The Dangers of Communism for Indonesian Democracy (3)

There is an old anecdote that neatly captures the perceived difference between Socialism and Communism. Imagine a farmer with two cows. Under socialism, the government comes and takes one cow, leaving the farmer with the other, and then promises to ensure that everyone in the village has milk. Under communism, the government comes and takes both cows, and then tells the farmer that he will receive some of the milk whenever the state decides, provided there is any left. The humour of this anecdote lies in its simplicity: socialism is portrayed as an attempt to balance fairness and individual possession, while communism is caricatured as the complete surrender of personal property to a system that often fails to return the benefits equally. Though exaggerated, such stories reveal how ordinary people historically tried to make sense of abstract political ideologies through everyday images.

Now, let’s put it in modern terms with something everyone knows: Netflix. Under socialism, you have a Netflix account, and the government tells you that you need to share your password with your neighbours so that everyone gets access. You still keep your account, and you can still watch your shows, but now it is also about ensuring fairness in the community. Under communism, however, the government takes away your Netflix account entirely, merges it into one giant state account, and then declares that everyone will get to watch—but you might have to wait for the official schedule, and sometimes the internet goes down just as the finale is about to play. This playful analogy highlights how socialism still leaves room for individual use while aiming for equality, whereas communism is imagined as total control, where personal choice is absorbed into the collective system.

Picture it with food delivery apps, since that’s something close to daily life. Under socialism, you order a pizza through an app, and the government tells you that one slice must be shared with your neighbour who cannot afford to order. You still get the rest of the pizza, and your neighbour gets to eat too, so fairness is maintained while your order remains yours. Under communism, however, the government intercepts your pizza before it arrives, puts it into a huge communal pot with everyone else’s orders, and then redistributes portions according to what they think is fair. You might end up with a slice of pizza, half a burger, and some noodles you never ordered, and the delivery takes forever. This story playfully underlines the contrast: socialism still respects your initial order while asking you to share, whereas communism erases the individual order entirely for the sake of collective distribution.

Let’s imagine it with ride-hailing apps, something everyone in the city relies on. Under socialism, you book an ojek online, and the government says: “All right, you keep your ride, but the driver must also pick up another passenger going in the same direction so that transport is fairer.” You still get to your destination, though you might have to share the seat, and the idea is that more people benefit from the same system. Under communism, however, the government removes the concept of private bookings altogether. Instead of your personal ride, all ojeks are pooled into a giant state-run service. You queue up with everyone else, and when your turn comes, you’re told where you’re going based on what the system thinks is best, not where you actually want to go. The humour here shows how socialism still gives you your ride but asks you to share it, while communism erases your individual choice in favour of total collective control.

Think of it this way: socialism and communism can be explained through everyday things we all know. With cows, socialism means the government takes one and leaves you the other, so everyone still has milk; communism takes both and then promises you milk later, if any remains. With Netflix, socialism makes you share your password with the neighbours, while communism deletes your account and gives you a slow state account where the finale freezes just before the big reveal. With food delivery, socialism means you keep your pizza but share a slice, while communism blends your pizza, burger, and noodles into a giant stew and hands you whatever portion the state decides. And with ride-hailing, socialism lets you take your trip but adds another passenger, while communism cancels your booking entirely and sends you wherever the central queue thinks you should go. These light-hearted stories show the same point: socialism still allows some personal space while redistributing for fairness, but communism imagines a total collective world where the individual often vanishes.

Socialism and communism are often spoken of in the same breath, yet they represent distinct stages and philosophies within the broader spectrum of leftist thought. Socialism, in its essence, is an economic and political system that seeks to reduce inequality by placing key industries and resources under public or state ownership, while still allowing a degree of private enterprise and democratic participation. It is less radical in its approach, envisioning a society where wealth is distributed more fairly, yet without necessarily abolishing the state or private property entirely. Communism, by contrast, is both an ideological vision and a projected end-state in which all class distinctions are dissolved, private property is eliminated, and resources are shared collectively, with the ultimate aim of creating a stateless and classless society. Historically, socialism came first, particularly in the early nineteenth century, as a response to the harsh inequalities of industrial capitalism; communism later emerged, most notably through the works of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, as a more radical and comprehensive critique, proposing a revolutionary path that would eventually transcend socialism.

