ABSTRACT
Communism in its modern form emerged out of the profound social, economic, political and cultural disjunctures caused by the emergence of capitalism and the growth of industrialization in the early nineteenth century. Communism is a political movement and a socio-economic system on the one hand, and a set of ideas and theories on the other. Communism as a set of ideas and as a form of community organization can only fully be understood against the background of the particular society in which it grew, and in particular the specific oppression against which it was directed. The bridge between pre-modern and modern communism was sketched by the philosophy of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, constructed during the French Revolution and first crossed by Franois Nel Babeuf's movement, the Conspiracy of Equals. Babeufs contribution to the history of communism is highly significant. He marks the transition between the earlier forms of agrarian/religious communism and the industrial and modern communism of the nineteenth century and beyond.
