There are many variants of communism, such as anarchist communism, Marxist schools of thought (including Leninism and its offshoots), and religious communism. These ideologies share the analysis that the current order of society stems from the capitalisteconomic system and mode of production; they believe that there are two major social classes under capitalism, that the relationship between them is exploitative, and that it can only be resolved through social revolution. The two classes under capitalism are the proletariat (working class), who make up most of the population and sell their labor power to survive, and the bourgeoisie (owning class), a minority that derives profit from employing the proletariat through private ownership of the means of production. Some variants additionally emphasize feudal classes, such as the peasantry and feudal lords, or other classes. According to this, a communist revolution would put the working class in power, and establish common ownership of property, the primary element in the transformation of society towards a socialist mode of production.
Outside the PRC, Maoism was a term, used from the 1960s onwards, usually in a hostile sense, to describe parties or individuals who supported Mao Zedong and his form of Communism, as opposed to the form practised in the Soviet Union, which these groups denounced as "revisionist." These groups usually rejected the term Maoism, preferring to call themselves Marxist–Leninists. Since the death of Mao and the reforms of Deng, most of these parties have disappeared, but various small Communist groups in a number of countries continue to advance Maoist ideas.
During the late 1930s, Stalin launched the Great Purge (also known as the "Great Terror"), a campaign to purge the Communist Party of people accused of sabotage, terrorism, or treachery; he extended it to the military and other sectors of Soviet society. Targets were often executed, imprisoned in Gulag labor camps or exiled. In the years which followed, millions of members of ethnic minorities were also deported.
...that Moscow City Hall, built in the 1890s to the tastes of the Russian bourgeoisie, was converted by Communists into the Central Lenin Museum after its rich interior decoration had been plastered over.
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Together with this inquestionable increase in the number of workers occupied in industry, we are also confronted in Soviet Russia with an increase in the number of unemployed registered on the Labour Exchange. The number of unemployed has attained about a million. There have been months when the number of unemployed has even exceeded that amount.
Unemployment is one of the most distressing phenomena in Russia at the present time, and we must take every measure to abolish it. Of the entire number of unemployed about one fourth, or 25%, are industrial workers, and the remainder is made up of the intelligentzia, the professions, office workers and unskilled labourers. I must admit that I personally do not place complete confidence in the official statistics of the Labour Exchange, because of that fact that all kinds of people are registered on the exchange for the sake of receiving those privileges for the unemployed and those conditions of hire which are guaranteed by the laws of the Soviet Republic, and which are inflexibly carried out. Here are registered not only those who are looking for work, but also those who would not accept work, and are merely looking for the privileges and exemptions which are connected with the category of unemployment. We have constantly discovered cases where people who have been arrested and sentenced to Pechora (a place of exile-to Archangel) on the charge of speculation, have been registered on the Labour Exchange as unemployed. Therefore in my opinion the official figures probably exceed the actual number of unemployed. But in general we must take cognizance of the growth of number of unemployed, which goes parallel with the growth of the number of workers occupied in industry.