Hello, r/AskHistorians. Here is a little beforehand context on my question:
I was talking with a friend about the post-WW1 Germany and specifically with the German Communist movement/November Revolution and the middle class's fear of seizure of property if the communists ever came into power.
In my own reading of communism, anarchism, and other political ideologies on the left, i've often come into contact with the distinction between "personal" and "private" property whenever a text or ideology mentions the abolition of private property.
However, my friend mentioned that the German communists, and communists in general at the time, wanted to abolish all property (e.g. homes AND factories) and communalize it. I am not well versed on the history of communist ideologies, and so I am curious about this.
I've looked for information on this topic, but can't seem to find a good explanation of it. I would greatly appreciate in-depth sources on this subject matter for reading. Thanks, in advance.
Marxists and by extension communists advocate for the abolition of the private ownership of the means of production, meaning in Marxian terms and broadly defined as physical, non-human inputs used for the production of economic value, such as facilities, machinery, tools, infrastructural capital and natural capital, in short and in the words of Rosa Luxemburg as she put it in What is Bolshevism? "all social wealth the land and all that it produces, the factories and the mills must be taken from their exploiting owners to become the common property of the entire people."
Seizing political power in a state is a means to this specific end, to place the means of production in the hands of all. Which specific form this social ownership should take is matter of debate among different varieties of communists and there are those who advocate state ownership (a la Soviet Union), those who want to place the means of production under direct control of democratically elected councils (Luxemburg e.g.), those who advocate a form of direct democratic control on a limited scope and so and so forth.
The goal of the socialization of the means of production is – again in the words of Luxemburg "that production is to be carried on for the sole purpose of securing to all a more humane existence, of providing for all plentiful food, clothing and other cultural means of subsistence". She goes on to write
"It follows, therefore, that the process of socialization will begin with the most highly developed industries and farm lands. We need not, and will not deprive the small farmer or artisan of the bit of land or the little workshop from which he ekes out a meager existence by the work of his own hands. As time goes by he will realize the superiority of socialized production over private ownership and will come to us of his own accord."
I use all these quotes from Luxemburg, who as one, of not the main, proponent of communism in Germany in 1918 to demonstrate what she herself describes as the means of production that are to be socialized under socialism: It's not the bike you own or your couch or generally what constitutes your personal property, i.e. everything you own that is not directly used for the production of economic value. And even if it is, such as the small plot of land you farm, your small artisan's shop or the tools you own as a mechanic, you are also not going to lose them for in their political agenda, the German communists and other communists too prioritized the "highly developed industries" over all those things while relying on that the small farmer, artisan and so forth would soon recognize the superiority of the new system.
So, in short, no, neither the German nor other communists advocated the complete abolition of all property/ownership. Only that of the means of production.