The political and economic theory holding that private ownership of the means of production should be abolished and replaced by common ownership, with the goal of a classless society — and the name for the revolutionary movements and states that have attempted to build it.
Communism is the most consequential political idea of the twentieth century — responsible for revolutions on five continents, states governing a third of humanity, and a Cold War that shaped every country on earth. Understanding it means understanding both what it promised and why those promises so often ended in catastrophe.