This Is Communism Per Marxist-Leninism

People often argue over what communism is and what it stands against. Communism is more then being a good person, and even being a good person is subjective. So I understand why people say read or listen to theory, and why many point to Socialism For All's basic Marxist-Leninism study guide on YouTube. It took me forever to get through that study guide and even longer to go back and get notes. So I sat down and reflected on them. This is communism per Marxist-Leninism and if you find yourself disagreeing, read the last paragraph in this blog. This is for those who aren't going to read theory bare minimum study guide.

What Communism Is

Communism is a revolutionary, collectivist, and scientifically grounded system that prioritizes the collective good, ensuring human needs and dignity come before personal gain. It emphasizes altruism, selfless concern for others, embodying the light personality triad; and rejects individualism as selfish, requiring everyone to contribute to society to ensure fairness and equity, meaning no one can opt out of social duties, and resources are distributed equally to prevent inequality.

Communism unites workers globally, rejecting national divisions and promoting solidarity across borders, seeing all workers as part of one struggle. It eliminates private ownership of factories, land, and resources, replacing it with collective control to prevent exploitation and ensure production benefits everyone. It centralizes power to dismantle class hierarchies, ensuring no group dominates another, and rejects religion as a divisive, oppressive force, focusing instead on material realities like food, housing, and work.

Communism opposes imperialist exploitation, supporting oppressed nations’ liberation, and mobilizes workers at the grassroots level, educating them to fight for their rights, giving them control over workplaces and government to end capitalist exploitation. Dynamically applying Marxism, it rejects deviations and is grounded in materialist philosophy, analyzing history’s laws and rejecting capitalist ideas, using reforms tactically to intensify class struggle, not as ends, while exposing capitalist democracy’s flaws and favoring a more Soviet-style worker control society.

Communism requires radical action, not gradual reform, to dismantle capitalism, with the ultimate goal of creating a world without states or classes, where global cooperation prevails, freeing workers from capitalist exploitation and ensuring wealth is shared equitably. Governed by selfless principles, it regulates society to ensure cooperation, not competition, and analyzes capitalism scientifically to expose its flaws, such as exploitation, and replace it.

Communism requires clear, critical theory to stay true to its principles, rejecting deviations, and needs a disciplined, centralized revolutionary group that can adapt to change, led by dedicated, skilled revolutionaries who plan strategically and rely on a unified source of information to educate and mobilize revolutionaries. Centered on class conflict, it rejects individualism to achieve revolution and establishes worker-led democracies, with a temporary dictatorship to suppress capitalists, ultimately destroying capitalist state structures and replacing them with worker-controlled democracy.

It ends bureaucratic control, with the state fading as equality is achieved, distributing resources based on work in socialism and need in communism to ensure fairness, while eliminating specialized labor roles, inequality, and the state to create a unified society. Communism requires force to defeat capitalists and suppress their resistance, prioritizing immediate action, not waiting for majority approval, to inspire global change, staying true to Marxism and rejecting compromises that dilute its goals and principles, using both legal and illegal tactics to advance socialism.

Communism scientifically plans production to eliminate capitalist chaos, freeing all from oppression, with workers leading the fight for equality, exposing imperialism’s exploitative nature, and mobilizing masses through strikes and maintaining party discipline. It limits over production to avoid resource waste. It analyzes contradictions scientifically, rejecting idealistic thought, empowering workers to unionize, demand fair pay, and end wage labor, exposing capitalist profit extraction to ensure shared resources, ultimately replacing capitalism entirely to guarantee dignity for all, shaped by historical context.

What Communism Is Not

Communism is not a system that tolerates capitalism, as it exploits workers by extracting surplus value for profit, prioritizing greed over human needs. It is not aligned with individualism, which fosters selfishness and undermines collective responsibility, nor does it accept capitalist exploitation, where workers face wage slavery and unequal wealth distribution, critiquing neoliberal establishment left policies that widened income gaps and entrenched worker oppression.

Communism is not a system that accepts class divisions that concentrate wealth and power among the bourgeoisie, leaving workers powerless, nor does it support nationalism, which divides workers by nation and weakens global solidarity. It is not compatible with religion, which justifies capitalist oppression and divides workers by faith, viewing religion as a tool of bourgeois control and emphasizing material struggles over spiritual distractions. It is not supportive of traditional family structures that reinforce private property and individualism, dividing workers, and opposes patriarchal and matriarchal norms that hinder revolutionary unity.

