Communism

For as long as humanity has walked the halls of history, tyrants have sought to lay claim to everything their eyes fall upon, and just as long, there have been brave ones who respond with a resounding No. From the brutal extractivism that marks the colonial projects to the abject poverty of wage labor, modern Duurn is rife with tyrants, and communists are among the latest of those who claim the heritage of resistance. Unlike other radicalisms which offer lofty ideals and mythologizing narratives of freedom or nationalism, the communist movement strives to provide no calcified image of future utopia. What it demands is simple: the abolition of the present state of things. What comes next will be shaped by the methods that emerge successful in this historic task.

What is Communism?

Science

Communism is a science. When Ino Welukh wrote the treatises that formed the nucleus of the modern communist movement, she created an economic and political framework that can be used to understand the world and its structures. There are some who use the name of communism to offer clear visions of utopia, but that is sheer idealism and unrepresentative of the true materialist roots of the movement. The ones equipped with this science have a responsibility to pass it on to the dispossessed, arming them with the tools they need to change the world.

Hope

Communism is hope. Hope that what is now will not always be; that there is a future worth fighting for. The movement offers a vision of a better world, no matter what some say about it offering no map of the future. To the dispossessed of Duurn, who possess nothing and may not know that they will have food or a place to sleep in a week, this is something to die for. And what of those who take up this mantle? They are the most beautiful people in the world, whose hearts burst forth with love for their fellow person. Who better to fight for a better future? Communism will win, and the future is bright.

Failure

Communism is failure. Its history is nothing more than suffering, littered with broken bodies and shattered minds. Its bloodstained priests cry forth a siren song of a better world, sucking in those who are desperate, foolish, or resentful enough to listen. They go forth, with death on their lips and bombs in their hands. Incapable of building anything, they destroy instead, tearing at the world built by better people than they. Of course, the greatest irony of all is that those most hurt by the communist movement are often those they claim to represent. It is the working class that fights and dies both for and against the communist scourge, and all for nothing.

History of the Communist Movement

Communism emerged, like many radical ideologies, in the period after the Age of Idealism and the Wellspring of Nations. When the Wellspring failed to live up to the promises of its lofty idealogues, many were disillusioned with liberalism and even its more radical cousins. They watched the world, which once seemed so promising, grind forward into a new age of alienation and oppression. Capitalism, rapidly becoming the dominant economic system of Duurn, created a new class of landless laborers who were forced to sell their bodies and time to survive in a precarious world. Nationalism, liberty, and idealism became blindfolds to keep the working masses docile and subservient.

Among the first to provide a comprehensive critical analysis of this new order was Ino Welukh, who participated as a republican in the First Tehanti Revolution. Her analysis of class structure and economics became fundamental in the formation of the communist movement. In the 1260s, Robierre Clement built on the foundation she created and offered further critique of the early communist movement itself. He criticized what he called a reactionary impulse to idealize the agrarian past. His ideas of social organization eventually formed the basis for republican communism, sometimes called Clementism.

Though communists and their ideas were present within rebellious movements from the early 1200s on, it was the Jiderani Uprisings of 1281-83 that caused communism to explode into the collective imaginings of Duurn. Its ideas continued to spread across Duurn through the early 1300s. In that period, libertarianism became more closely intertwined with communism, and federalism became a core component of the communist movement, based on the works of Ahlist Magahwo and other writers of the time.