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Early communism
Further information: Primitive communism and Religious communism
Karl Heinrich Marx saw primitive communism as the original, hunter-gatherer state of humankind from which it arose. For Marx, only after humanity was capable of producing surplus, did private property develop.[citation needed]
In the history of Western thought, certain elements of the idea of a society based on common ownership of property can be traced back to ancient times .[3] Examples include the Spartacus slave revolt in Rome.[17]The fifth century Mazdak movement in what is now Iran has been described as "communistic" for challenging the enormous privileges of the noble classes and the clergy, criticizing the institution of private property and for striving for an egalitarian society.[18]
At one time or another, various small communist communities existed, generally under the inspiration of Scripture.[19] In the medieval Christian church, for example, some monastic communities and religious orders shared their land and other property. (See religious communism and Christian communism) These groups often believed that concern with private property was a distraction from religious service to God and neighbor.[3]
Communist thought has also been traced back to the work of 16th century English writer Thomas More. In his treatise Utopia (1516), More portrayed a society based on common ownership of property, whose rulers administered it through the application of reason.[3] In the 17th century, communist thought arguably surfaced again in England. In 17th century England, a Puritan religious group known as the Diggers advocated the abolition of private ownership of land.[citation needed] Eduard Bernstein, in his 1895 Cromwell and Communism[20] argued that several groupings in the English Civil War, especially the Diggers espoused clear communistic, agrarian ideals, and that Oliver Cromwell's attitude to these groups was at best ambivalent and often...