In practice, socialism has been applied in a variety of ways, ranging from Scandinavian social democracy to the more state-centred models of the twentieth century. In countries such as Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, socialism has taken the form of welfare states where healthcare, education, and social security are provided universally, yet private businesses still thrive under regulated capitalism. This is often described as democratic socialism, balancing market freedom with social justice. Communism, on the other hand, has been more rigidly applied in nations such as the former Soviet Union, Maoist China, and Fidel Castro’s Cuba, where the state assumed near-total control over the economy and political life, aiming to abolish class distinctions altogether. However, the communist model often led to authoritarian governance, shortages, and repression, making its utopian ideal far removed from the reality experienced by ordinary citizens.

In the twenty-first century, socialism and communism are no longer seen in the stark, Cold War terms that once dominated global politics. Socialism, in many parts of the world, has been reimagined as a pragmatic effort to balance market economies with social protections. It often takes the form of welfare states, universal healthcare, or free education, and has gained renewed attention in times of economic inequality and environmental crisis. For younger generations, socialism is less about heavy state control and more about ensuring dignity and fairness in an age where billionaires exist alongside widespread poverty. Communism, however, is generally regarded with greater scepticism. After the collapse of the Soviet Union and the transformation of China into a hybrid of communism and capitalism, many now see it as an unworkable system that too often slides into authoritarianism. Yet, its ideals—such as radical equality and resistance to exploitation—still inspire some movements, particularly among activists critical of global capitalism. In essence, socialism has been modernised and mainstreamed, while communism survives more as a symbol of revolutionary spirit than a realistic model for governance in the contemporary world.

In the twenty-first century, several political figures and movements have become closely associated with what is often called “modern socialism” or “democratic socialism.” In the United States, Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have brought the term back into mainstream debate, pushing for policies like Medicare for All, free university education, and stronger protections for workers. In the United Kingdom, Jeremy Corbyn revitalised the Labour Party’s left-wing with a vision of greater public ownership and wealth redistribution, though his influence has since waned. In Latin America, leaders such as Evo Morales in Bolivia and the late Hugo Chávez in Venezuela embraced a more radical “socialism of the twenty-first century,” combining social welfare programmes with state control of natural resources. Meanwhile, Scandinavian countries like Denmark, Sweden, and Norway continue to embody a softer, pragmatic version of socialism through their extensive welfare states, which are admired globally for blending prosperity with equality. These diverse examples show that while socialism today is not one-size-fits-all, it continues to shape political debates in ways communism no longer does.

Communism in the twenty-first century rarely functions as a living system of government, yet it survives as both a historical memory and a cultural symbol. In politics, explicitly communist parties still exist in countries such as China, Vietnam, and Cuba, but their systems are now hybrids, mixing state control with varying degrees of market economy. Beyond official politics, communism often appears as an inspiration in activist movements that resist global capitalism, climate destruction, or extreme inequality. Protesters sometimes carry red flags or images of Che Guevara not because they literally want the Soviet model back, but because communism’s language of revolution and radical equality still resonates. In popular culture, the hammer and sickle often functions more as an icon of rebellion than a programme for governance, appearing on T-shirts, murals, or even music videos. Thus, communism today lives less as a practical roadmap and more as a radical imagination, a reminder that another world, however flawed its past attempts, might still be possible.

Communist imagery and themes have found their way into a surprising number of works in popular culture, sometimes used seriously and at other times with irony. In cinema, films like The Death of Stalin (2017) turn the grim history of Soviet leadership into sharp political satire, while older classics like Reds (1981) reflect on the revolutionary spirit with more seriousness. In music, bands such as Rage Against the Machine and even punk groups in the 1980s often employed communist symbols like the red star or hammer and sickle to signal defiance against corporate and political power. Fashion has also absorbed these motifs: the face of Che Guevara became one of the most reproduced images of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, appearing on T-shirts, posters, and street art worldwide, often stripped of its original ideological weight and rebranded as a universal symbol of rebellion. Even in video games, communist aesthetics surface in titles like Call of Duty or Red Alert, where Soviet imagery is exaggerated into dramatic or humorous form. What all of these examples show is that, in the cultural imagination, communism has shifted from being a concrete political programme into a flexible symbol—sometimes feared, mocked, but often admired for its spirit of resistance.

