leon Trotsky. ... Maoism or Mao Zedong Thought (Chinese: 毛泽东思想, pinyin: Máo Zédōng SÄ«xiÇŽng), is a variant of Marxism-Leninism derived from the teachings of Mao Zedong (1893–1976). ... Left Communism is a term describing a whole range of communist viewpoints which oppose the political ideas of the Bolsheviks from a position which is asserted to be more authentically Marxist and proletarian than the views held by the Communist International after its first two Congresses. ... Council communism is a Radical Left movement originating in Germany and the Netherlands in the 1920s. ... Anarchocommunism is a form of anarchism that advocates the abolition of the State and capitalism in favor of a horizontal network of voluntary associations through which everyone will be free to satisfy his or her needs. ... Christian communism is a form of religious communism centered around Christianity. ... Communist parties Communist International World Communist Movement International Communist Current Communist Workers International Fourth International In modern usage, a communist party is a political party which promotes communism, the sociopolitical philosophy based on Marxism. ... The first edition of Communist International, journal of the Comintern published in Moscow and Petrograd (now Saint Petersburg) in May 1919. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... The International Communist Current is a centralised international left communist organisation with sections throughout the world. ... The Communist Workers International (German: Kommunistische Arbeiter-Internationale, KAI), also known as the Fourth International (though another group is better known by this name), was a council communist international. ... Emblem of the Fourth International The Fourth International has been the international organisation of Trotskyist communists. ... Communist states The Soviet Union People's Republic of China Cuba · Vietnam Laos · North Korea This article is about one-party states governed by Communist parties. ... Related subjects Socialism Titoism Marxism-Leninism Eurocommunism Religious communism New Left Planned economy Historical materialism Anti-communism Socialism is a political philosophy advocating an economic system in which the means of production are owned and controlled collectively. ... Titoism is a term describing political ideology named after Yugoslav leader, Josip Broz Tito, primarily used to describe the schism between the Soviet Union and Socialist Yugoslavia after the Second World War (see Cominform) when the Communist Party of Yugoslavia refused to take further dictates from Moscow. ... Vladimir Lenin in 1920 Leninism is a political and economic theory which builds upon Marxism; it is a branch of Marxism (and it has been the dominant branch of Marxism in the world since the 1920s). ... Eurocommunism was an attempt in the 1970s by various European communist parties to widen their appeal by embracing public sector middle-class workers, new social movements such as feminism and gay liberation, rejecting support of the Soviet Union, and expressing more clearly their fidelity to democratic institutions. ... Religious communism is a term used by some Communists that claim that before communism became associated with atheism, the word communism was mainly used by religious groups. ... The New Left is a term used in political discourse to refer to radical left-wing movements from the 1960s onwards. ... A planned economy is an economic system in which decisions about the production, allocation and consumption of goods and services are planned ahead of time, usually in a centralized fashion, though some proposed systems favour decentralized planning. ... Historical materialism (or what Marx himself called the materialist conception of history - materialistische Geschichtsauffassung) is a social theory and an approach to the study of history and sociology, normally considered the intellectual basis of Marxism. ... Anti-communism is the opposition to communist ideology, organization, or government, on either an ideological or pragmatic basis. ...

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"Labor aristocracy" (or "aristocracy of labor") has two meanings: as a term with Marxist theoretical underpinnings, and as a specific type of trade unionism. Marxism is the political practice and social theory based on the works of Karl Marx, a 19th century philosopher, economist, journalist, and revolutionary, along with Friedrich Engels. ...

