A-Z of Communism | Critical School | Saswat Pattanayak

Atheism

Sun, 27 Jul 2008 11:34:22 -0400

A system of scientifically substantiated views rejecting belief in the supernatural and denying the existence of God and religion in general.

Art

Sun, 27 Jul 2008 11:34:03 -0400

Creative activity that reflects reality in artistic images embodying human’s aesthetic attitude to it (painting, sculpture, fiction, theatre, cinematographic art, music, choreography, and the like). A form of social consciousness.

Armed Uprising

Sun, 27 Jul 2008 11:32:30 -0400

A form of class struggle, open action with arms in hand by a class or a social force against the existing political power. Most often it is part and parcel of revolution and occurs when the dominant classes employ violent repressive measures in an effort to hold on to power. While regarding Armed Uprising as the supreme form of class struggle, Marxists do not absolutise it. They do not reject the possibility of the proletariat gaining power peacefully.

Apartheid

Sun, 27 Jul 2008 11:32:03 -0400

The policy of racial discrimination and segregation practiced by the South African reactionary ruling quarters against the indigenous African population and in large degree against immigrants from India. The Africans were forced to live in the reservations (renamed Bantustans in 1959), had no civil rights, received lower wages than their white counterparts, etc. Although it is claimed to have ceased, the for Apartheid and its actual implications continue to exist in many capitalist parts of the world, including the US, where racial discriminations are very much a part of social reality.

Anti-Communism

Sun, 27 Jul 2008 11:31:31 -0400

The principal ideological and political instrument of the present-day imperialist bourgeoisie. With the changed balance of forces in favor of socialism, imperialist reactionary circles, which express the interests of the military industrial complex, have been elaborating the strategy and tactics of Anti-Communism, creating and financing special centers for anti-communist propaganda. The ideologists of the bourgeoisie are trying to prevent the spread of Marxism-Leninism among the masses. The forces of Anti-Communism see it as their main objective to strike a blow against the world communist movement, “erode” socialist society and its ideology, divide the socialist countries and weaken the anti-imperialist forces. With the dissolution of Soviet Union, the Anti-Communism proponents are claiming to have scored a major victory of sorts.

Anarchy of Production

Sun, 27 Jul 2008 11:30:38 -0400

Chaotic development of social production when economic laws operate spontaneously. Anarchy of Production is typical of commodity production based on private property in the means of production. Under capitalism, Anarchy of Production is universal and destructive, leads to major economic upheavals and is a direct cause of economic crises of overproduction. The principal contradiction of capitalism – between the social character of production and the private capitalist form of appropriation – is manifested above all as a contrast between the organization of production at individual enterprises and the Anarchy of Production within the capitalist economy.

Anarcho-syndicalism

Sun, 27 Jul 2008 11:29:35 -0400

A petty-bourgeois opportunist current in the labor movement. Like anarchism, many of whose ideas it assimilated, anarcho-syndicalism, in the labor movement was directed against political forms of class struggle and the leading role of the Marxist party. Proponents of anarcho-syndicalism saw the economic strikes, sabotage, boycotts and the like as the principal means of opposing capitalism. Anarcho-syndicalism arose in the late 19th century and had a following mainly in France, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, and Latin America. Prior to the Second World War, it had considerable influence in the international trade union movement, but the increased influence of communist and workers’ parties and the upsurge of the revolutionary movement in the capitalist countries following the war drastically undermined anarcho-syndicalism.

Anarchism

Sun, 27 Jul 2008 11:29:01 -0400

A petty-bourgeois social and political current which rejects state power and any political organization of society.

Analysis and Synthesis

Sun, 27 Jul 2008 11:28:40 -0400

The process of practically or mentally breaking up a whole into parts and recombining the parts into a whole. Analysis is a method of studying objects which makes it possible to disjoint individual parts from the whole and examine them independently. Since a complex object is not merely a sum of parts, it is necessary to employ another method – synthesis – to recreate the object in thought.