The history of socialism begins in the early nineteenth century, emerging as a response to the upheavals of the Industrial Revolution. As factories expanded and cities grew, working people were subjected to harsh conditions: long hours, low wages, child labour, and overcrowded slums. Intellectuals, reformers, and activists began to argue that unrestrained capitalism created vast inequality and human suffering. Early socialists, sometimes called “utopian socialists” such as Robert Owen in Britain, Charles Fourier in France, and Henri de Saint-Simon, imagined cooperative communities where wealth and responsibility were shared more fairly. Their ideas were often idealistic, but they laid the foundation for later movements.

By the mid-nineteenth century, socialism had gained a sharper edge with Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, who argued in The Communist Manifesto (1848) that history was driven by class struggle. They believed capitalism would inevitably collapse under its own contradictions, to be replaced first by socialism, and eventually by communism. Socialism, for them, was a transitional stage in which the working class would seize control of the state and the economy.

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, socialism developed into organised political parties and labour movements. Across Europe, socialist parties fought for workers’ rights, universal suffrage, and social welfare programmes. Some branches remained revolutionary, calling for overthrow of capitalist systems, while others evolved into democratic socialism, working within parliamentary politics to achieve reform.

By the twentieth century, socialism was no longer a fringe idea: it shaped welfare states in Scandinavia, influenced Labour politics in Britain, and even guided decolonisation movements in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. While communism became associated with authoritarian regimes, socialism persisted in more flexible forms, adapting itself to democratic systems and global challenges. Today, socialism remains a recurring theme in debates about fairness, inequality, and social responsibility, underscoring the enduring relevance of its roots in the Industrial Revolution.

In the nineteenth century, Friedrich Engels sought to clarify the difference between idealistic dreams of equality and a scientific approach to social change. His book Socialism: Utopian and Scientific (1880, Charles H. Kerr & Company) laid down the intellectual framework that distinguished utopian experiments from a theory rooted in material conditions and class struggle. This work became a cornerstone for generations of activists who sought to see socialism not as a fantasy, but as a disciplined method for interpreting history and reshaping society.

Engels in Socialism: Utopian and Scientific set out to demonstrate how socialism had moved beyond the realm of abstract dreams into the arena of material science. He argued that the so-called utopian socialists, such as Saint-Simon, Fourier, and Owen, were historically important because they first expressed the moral outrage against the contradictions of early capitalism. However, their visions remained detached from real economic forces and practical struggles, relying instead on imaginative schemes and appeals to universal reason. Engels insisted that true socialism could only be grasped through the scientific understanding of history, especially the materialist conception that social structures evolve from the development of productive forces and the class conflicts they generate. He identified capitalism as a dynamic system that had created immense technological progress, but also crises, exploitation, and a growing proletariat. This working class, he maintained, would inevitably become the agent of historical change, overthrowing capitalist relations and building a new social order based on collective ownership and rational planning. Engels thus reframed socialism not as a moral plea or utopian fantasy, but as the necessary outcome of historical processes rooted in material conditions.

For Engels, socialism was not merely an ideal of fairness or a collection of benevolent schemes, but the scientific recognition of a historical necessity. He defined socialism as the social order that emerges when the contradictions of capitalism—its cycles of crisis, exploitation, and concentration of wealth—reach a breaking point. Unlike the utopians, who believed society could be reformed by moral persuasion or enlightened rulers, Engels insisted that socialism arises from the material development of productive forces and the struggles of the working class. In his conception, socialism meant the abolition of private ownership of the means of production, the end of class antagonisms, and the conscious organisation of the economy for the benefit of all. It was, for Engels, not a dream of how society ought to be, but the logical and necessary outcome of historical evolution, grounded in the realities of production and class conflict.

