COMMUNISM

noun Etymology: French ~e, from commun common Date: 1840 1. a theory advocating elimination of private property, a system in which goods are owned in common and are available to all as needed, 2. capitalized a doctrine based on revolutionary Marxian socialism and Marxism-Leninism that was the official ideology of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, a totalitarian system of government in which a single authoritarian party controls state-owned means of production, a final stage of society in Marxist theory in which the state has withered away and economic goods are distributed equitably, communist systems collectively