Alienation

Sun, 27 Jul 2008 11:28:04 -0400

Transformation of the fruit of human activity (products of labor, social and political relations, morality, scientific theories, forms of social consciousness), and of human qualities and abilities into something independent of humans, alien to and dominating over hm/h those who produce them), in labor being made into a forced activity imposed on human being, and in the opposition of the interests of different classes.

Agro-Industrial Complex

Sun, 27 Jul 2008 11:27:42 -0400

The totality of economic sectors engaged in producing, processing and marketing of agricultural produce, and servicing agricultural production.

Agriculture, Socialist Transformation of

Sun, 27 Jul 2008 11:27:15 -0400

Formation of socialist production relations in the countryside. It implies creating large state enterprises and gradually unifying small farms into large-scale collective socialist farms.

Agriculture, Co-operation of

Sun, 27 Jul 2008 11:26:38 -0400

The process of involving small scattered peasant holdings into different types of co-operation. In the transition period from capitalism to socialism, it is a form of socialist transformation of agriculture.

Agrarian Reforms

Sun, 27 Jul 2008 11:26:09 -0400

Measures taken by a state to change agrarian relations and the forms of landownership. The nature of the social system and state power determines in whose interests and on what basis these reforms are carried out. During the bourgeois revolutions in some capitalist countries, agrarian reforms were anti-feudal and speeded up the development of capitalist relations. In the peoples’ democracies of Central and Southeast Europe and Asia, Agrarian Reforms aimed to abolish landlord property by confiscating the landed estates and handing them over to the peasants free of charge or at a small price.

Agrarian Crises

Sun, 27 Jul 2008 11:25:43 -0400

Crises of overproduction in capitalist agriculture resulting in greater stocks of unsold agricultural produce, lower prices, and accelerated ruin of small and medium farmers.

Agnosticism

Sun, 27 Jul 2008 11:25:08 -0400

A philosophical doctrine which holds that it is impossible to completely and truly recognize the essence of things and reality. Agnosticism confines the role of science to mere cognition of external aspects of phenomena rather than their essence.

Agitation

Sun, 27 Jul 2008 11:24:37 -0400

Oral, printed and visual political activity influencing the masses’ consciousness and mood to motivate them to political participation. In socialist countries, agitation is an important means of mobilizing the people to build socialism and communism; in capitalist states it is used in the political struggle between classes and between parties.

Aggression

Sun, 27 Jul 2008 11:23:52 -0400

Under the United Nation Charter, unlawful use of armed force by one state against the sovereignty, territorial inviolability or political independence of another state or nation.

Aggregate Social Product (gross product)

Sun, 27 Jul 2008 11:23:30 -0400

All the products made by a society over a given period of time (usually a year). In its natural and material form, it is made up of means of production and articles of consumption; in its value form it is made up of the value of the material used in social production which must be compensated (wear and tear of machines and equipment, production buildings and structures, raw and other materials, etc.) and of the newly created value which goes for consumption by the population and extended reproduction.

Aesthetics

Sun, 27 Jul 2008 11:18:46 -0400

A science about the beautiful in reality, the peculiarities of human being’s aesthetic understanding of the world and the general principles of creativity according to the laws of beauty, including the laws of development of art as a special form of the aesthetic reflection of reality.

Abstraction

Sun, 27 Jul 2008 11:18:26 -0400

The mental process of isolation of some properties and links of an object from the others in disregard of the latter. The notion obtained as a result of this process is also called an abstraction.

Abstract and the Concrete

Sun, 27 Jul 2008 11:17:45 -0400

Philosophical categories describing theoretical knowledge of an object. By abstract knowledge is meant knowledge that is incomplete and one-sided and reflects individual aspects and features of specific objects in abstraction from their other aspects and properties. But cognition is true only when it is concrete, when it perceives objects and phenomena of reality in the integral unity of their aspects. This movement of thinking is called ascent from the abstract to the concrete.

Absolutism

Sun, 27 Jul 2008 11:17:01 -0400

Absolute monarchy, a despotic form of state rule based on tyranny under which all political power (legislative, judicial and executive) resides entirely in one person—the monarch.

Abolitionism

Sun, 27 Jul 2008 11:12:37 -0400

A social movement to get a law repealed.