Communism (from Latin communis common, universal)[1][2] is a socioeconomic

system structured upon the common ownership of the means of production and
characterized by the absence of social classes, money,[3][4] and the state; as well as a
social, political and economic ideology and movement that aims to establish this
social order.
Communism is represented by a variety of schools of thought, which broadly
include Marxism, anarchism and the political ideologies grouped around both. All
these hold in common the analysis that the current order of society stems from its
economic system, capitalism, that in this system, there are two major social classes:
the proletariat - who must work to survive, and who make up a majority of society and the capitalist class - a minority who derive profit from employing the proletariat,
through private ownership of the means of production, and that political, social and
economicconflict between these two classes will trigger a fundamental change in the
economic system, and by extension a wide-ranging transformation of society. The
primary element which will enable this transformation, according to communism, is
the social ownership of the means of production.
Because of historical peculiarities, communism is commonly erroneously equated
to Marxism-Leninism in mainstream usage. The term 'Marxism-Leninism' refers to an
ideology developed by Joseph Stalin[5][6] which controversially claims adherence to
Marxism and Leninism, yet is not accepted as a genuine development of Marxism by
other kinds of Marxists.[7] 'Marxism-Leninism' was founded as Stalin and his
ideologists' own doctrine, with Marx and Lenin's words being merely used as an
afterthought, selectively selected out of context. [8][9] States run under 'MarxismLeninism' (such as the Soviet Union) did not represent what Marxists would term a
'communist society', nor did they claim to. [10]States based on Marxism-Leninism were
run under single-party rule,[11] in contradiction to Marxism's dictatorship of the
proletariat, which is a democratic state form (despite its name, which at the time and
place it was coined had nothing to do with the current meaning of the term
'dictatorship'[12][13]); single-party rule cannot be a dictatorship of the proletariat under
the Marxist definition.