: One could cite other examples of societies whose life was to a significant degree based on socialist principles. But the ones we have already indicated show sufficiently clearly that the emergence of socialist states is not the privilege of any specific era or continent. It seems that this was the form in which the state arose: "the world's first socialist states" were the world's first states of any kind. Indeed, "primitive Communism" as Marx and Engels knew it, and refered to as such. However, note, that those communal arrangements were based on a totalitarian system, precisely because of the form of their historical development, i.e. an early society struggling to survive. the point Marx and engels make is that modern communism would have *abundance*, and would be free and democratic.
: If we turn to socialist doctrine, we see a similar picture herre too. These teachings did not arise either in the twentieth century or the nineteenth; they are more than two thousand years old. Their history can be divided into three periods.
Indeed, so, and as dialectical materialists Marx and Engels would see that idea developing through history, until the material conditions were available to make it a practical option.
None.
