Karl Marx and Communism

Karl Marx was a seminal 19th-century European thinker. He analyzed the unequal conditions under 19th-century capitalism and forecasted historical development that he perceived to lead toward Communism. Marx's works had a tremendous impact on the developments in the 19th and 20th centuries: from inspiring political parties to revolutions in Russia, China, and beyond.

Karl Marx and Communism: Definition

Communism is a key ideology of the Modern period the end goal of which was to establish an egalitarian, classless society based on communal sharing without a state and without private property. In turn, Marxism is the collected body of work and its principal theories by Karl Marx that inspired this ideology.

Fig. 1 - Karl Marx in 1875

Karl Marx: Biography

Karl Marx (1818–1883) was an economist, political theorist, and philosopher of Jewish-German descent. Marx is considered one of the most significant thinkers in the history of Western thought. His theories served as a foundation for revolutions around the world.

Born in Trier, Germany, Marx experienced anti-Semitism early on, as his father was pressured to convert to Protestantism. The young thinker chose to focus on the fields of philosophy and law in his studies as he attended the universities in Berlin, Bonn, and Jena.

Prior to settling in London, England, Marx resided in both Brussels and Paris. However, his political views and activist pursuits had him expelled from those cities. In addition to being his home base in exile, London also played a significant role in shaping Marx's worldview. The philosopher analyzed the socioeconomic conditions and the unequal relationship between the working class and big business by observing the appalling conditions of unrestrained capitalism during the Industrial Revolution.

In his youth, Marx also read the works of the German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and was influenced by them. One of the most important aspects of Hegel’s work for Marx was his dialectics.

Later, Marx and his colleague, Friedrich Engels (1820-1895), adapted Hegelian ideas to their own philosophical system. As a result, Marxian dialectic materialism pertained to real-world conditions. In turn, Marx and Engles viewed historical progress by thinking about class struggle. Marx examined these questions in his seminal works such as The Capital (1867-1883) and The Communist Manifesto (1848).

Fig. 2 - Girls aged 6-10 working in the oyster industry, by Lewis Wickes Hine, 1911/12, no known copyright restrictions

Karl Marx and Communism: Summary

There are two key aspects to Marx's work:

Karl Marx and Communism Theory

There are several important aspects to Marx's theories, including:

• a stateless society with communal ownership
• accumulation of wealth
• class struggle
• means of production
• the misery of the proletariat
• global revolution

Karl Marx and Communism: Private Property

Marx believed that private property is an aspect of unequal social relations throughout history and, especially, under capitalism. He predicted that an eventual erosion of the state would occur after a social revolution. In a new egalitarian society, property would be shared.

Karl Marx and Communism: Class Struggle

Karl Marx viewed history as one of class struggle even before the rise of capitalism in Early Modern Europe. Class struggle is the unequal relationship between the laborers and those at the top of the social hierarchy in which the latter exploit the former. Capitalism is a mere stage in this linear historical trajectory.

Terminology

Capitalism

Capitalism is typically defined as an economic system controlled by private interests and driven by market forces. Capitalism developed alongside the Industrial Revolution when European and American societies moved away from agrarian and craft-based economies to mass-scale manufacturing. However, in Marx's view, capitalism is not simply an economic system but one of the unequal relations between the producers and those who control the means of production. For this reason, the goal of Marx's revolutionary ideas was for the workers (producers) to control the means of production.

Accumulation

Marx argued that, over time, wealth is accumulated in fewer and fewer hands. This aspect of prediction is accurate. However, some countries introduced a legal framework to challenge monopolization.

Misery

In Marx's view, the capitalist exploitation of the proletariat increased the suffering (misery) of the latter by using the following:

• long working hours
• low wages
• unemployment

This suffering was supposed to spill over into a social revolution.

However, historians point out that the gradual introduction of labor rights codified into law improved the working conditions in the late 19th-early 20th century. As a result, revolutions did not occur in industrially developed countries, but rather, in their agrarian counterparts.

Global Revolution

This social revolution was to be global in nature, according to Marx. He and his colleague, Engels, also suggested that the revolution might start in the colonies rather than in Europe itself. After all, the colonial conditions were even worse than those of the European working class.

Withering Away of the State

The disappearance of the state is a crucial feature of Marx's historical forecast:

1. Proletarian misery boils over and leads to a revolution
2. The working class establishes the so-called dictatorship (rule) of the proletariat
3. Eventually, the state withers away, and an egalitarian, classless society emerges

Karl Marx and Communism: World History

Marx believed that revolutions could start in industrialized countries of Western Europe and sweep the rest of the world. Instead, for many reasons, such as the improvements in labor conditions, a revolution did not take place. They occurred in largely agrarian countries like Russia, China, Cuba, and North Korea. However, Marx left affected political movements and thought in Europe, nonetheless.

Political Movements and Parties

The Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) was one of the first and the largest political parties to be inspired by the work of Karl Marx. It was established in 1863 and remained influential into the early 20th century. By the middle of the 20th century, the SPD stopped strictly adhering to Marxist ideology and became a mainstream left-wing entity.

Fig. 3 - Raise the Flag of Marx, Engels,Lenin, and Stalin Higher, Soviet poster by Gustav Gustav Klucis (Klutsis), 1936

Russia

Vladimir Lenin (1870-1924), the father of the Russian Revolution, and his Bolshevik allies overthrew the provisional government in 1917 power since the abdication of the Tsar earlier that year. The revolution was successful for many reasons such as the discontent with World War I. Lenin followed Marxist ideas and was an intellectual in his own right.

Russia was the first successful example of a Marx-inspired revolution. However, it was also a largely agrarian society, which industrialized after the revolution starting in 1928 contrary to Marx's forecast. At the same time, Russia—as the newly established Soviet Union—consolidated and centralized state power at the same time. Instead of Marx's erosion of the state, a powerful, bureaucratic state arose. Finally, in the 1930s, the Soviet Union turned inward focusing on what its leadership called socialism in one country rather than a global revolution as Marx predicted.

China

The People’s Republic of China was established in 1949 by the revolutionary leader Mao Zedong (1893-1976). Mao was inspired both by Marx and by the successful revolution in Russia. Maoism was the Chinese variant of a Marxist-inspired doctrine specific to that country's conditions. Similar to Russia, China was a largely agrarian country. And, like Russia, China developed a strong, centralized state led by the Communist Party contrary to Marx's forecast.

Fig. 4 - Student protests in France in 1968 with posters featuring Mao, Lenin, and Marx