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The topic of communism seems to come up quite often for me due to the fact that I grew up in the former Soviet Union, and many people ask me what it was like. What surprises me most is how many misconceptions there are about what communism is, and how long-lived and persistent those misconceptions are.

What we had in the former Soviet Union was not communism. Nor is what they have in China, or in North Korea, or in Cuba. The newly-elected president of Venezuela Ugo Chavez is not a communist - nor is Fidel Castro, nor was Joseph Stalin (nor Nikita Khrushvhev, nor Leonid Brezhnev, nor a handful of other Soviet Secretary Generals, including Gorbachev, much as I liked him).

Wikipedia has a good article on communism, and if you would like to avoid common errors in interpreting this societal structure, please read it. I received my first bits of information about socialism and communism from my father (I was about 6 or 7 years old at the time - yes, we start our education early). He summarized it briefly and - I thought - very well to demonstrate the difference between the two (and between them and what we had going on in the Soviet Union at the time).

The key principle behind socialism is "From everyone - by their abilities, to everyone - by their labor." In other words, everyone contributes to the society as much as he or she can, and receives back what he or she earns, which might or might not be enough to sustain their basic needs.

The summary of communism is "From everyone - by their abilities, to everyone - by their need." So, in theory in a communist society everyone contributes whatever he or she can, and receives whatever he or she needs, regardless of their contribution. The assumption is that everyone is evolved to a point, where they would be able to determine how much they need to contribute and how much they can take, to avoid being a burden on the society they live in.

As you have probably already figured out, both of these concepts are not nearly as horrible as everyone thinks them to be, nor are they bad at all. Just because a group of world leaders took them and twisted them beyond recognition doesn't make them bad. (Think Christianity - the principles behind Christian faith are great, but look how many horrible deeds were done in the name of god.)

My dad - a very practical man in general - was and still is a romantic as far as communism is concerned. Don't laugh - it is possible to be a romantic when it comes to the society you wish you could live in.

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