Communism is not a gradual reformist approach that preserves capitalism and delays revolutionary change, rejecting reformist illusions during neoliberal dominance. It is not aligned with anarchism, which rejects centralized leadership and undermines revolutionary discipline, and is wary of alliances with groups lacking strategic clarity. It is not a system that tolerates opportunism or social-chauvinism, such as supporting imperialist wars, which betray Marxism, nor does it accept revisionism that dilutes Marxism by aligning with capitalist ideas, opposing reformist distortions during ideological struggles.

Communism is not bourgeois democracy, which masks capitalist oppression with false choice, nor does it align with Kautsky’s reformist ideas that preserve capitalist states and undermine revolution, rejecting compromises with bourgeois democracy. It is not economism, focusing only on economic demands, or leaderless movements lacking discipline, opposing spontaneous, unguided struggles. It is not theoretical debates detached from action that alienate workers, rejecting "armchair socialism" during labor struggles, nor does it tolerate internal divisions and compromises that weaken revolutionary unity, opposing immaturity amid socialist fragmentation.

Communism is not a system that accepts bureaucratic systems and armies that serve capitalists to maintain class control, nor does it align with liberal critiques that ignore class struggle and offer reformist solutions, opposing neoliberal globalism. It is not the petty-bourgeois mindset that avoids class struggle and distorts Marxism, rejecting reformist fears during capitalist crises, nor does it support imperialism, where powerful nations exploit weaker ones, perpetuating inequality and opposing Western dominance.

Communism is not aligned with labor parties or corrupted unions that align with capitalists and betray workers, opposing reformist betrayals during labor struggles and events leading to them. It is not a system that accepts bourgeois lies manipulating workers into accepting capitalism, rejecting neoliberal or establishment capitalist left propaganda, nor does it tolerate Western exploitation of colonized nations, perpetuating global oppression, opposing colonial legacies during proxy conflicts.

Communism is not a system that uses capitalist tactics like violence and propaganda to suppress socialism, opposing anti-communist repression, nor does it accept rhetoric without action that dilutes revolutionary spirit, rejecting empty promises during global socialist struggles. It is not rigid interpretations of Marxism or bourgeois philosophy that ignore context, opposing theoretical stagnation, nor does it align with liberalism, which abandons Marxism and offers weak theories, rejecting reformist compromises.

Communism is not bourgeois academics who defend capitalism and obscure class struggle, opposing non-Marxist distortions, nor does it accept reforms that weaken class consciousness and delay revolution. It is not socialist parties abandoning revolutionary goals for legal reform, rejecting bourgeois co-optation, nor does it tolerate "left-wing" extremism that avoids strategic compromises and alienates workers, or oversimplified approaches that ignore workers' struggles, rejecting rigid theory.

Communism is not utopian socialism that ignores material conditions and lacks practicality, opposing idealistic alternatives, nor does it accept authoritarianism or sexism, which contradict egalitarianism, rejecting outdated and modern norms. It is not metaphysical or idealist philosophies that ignore material relations, opposing bourgeois abstractions, nor does it tolerate flawed analyses that oversimplify materialism and distort Marxism, rejecting unsound interpretations. It is not idealist economic theories that obscure capitalist exploitation, opposing Dühring’s errors.

Communism is not a system that accepts capitalist excuses tying wage increases to price hikes to suppress workers, rejecting capitalist justifications and petite bourgeoisie opportunism. It is not capitalism’s systemic neglect, causing poverty and preventable deaths, condemning neoliberalism, nor does it tolerate fascism, fueled by capitalism’s crises, and reformist defenses enabling it, opposing capitalist decay.

Communism is not capitalism’s exploitative systems, individualism, or reformist illusions, emphasizing revolutionary action, anti-imperialism, and ideological purity, reflecting Marxism-Leninism’s focus on dismantling capitalism for a classless, egalitarian society.

Final Thoughts

I was told once that all one needs to understand communism, is to understand humanism. That theory was for those who wish to lead or to teach communism. And while I see their point, it also makes having discussions hard for those who have consumed theory, with those who have not. Furthermore, like many things, this theory unfortunately was left to allow for interpretations.

As for myself, I stand by my neurodivergent interpretation from my lived experiences being born in 1980 and living the past 45 years. There's a term, "Death of the Author," and if you disagree with my understanding of ML theory, it is on the authors' for leaving it up to Interpretation, and not on myself for arriving at the understanding based on my lived experiences and such; anytime an author leaves something to interpretations and there is debate or conflict over the meaning, it's on them. And for those now saying they don't care what I think, you wouldn't of scrolled down to see what I said in this paragraph if it were true in the slightest. And that's our shared reality. To those who ain't gonna read any more theory than this, I hope it helped.