Use within Marxism

In Marxist theory, those workers (proletarians) in developed countries who benefit from the superprofits extracted from the impoverished workers of underdeveloped countries form an "aristocracy of labor." The phrase was popularised by Karl Kautsky in 1901 and theorised by Vladimir Lenin. Lenin's theory contends that companies in the developed world exploit workers in the developing world (where wages are much lower), resulting in increased profits. Because of these increased profits, the companies are able to pay higher wages to their employees "at home" (that is, in the developed world), thus creating a working class satisfied with their standard of living and not inclined to proletarian revolution. Lenin thus contended that imperialism had prevented increasing class polarization in the developed world, and argued that a workers' revolution could only begin in one of the underdeveloped or semideveloped countries, such as Russia. This theory of the labour aristocracy is controversial in the Marxist movement. Marxism is the political practice and social theory based on the works of Karl Marx, a 19th century philosopher, economist, journalist, and revolutionary, along with Friedrich Engels. ... The proletariat (from Latin proles, offspring) is a term used to identify a lower social class; a member of such a class is proletarian. ... The terms First World, Second World, and Third World were used to divide the nations of Earth into three broad categories. ... Superprofit (or surplus profit or extra surplus-value; in German: extra-Mehrwert), is a concept in Karl Marxs critique of political economy, subsequently elaborated by Lenin and other Marxist thinkers. ... For the Jamaican reggae band, see Third World (band). ... Karl Kautsky Karl Kautsky (October 18, 1854 - October 17, 1938) was a leading theoretician of social democracy. ... (Russian: Владимир Ильич Ленин, IPA:, born Vladimir Ilich Ulyanov; April 22 [O.S. April 10] 1870 – January 21, 1924), was a Communist revolutionary of Russia, the leader of the Bolshevik party, the first Premier of the Soviet Union, and the main theorist of what has come to be called Leninism, which is described... The term exploitation may carry two distinct meanings: The act of utilizing something for any purpose. ... The term working class is used to denote a social class. ... A communist revolution is a social revolution inspired by the ideas of Marxism that aims to replace capitalism with communism, normally with socialism (public ownership over the means of production) as an intermediate stage. ... See also colonialism Imperialism is a policy of extending control or authority over foreign entities as a means of acquisition and/or maintenance of empires, either through direct territorial conquest or settlement, or through indirect methods of exerting control on the politics and/or economy of other countries. ...

While this theory is formally shared by most currents that identify positively with Lenin, including the Communist International, few organisations place the theory at the centre of their work. The term is most widely used in the United States, where it was popularised in the decade prior to the First World War by Eugene Debs' Socialist Party, and the Industrial Workers of the World. In Britain those who hold to this theory include the Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist) and the Revolutionary Communist Group. Many Trotskyists, including Leon Trotsky himself, and the early congresses of the Fourth International, have accepted the theory of the labour aristocracy: others, including Ernest Mandel and Tony Cliff, considered the theory to have mistaken arguments or "Third Worldist" implications. The first edition of Communist International, journal of the Comintern published in Moscow and Petrograd (now Saint Petersburg) in May 1919. ... May refer to the politcal leader Eugene_V._Debs May also be in reference to a a debutante ball, a formal party undertaken by the leaving members of second-level schools in Ireland, most often in the month of August or September. ... The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW or the Wobblies) is a famous international union currently headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio, USA. It contends that all workers should be united within a single union as a class and the wage system abolished. ... The Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist) was set up in July 2004 by a group of committed communists who had either been expelled or had resigned from the Arthur Scargills Socialist Labour Party. ... The Revolutionary Communist Group is a communist group in the United Kingdom. ... (Russian: Лев Давидович Троцкий; also transliterated Leo, Lev, Trotskii, Trotski, Trotskij, Trockij and Trotzky) (November 7 [O.S. October 26] 1879 – August 21, 1940), born Lev Davidovich Bronstein (Лев Давидович Бронштейн), was a Bolshevik revolutionary and Marxist theorist. ... Emblem of the Fourth International The Fourth International has been the international organisation of Trotskyist communists. ... Ernest Mandel Ernest Ezra Mandel, also known by various pseudonyms such as Ernest Germain, Pierre Gousset, Henri Vallin, Walter etc. ... Tony Cliff Tony Cliff (May 20, 1917 – May 9, 2000) was a Trotskyist revolutionary activist. ...

Criticism of unions

The term was originally coined by Mikhail Bakunin in 1872 as a criticism of the notion that organised workers are the most radical. Bakunin wrote: "To me the flower of the proletariat is not, as it is to the Marxists, the upper layer, the aristocracy of labor, those who are the most cultured, who earn more and live more comfortably than all the other workers." Mikhail Alexandrovich Bakunin (Trolo) (Russian — Михаил Александрович Бакунин, Michel Bakunin — on the grave in Bern), (May 30, 1814–June 13, 1876) was a well known Russian anarchist. ...

