# Communism: rise and fall From the Manifesto to the dissolution of the Soviet Union, with the Chinese road as the surviving branch. *This story part of: Infrastructure and logistics* *Cultural Marxism: critical theory and the conspiracy theory part of this story* *The Cold War parallel this story* *Communism and the colonized: the Comintern and the anti-colonial generation part of this story* ## 1848 — Publication of the Communist Manifesto The 1848 publication of the Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels marks the dividing line between the Utopian Socialists and the period of scientific Socialism. > "The dividing line between the two parts is marked by the publication in 1848 of The Communist Manifesto of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels." > — Tragedy and Hope, p. 321-323 ## 21 February 1848 — Publication of the Communist Manifesto Marx and Engels publish the manifesto of the Communist League, setting out a theory of history driven by class struggle. It becomes the founding text of the communist movement. ## 28 September 1864 — Founding of the First International Workers and radicals meeting at St Martin's Hall in London found the International Workingmen's Association, with Karl Marx drafting its founding documents. It was the first attempt to unite the world's labor movements. ## 14 September 1867 — Publication of Das Kapital Karl Marx publishes the first volume of Das Kapital, his critique of political economy centered on the theory of surplus value. The book becomes the intellectual foundation of Marxist economics. ## 18 March 1871 to 1871 — Paris Commune Parisian workers and national guardsmen seize the city and govern it as a revolutionary commune for ten weeks before French government troops crush it in the Bloody Week. Marxists later treat it as the first attempt at working-class rule. ## 22 May 1875 — Gotha Congress unites German socialism The Lassallean and Marxist wings of German socialism merge at Gotha to form the Socialist Workers' Party, forerunner of the SPD. The compromise program prompts Marx's Critique of the Gotha Programme. ## 14 July 1889 — Founding of the Second International Socialist and labor parties from twenty countries found the Second International at a congress in Paris on the centenary of the Bastille's fall. It established May Day and International Women's Day before splitting over the First World War. ## 27 February 1900 — Founding of the Labour Representation Committee British trade unions and socialist societies meet at Memorial Hall and form the Labour Representation Committee to elect workers to Parliament. It becomes the Labour Party in 1906. ## July 1903 — Bolshevik and Menshevik split The Second Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party splits over party organization, dividing Lenin's Bolsheviks from the Mensheviks. The rift shapes the revolutionary movement that later takes power in Russia. ## 4 March 1919 — Founding of the Communist International At a congress in Moscow convened by Lenin, revolutionaries from around the world vote to establish the Third International, the Comintern, to promote world revolution under Bolshevik leadership. ## 1 March 1921 to 1921 — Kronstadt rebellion Sailors of the Kronstadt naval base rise against Bolshevik rule, demanding free soviets and an end to one-party control. The Red Army storms the fortress and the revolt's suppression marks the closing of dissent within the revolution. ## 23 July 1921 — Founding of the Chinese Communist Party About a dozen delegates, among them Mao Zedong, hold the first congress of the Chinese Communist Party in the Shanghai French Concession. The small group grows into the party that rules China from 1949. ## 30 December 1922 — Founding of the Soviet Union The Russian, Ukrainian, Belorussian, and Transcaucasian Soviet republics sign the treaty creating the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The world's first communist state is formalized as a federal union. ## c. November 1929 to c. 1933 — Stalin launches forced collectivization Stalin orders the mass collectivization of Soviet agriculture and the liquidation of the kulaks as a class. Millions of peasants are deported or die in the famines that follow. ## c. 1932 to c. 1933 — Holodomor famine in Ukraine Famine caused by forced collectivization and grain requisition kills millions in Soviet Ukraine. Many historians and governments class it as a man-made catastrophe directed at the Ukrainian peasantry. ## October 1934 to 1935 — The Long March Chinese communist forces retreat some 9,000 kilometers from Jiangxi to Shaanxi under Nationalist attack. The march secures Mao Zedong's leadership and becomes the founding legend of Chinese communism. ## c. 1936 to c. 1938 — The Great Terror Stalin's purges sweep the Soviet party, army, and society, with show trials of old Bolsheviks and mass executions by the NKVD. Around 750,000 people are shot and over a million sent to the Gulag. ## 28 June 1948 — Tito-Stalin split The Cominform expels Yugoslavia after Tito refuses subordination to Moscow. It is the first open break inside the communist bloc and leads Yugoslavia toward its own model of socialism and nonalignment. ## 25 February 1956 — Khrushchev's Secret Speech Khrushchev denounces Stalin's cult of personality and crimes in a closed session of the Twentieth Party Congress. The speech launches de-Stalinization and shakes communist parties worldwide. ## 23 October 1956 to 1956 — Hungarian Revolution of 1956 A national uprising against Soviet-imposed rule briefly installs a reform government under Imre Nagy. Soviet forces invade in November and crush the revolution, killing thousands. ## c. 1958 to c. 1962 — Great Leap Forward Mao's campaign to industrialize China through people's communes and backyard steel furnaces collapses into economic disaster. The resulting famine kills tens of millions of people. ## 1 January 1959 — Triumph of the Cuban Revolution Fulgencio Batista flees Cuba and Fidel Castro's guerrilla movement takes power. The revolution soon aligns with the Soviet Union, bringing communism to the Western Hemisphere. ## c. July 1960 — Sino-Soviet split The alliance between the Soviet Union and China breaks down over ideology and leadership of the communist world, and Khrushchev withdraws Soviet advisers from China in 1960. Open polemics follow and the two powers become rivals. ## 16 May 1966 to 1976 — Launch of the Cultural Revolution Mao launches the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution to purge rivals and revive revolutionary fervor, unleashing the Red Guards against party officials and intellectuals. A decade of upheaval leaves more than a million dead. ## 5 January 1968 to 1968 — Prague Spring and the Warsaw Pact invasion Alexander Dubcek's reform government attempts socialism with a human face, loosening censorship and party control. Warsaw Pact armies invade in August and end the experiment. ## 17 April 1975 to 1979 — Khmer Rouge seizes power in Cambodia Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge takes Phnom Penh and empties the cities in pursuit of a radical agrarian communism. Its rule kills an estimated 1.5 to 2 million Cambodians before Vietnam invades in 1979. ## 18 December 1978 — Deng Xiaoping launches reform and opening The Third Plenum of the Eleventh Central Committee endorses Deng Xiaoping's program of market reform and opening to the world. China begins its shift from a planned economy toward state-managed capitalism. ## 31 August 1980 — Founding of Solidarity in Poland Striking shipyard workers led by Lech Walesa win the Gdansk Agreement, and the free trade union Solidarity is founded weeks later. It grows to ten million members and becomes the first mass opposition movement inside the Soviet bloc. ## 15 December 1986 — Vietnam adopts Doi Moi reforms The Sixth National Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam adopts Doi Moi, a program of market-oriented renovation. Vietnam moves from central planning toward a socialist-oriented market economy. ## 4 June 1989 — Tiananmen Square crackdown The Chinese army crushes pro-democracy protests centered on Tiananmen Square, killing hundreds or more. The crackdown sets China's course of economic opening without political liberalization. ## 26 December 1991 — Dissolution of the Soviet Union The Supreme Soviet formally dissolves the USSR, a day after Gorbachev's resignation and the lowering of the Soviet flag over the Kremlin. Seven decades of communist rule in Russia end and fifteen states take its place.