Page:Collier's New Encyclopedia v. 03.djvu/123

LEFT COMMUNION 89 COMMUNISM spending in the rural districts to the English parish or township, and in towns to the English municipality. Each com- mune has a council elected by universal suffrage, and the council is presided over by a maire and one or more adjoints or assistants. In the larger communes the maire is selected by the central govern- ment out of the members of the council; in others he is appointed by the prefect of the department. The central govern- ment through its officials exercises gen- erally a very large control over the af- fairs of the commune. The rising of the Commune of Paris in 1871 should not be confounded with Communism (q. v.). It was a revolu- tionary assertion of the autonomy of Paris, that is, of the right of self-gov- ernment through its commune or munici- pality. The rising began on March 18, 1871, and was only suppressed 10 weeks later after long and bloody fighting be- tween the forces of the commune and a large army of the central government; 6,500 Communists having fallen during May 20-30, and 38,578 been taken pris- oners. COMMUNION, in theology, the act of partaking with others of the sacra- mental symbols in the Lord's Supper. For the first three centuries the com- munion was administered every Lord's Day; then it became more infrequent, and before long was limited to Easter, Whitsunday, and Christmas. Many neglecting it even on these days, the Council of Lateran, in 1215, ordered all Catholics to commune at least once a year, naming Easter as the time, an in- junction which the Council of Trent con- firmed. For the first seven centuries the practice was somewhat general of mixing water with the wine to symbolize the mystic union between Christ and the communicant's soul. Originally both bread and wine were administered, but in 1096, Pope Urban II. sanctioned the practice of omitting the wine when the communicant was a layman. This method the Council of Constance enjoined in 1414. It has since remained in force in the Church of Rome, but at the Re- formation communion in both kinds, as it is often termed, was restored to the laity. The word applies also to the com- munity of belief, and theoretically, at least, of Christian affection, existing among those who partake together of the Lord's Supper. From this use of the Latin word is derived the practice of calling the several denominations. Com- munions, as the Lutheran Communion, the Congregational Communion, etc. COMMUNISM, a system of society in which common property is the recognized form. In later times it is an attempt to prevent or remedy the evils arising out of the inequalities of private property by holding property in common. But in primitive societies, in the hunting and pastoral stages of civilization, commun- ism was universal. Long after the pri- vate use of land had been established, the common ownership of it by the tribe or clan was still recognized and enforced, and the arable land of the community was subject to periodical redistribution with the view to cultivation. Survivals of this system still exist in various coun- tries of the world, notably in the Mir of the Russian empire. The Soviet Re- public that succeeded in 1917 was in 1920 experimenting with communism. See Council of Workingmen and Soldiers. In the ancient world a partial com- munism prevailed in Crete and Sparta. During the decline of Greece more sys- tematic speculations and experiments in communism appeared. The most emi- nent example of the former w^as the Re- public of Plato. In Palestine, about the Christian era, the Essenes were a society of recluses with celibacy and the com- munity of goods. A most remarkable instance of com- munity of goods is that of the early Christians at Jerusalem, recorded in Acts iv: 32. During the middle ages, sects holding the community both of goods and women appeared, like the sect of the Giovannali in Corsica. At the Reformation the anabaptists Miinzer and Bockholt set up communism in Germany, and similar notions had a wide diffusion in other countries. The most eminent literary form of it was the Utopia of Sir Thomas More (1516). Campanella's "Civitas Solis" (1623) has a community of goods under the despotic rule of the wise men, with a working- day of four hours. At the discovery of America the Span- ish conquerors found a system of agri- cultural communism under a central des- potism both in Mexico and Peru. In the earliest English settlements in Amer- ica, both Virginia and New England, a system of common property was at- tempted, but soon abandoned. During the fermentation which preceded and ac- companied the French Revolution com- munistic ideas again emerged in the writings of Morelly and Mably. Socialism is a vague phenomenon which must not be identified with com- munism. In the anarchist, as also in the Marx school to a considerable degree, socialism takes the form of a systematic