Essay (for school, 5 paragraph) on Communism

While generally considered one of the worst forms of government, communism is greatly misunderstood. Countries such as the (now defunct) Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) are generally blamed for being “oppressive” and “totalitarian” to the people. The two terms may be true, however, only for the USSR under Stalinist rule. Generally, communism is a better form of government than a capitalist government.
Karl Marx is essentially the grandfather of communism. His works with Friedrich Engels, mainly Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei (Manifesto of the Communist Party) and Das Kapital (Capital) are the roots of modern communism. Communism is, in the most basic format, a government in which every person is economically equal. The state is to own all the land and share it with the people. There is no such thing as private property. While this at first seems like a bad idea, it’s for the good of the proletarians (the physically working class).
In Marxism, the original form of communism, there is to be a society without state or class. None of the so-called “communist” countries have ever achieved this- thus making them socialist countries. Socialism is, as defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary, “a stage of society in Marxist theory transitional between capitalism and communism and distinguished by unequal distribution of goods and pay according to work done.” However, they are socialist by Marxist definition. There are many different forms of communism, such as Leninism, Trotskyism, Stalinism, etc. Marxism is the most just form of communism and should such be the type a country is led by.
As previously stated, Marxism is the form of communism in which there is to be no state or class. Socialism is the step in-between. What seems to happen is that the rulers of the socialist countries abuse their power. They keep the power for themselves in the government, and end up being oppressive to the citizens. This is exactly where the hate comes from. The socialist leaders give the honest communists a bad name.
As everyone knows, art is a great way to communicate points and ideas. Communism is no exception to this rule. An easy way to represent it is with the powerful symbol of the hammer and sickle, which represents the working class. In the words of Karl Marx in the conclusion of The Communist Manifesto, “Working men of all countries, Unite!”