Gandhism and Communism Compared

In one line

Gandhism and communism agree that the present arrangement of wealth is indefensible and disagree about almost everything else: about violence, about the state, about industry, about property, and about whether means and ends can be separated.

In the wording a student can write in an exam: Gandhism and communism share a rejection of the existing distribution of wealth, a concern for the poorest and a hostility to exploitation, but they differ fundamentally in that communism holds class conflict to be the motor of history and revolution the means of change, while Gandhism holds that means and ends are inseparable and that non-violence is therefore obligatory; that communism seeks the abolition of private property in the means of production while Gandhism seeks its retention under trusteeship; that communism is industrial and centralising while Gandhism is agrarian and decentralising; and that communism is materialist while Gandhism is founded on a spiritual conception of the person.

What they agree about

An answer that begins with the agreements is stronger, because the disagreements are only interesting once the common ground is clear.

That the existing distribution of wealth is indefensible. Both regard extreme inequality as a wrong requiring change and not as a natural fact.

That exploitation is real. Gandhi's language is different, but his objection to the mill owner who grows rich on the labour of the poor is an objection to the same relation.

That the poorest are the point. Antyodaya and the proletariat's centrality are different formulations of the same priority.

That the existing order will not reform itself. Both regard the beneficiaries as unlikely to give up what they hold voluntarily, which is why Gandhi organised strikes as well as appealing to conscience.

Hostility to colonialism, and both movements treated imperial rule as an economic relation and not only a political one.

And a shared final image. Both look forward to a society without coercive authority: Gandhi's ideal of enlightened anarchy, in which everyone is their own ruler, and Engels's withering away of the state, are strikingly similar destinations reached by opposite roads.

Where they differ

1. Means and ends

The deepest difference, and every other one follows from it.

Communism is consequentialist about method. The transformation is the end, and the means are chosen for their effectiveness, so revolutionary violence is justified by what it achieves.

Gandhism holds that means and ends are inseparable, with the same connection between them as between the seed and the tree. A society reached through violence will be a violent society, so the doctrine that the end justifies the means is exactly what he rejects.

2. Violence

Communism treats violence as sometimes necessary, and in the classical account as the midwife of the new society.