When Engels wrote Socialism: Utopian and Scientific in 1880, Europe was undergoing a period of rapid transformation. Politically, the continent was shaped by the aftermath of the revolutions of 1848, which had demonstrated both the power of mass movements and the resilience of conservative regimes. Nation-states such as Germany and Italy were consolidating their unifications, and parliamentary systems were expanding, though often under the tight grip of ruling elites. Socially, the Industrial Revolution had reshaped daily life: vast numbers of peasants had moved into the cities, factories dominated urban landscapes, and a new industrial working class was emerging alongside a bourgeoisie that controlled capital and political influence. Economically, capitalism was thriving, driving technological innovations and global markets, but it was also marked by recurring crises, unemployment, poverty, and glaring inequalities. Culturally, the age carried a tension between faith in progress through science and technology and deep anxieties about the dehumanising effects of industrial labour and the erosion of traditional ways of life.

Engels argued that socialism could no longer be dismissed as a beautiful dream precisely because these material transformations had made the contradictions of capitalism impossible to ignore. The suffering of the proletariat was not a matter of moral rhetoric alone, but a daily fact of life, recorded in strikes, demonstrations, and the growth of labour movements. For Engels, socialism had become a scientific necessity because it was rooted in the logic of historical development: the working class had grown into a collective force capable of reshaping society.

At the time, society’s view of socialism was deeply divided. Among the ruling classes and liberal bourgeoisie, socialism was often feared and ridiculed, painted as a dangerous fantasy that threatened property and order. Among intellectuals and reformers, some sympathised but dismissed it as impractical utopianism. Yet, within the working-class communities, socialist ideas gained ground as they resonated with the lived realities of exploitation and offered a vision of dignity and collective power. Thus, Engels was capturing a moment when socialism was shifting from being an idea mocked as naïve to being a real political and social force that elites could no longer ignore.

When Socialism: Utopian and Scientific was published, it quickly became more than a theoretical treatise; it served as an accessible manifesto for the German Social Democratic Party (SPD). At the time, the SPD was seeking to rally workers under a unified vision, countering both government repression and rival political currents. Engels’ text provided the perfect tool because it condensed complex Marxist ideas into language that ordinary workers could grasp without having to wade through the more difficult volumes of Capital. The SPD distributed the work widely, often in cheap editions, and it became one of the most read socialist pamphlets of the nineteenth century. Through it, workers encountered the idea that socialism was not a utopian wish but a scientific conclusion drawn from the realities of capitalism. This helped transform socialism from an intellectual minority view into a mass political identity. The text thus functioned as propaganda in the best sense of the word: not deception, but a persuasive and clarifying message that gave people a framework to understand their exploitation and a sense of historical purpose.

Engels and Marx shared a common foundation in their conception of socialism, yet the emphases of their definitions reveal different aspects of the same project. Engels, in Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, described socialism as the scientific outcome of historical development. For him, it was the necessary stage that arose when the contradictions of capitalism had matured, when private ownership of the means of production gave way to collective ownership, and when class antagonisms dissolved through the conscious organisation of economic life. His definition emphasised the historical inevitability of socialism and its scientific grounding in material conditions and class struggle.

Marx, in Critique of the Gotha Programme, offered a sharper glimpse into what socialism would look like in practice. He distinguished between the lower phase of communist society—often referred to as socialism—and its higher phase. In this lower phase, society would still carry the marks of the old order, distributing resources according to labour contributed: “from each according to his ability, to each according to his work.” Only in the higher phase of communism would distribution fully shift to “from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.” Marx’s definition thus placed greater focus on the transitional nature of socialism, as a step towards the fuller realisation of communism, while Engels emphasised the inevitability of socialism as a product of historical and economic laws.

Taken together, Engels presented socialism as the scientific necessity born of capitalist contradictions, while Marx depicted it as the practical first stage of a new society still struggling with the remnants of the old. Engels gave socialism its inevitability, Marx gave it its transitional character.

