Communist society

In Marxist thought, a communist society or the communist system is the type of society and economic system postulated to emerge from technological advances in the productive forces, representing the ultimate goal of the political ideology of communism. A communist society is characterized by common ownership of the means of production with free access to the articles of consumption and is classless, stateless, and moneyless, implying the end of the exploitation of labour.

Communism is a specific stage of socioeconomic development predicated upon a superabundance of material wealth, which is postulated to arise from advances in production technology and corresponding changes in the social relations of production. This would allow for distribution based on needs and social relations based on freely-associated individuals.

The term communist society should be distinguished from the Western concept of the communist state, the latter referring to a state ruled by a party which professes a variation of Marxism–Leninism.

Xue Muqiao wrote that within the socialist mode of production there were several phases. Su Shaozhi and Feng Langrui article created two subdivisions within the socialist mode of production; the first phase was the transition from the capitalist mode of production to the socialist mode of production—the phase in which the proletariat seized power and set-up the dictatorship of the proletariat and in which undeveloped socialism was created. The second phase was advanced socialism; the socialism that Marx wrote about. The notion that socialism and Communism are distinct historical stages is alien to Karl Marx work and only entered the lexicon of Marxism after his death. It is said that Karl Marx distinguishes between two phases of marketless communism: an initial phase, with labor vouchers, and a higher phase, with free access.