Can somebody give me a brief history of communism?

Ah, very fun topic. 

The idea of communism started with both Karl Marx and Frederich Engels in The Communist Manifesto. It started spreading throughout Europe, especially to countries like France and Russia where the workers had to work in bad conditions for little to no pay. In the beginning of the 20th century, Vladimir Lenin gave birth to "Marxism-Leninism", and successfully implemented it in Russia after overthrowing the provisional government. After WW2, under Stalin, many Eastern European countries became puppets of Soviet Union, thus gaining communism as their primary party as well. Communism started to decline after the fall of Soviet Union.