In the twentieth century, the contrasting emphases of Engels and Marx on socialism were taken up and reinterpreted by new political movements. Lenin, for instance, leaned heavily on Engels’ idea of socialism as a scientific necessity, but he also fused it with Marx’s notion of socialism as a transitional stage. For Lenin, socialism was the first stage of communism, requiring the dictatorship of the proletariat to suppress the remnants of the old ruling classes. He insisted that only a disciplined vanguard party could guide the working class through this turbulent phase, thereby institutionalising the idea of socialism not merely as historical inevitability but as a project demanding political organisation and state power.

On the other hand, social democrats in Europe moved closer to Engels’ scientific framing but stripped it of its revolutionary edge. They accepted the inevitability of social change but argued it could be achieved through gradual reforms—universal suffrage, social welfare policies, and state regulation of industry—rather than outright revolution. In doing so, they softened the sharp transitional character Marx described, presenting socialism less as a stage on the road to communism and more as a stable social order in its own right.

These divergent interpretations meant that, across the twentieth century, socialism could signify very different projects: for Leninists, a revolutionary stage leading to communism; for social democrats, a reformist alternative to capitalism; and for others, a scientific critique of exploitation that could be tailored to national circumstances. The enduring tension between Engels’ historical inevitability and Marx’s transitional character gave later generations both flexibility and conflict in defining what socialism really meant.

The divergence between Engels’ and Marx’s definitions of socialism fed directly into the great political divide of the twentieth century. In Western Europe, the Social Democratic tradition embraced Engels’ scientific framing of socialism as the logical answer to capitalism’s contradictions but deliberately detached it from Marx’s revolutionary transitional stage. Socialists in countries such as Germany, Britain, and Scandinavia argued that socialism could coexist with parliamentary democracy and evolve through reforms like welfare states, universal healthcare, and public education. They saw socialism not as a temporary stage toward communism, but as a stable and humane alternative to unrestrained capitalism.

Meanwhile, in the Soviet Union, Lenin and later Stalin leaned more heavily on Marx’s vision of socialism as a transitional stage on the path to full communism. For them, socialism required the seizure of state power, the abolition of private property, and central planning under the dictatorship of the proletariat. This model emphasised discipline, revolutionary authority, and a tightly controlled economy, justified as necessary steps toward the eventual withering away of the state in communism’s higher phase.

Thus, the twentieth century produced two competing socialist legacies: on one side, Western social democracy, reformist and parliamentary, presenting itself as socialism with a human face; on the other side, Soviet communism, revolutionary and authoritarian, insisting it embodied the true transitional stage of Marxist theory. The Cold War, in many ways, was also a struggle over which of these interpretations could claim to represent the authentic destiny of socialism.

The dual legacy of Engels’ and Marx’s definitions of socialism continues to shape political life today. In many Western countries, moderate left-wing parties—such as social democrats or labour parties—still operate within Engels’ tradition, treating socialism as a set of reforms that humanise capitalism rather than abolish it outright. They campaign for progressive taxation, welfare programmes, environmental regulations, and protections for workers, often presenting their policies as pragmatic steps rather than revolutionary upheavals. This approach reflects Engels’ scientific inevitability but in a softened form, where socialism is reinterpreted as fairness, social justice, and responsible governance.

On the other hand, radical left movements—whether in Europe, Latin America, or elsewhere—continue to echo Marx’s insistence on socialism as a transitional phase toward something more profound. These groups argue that reforms within capitalism can never address its fundamental contradictions, and they call instead for deeper structural change, from the abolition of private monopolies to experiments with collective ownership and participatory democracy. In their view, socialism cannot be a permanent compromise; it must remain the bridge toward a higher stage of social organisation.

As a result, the political left today often finds itself divided between moderates who seek to manage capitalism with a human face and radicals who aim to transcend it altogether. This ongoing tension shows that the Engels–Marx split was never just a historical debate, but a living fault line that continues to define the possibilities and limits of socialism in the twenty-first century.

[Part 4]
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