The ideas and social movements that comprise communism have been around for centuries. As such, I would think that to name just one person as having been the starter or "father" of it would be difficult to come up with if we truly research how and where it developed.
The idea of a classless, stateless society based on communal ownership of property and wealth stretches far back in Western thought long before The Communist Manifesto. Some have traced communist ideas back to ancient times, such as in Pythagoreanism and Plato's The Republic; or (perhaps with more justification) to the early Christian Church, as described in the Acts of the Apostles (see Christian communism)
If you're wanting to know about modern communism, then yes, I would think that Karl Marx would have been the main one to develop the ideas for it.
I'm just wondering why so many great minds are focused on the society of communism (great minds as are in great leadership).
Lenin, Ho Chi Minh, Mao Zedong, much much more was some of the greatest leaders the world has ever seen, and they all focused on how to get as much power and to eliminate as much opposes as possible. Why? If they could all work together and do some good, the world will be much better place.
You see, Communism (TRUE communism, as Marx envisioned it) would be Utopia, no worries, no problems, everything would be fine.
The problem is, people. Human nature prevents them from letting their neighbor having what we have. We always have to have more, and that ruins it.
In short, greed.
Below, is a quote about how Mahatma Gandhi felt about communism. He would certainly be considered to be one of the greatest people the world has ever know. I thought you would find his thoughts and views interesting. The way that he viewed things was for the common good and not self-serving.
I do commend you on being interested in such a subject and also your positive and proactive ways of thinking towards a way for society to be, if the starting and maintaining of such a society is placed into the hands of the correct people.
Gandhi was an advocate for socialism and communism, but warned that it was not the same as that imagined by the Europeans and Americans. Writing in the English Daily Amrita Bazar Patrika on August 2-3, 1934, he said, "Socialism and communism of the West are based on certain conception which are fundamentally different from ours. One such conception is their belief in essential selfishness of human nature. I do not subscribe to it for I know that the former can respond to the call of the spirit in him, can rise superior to the passions that he owns in common with the brute and, therefore, superior to selfishness and violence, which belong to the brute nature and not to the immortal spirit of man ... Our socialism or communism should, therefore, be based on nonviolence and on harmonious co-operation of labour and capital, landlord and tenant."
Gandhi categorically rejected class war as being incompatible with nonviolence: "The idea of class war does not appeal to me. In India a class war is not inevitable, but it is avoidable if we have understood the message of nonviolence. Those who talk about class war as being inevitable, have not understood the implications of nonviolence or have understood them only skin-deep."
He believed that communism could be built without abolishing the class-structure of society. He thought it possible to convince capitalist and worker to cooperate instead of being in conflict: "I am working for the co-operation and co-ordination of capital and labour, of landlord and tenant ... I have always told mill owners that they are not exclusive owners of mills and workmen are equal sharers in ownership. In the same way, I would tell you that ownership of your land belongs as much to the ryots as to you, and you may not squander your gains in luxurious or extravagant living, but must use them for the well-being of ryots. Once you make your ryots experience a sense of kinship with you and a sense of security that their interests as members of a family will never suffer at your hands, you may be sure that there cannot be a clash between you and them and no class war."
At the same time Gandhi believed in struggling against exploitation: "I never said that there should be co-operation between the exploiter and the exploited so long as exploitation and the will to exploit persists. Only I do not believe that the capitalists and the landlords are all exploiters by an inherent necessity or that there is a basic or irreconcilable antagonism between their interests and those of the masses. All exploitation is based on co-operation, willing or forced, of the exploited. However much we may detest admitting it, the fact remains that there would be no exploitation if people refuse to obey the exploiter." For Gandhi struggle should be conducted through nonviolence, and he warned that one must never be passive in the face of evil; that violence was better than cowardice.
Gandhi foresaw a socialist India achieved through nonviolence. As he wrote in Harijan in 1940 (quoted in My View of Trusteeship, "Antagonism between the classes will be removed. I do not envisage a dead and artificial level among the people. There will be a variety among them as there is among the leaves of a tree. There will certainly be no have-nots, no unemployment, and no disparity between classes and masses such as we see to-day. I have no doubt whatsoever that if non-violence in its full measure becomes the policy of the State, we shall reach essential equality without strife."
Gandhi's analysis was paradoxical. On the one hand he rejected class struggle and foresaw cooperation between the classes. On the other hand, he called for perpetual struggle against exploitation and foresaw the day when there would be no more social classes. In the end it would seem that his strategic vision was a classless society not unlike that foreseen in the Communist Manifesto but that the means for arriving there was through nonviolence rather than violence.
In addition to all the above, the communist states of today are really just totalitarian states that do not reflect any of the grand notions of true, utopian communism. China and North Korea are "thug" nations that have kids starving in the streets, don't repect things like human rights, counterfit other country's money, etc. The olympic committee was nuts to allow the last olympics in China because they don't care about killing people with dirty air, either.
I majored in government and politics in college and think it would be great to see if a nation could actually operate under true communist principles without the horrors of totalitarianism hanging over it. In the USSR, they weren't even able to keep the grocery store shelves stocked even though you could be shot for not doing your part, which many were.
About the only ones that I've known to really work, are really small communes within a country where the communes didn't have very many people in them.
Bigger isn't necesarilly better, in that regard...
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