In the U.S. and Britain, the term "aristocracy of labor" is used as an implicit criticism of labor unions that have organized high-salary workers and have no interest in unionizing middle-income and lower-income employees--even in cases where organizing the unorganized would strengthen the unions involved. These unions, it is argued, are content to remain a "labor aristocracy." Examples might include the unions of professional athletes, which have raised the wages of a certain class of already highly paid workers--professional athletes--but refuse to organize other workers, including other employees of the teams they work for. It commonly charged that the Air Line Pilots Association, the Screen Actors Guild, and a handful of other AFL-CIO unions conform to the labor aristocracy model of trade unionism. In defense of these unions, the AFL-CIO's jurisdictional rules may forbid such unions from organizing workers in certain occupational classes. A union (labor union in American English; trade union, sometimes trades union, in British English; either labour union or trade union in Canadian English) is a legal entity consisting of employees or workers having a common interest, such as all the assembly workers for one employer, or all the workers... The Air Line Pilots Association, International, is the elected bargaining representative for over 64,000 pilots of 41 U.S. and Canadian airlines. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... The AFL-CIO is the largest labor union federation in the United States. ...

External links

• Mikhail Bakunin On the International Workingmen's Association and Karl Marx. "the aristocracy of labor, those who are the most cultured, who earn more and live more comfortably than all the other workers..."
• Karl Kautsky Trades Unions and Socialism. A "guild-like character shows itself first of all in that the workingmen organized in trades unions form and constitute, similar to the old-time Journeymen organized in guilds, an aristocracy of labor, which isolates itself from the unorganized workingmen, which raises itself above them, which pushes them down the deeper into the social mire, the quicker it elevates itself."
• V. I. Lenin, Opportunism, and the Collapse of the Second International . "To the bourgeoisie (imperialist war) brings higher profits; to a thin crust of the labour bureaucracy and aristocracy, and also to the petty bourgeoisie (the intelligentsia, etc.) which “travels” with the working-class movement, it promises morsels of those profits."
• Leon Trotsky, Trade unions in the epoch of imperialist decay . Reformism "is in complete harmony with the social position of the labor aristocracy "
• Charlie Post, Ernest Mandel and the Marxian Theory of Bureaucracy. Argues that "the better paid workers of the “north” are more exploited than the poorly paid workers of the “south.”"
• Tony Cliff, Economic roots of reformism . "No capitalist says to the workers: “I have made high profits this year, so I am ready to give you higher wages.”"

• David Yaffe, The labour aristocracy and imperialism. This is the first part of a talk given by David Yaffe to the Free University of Turkey in Zurich on 13 May 2001

Mikhail Alexandrovich Bakunin (Trolo) (Russian — Михаил Александрович Бакунин, Michel Bakunin — on the grave in Bern), (May 30, 1814–June 13, 1876) was a well known Russian anarchist. ... Karl Kautsky Karl Kautsky (October 18, 1854 - October 17, 1938) was a leading theoretician of social democracy. ... Vladimir Lenin Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (Russian: Влади́мир Ильи́ч Ле́нин), original surname Ulyanov (Улья́нов) (April 22 (April 10 (O.S.)), 1870 – January 21, 1924), was a Russian revolutionary, the leader of the Bolshevik party, the first Premier of the Soviet Union, and the founder of the ideology of Leninism. ... (Russian: Лев Давидович Троцкий; also transliterated Leo, Lev, Trotskii, Trotski, Trotskij, Trockij and Trotzky) (November 7 [O.S. October 26] 1879 – August 21, 1940), born Lev Davidovich Bronstein (Лев Давидович Бронштейн), was a Bolshevik revolutionary and Marxist theorist. ... Tony Cliff Tony Cliff (May 20, 1917 – May 9, 2000) was a Trotskyist revolutionary activist. ...

Further reading

• Steve Clark, The Aristocracy of Labor: Development of the Marxist Position, in New International no. 2

See also

• Leninism
• Industrial Workers of the World
• labor unions