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Marxism
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Marxism is a particular political philosophy, economic and sociological worldview based upon a
materialist interpretation of history, a Marxist analysis of capitalism, a theory of social change, and a
view of human liberation derived from the work of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. The three primary
aspects of Marxism are:
1. The dialectical and materialist concept of history — Humankind's history fundamentally is a struggle
between social classes. The productive capacity of society is the foundation of society, and as this
capacity increases over time the social relations of production, class relations, evolve through this
struggle of the classes and pass through definite stages (primitive communism, slavery, feudalism,
capitalism). The legal, political, ideological and other aspects (e.g. art) of society are derived from these
production relations as is the consciousness of the individuals of which the society is composed.
2. The critique of capitalism — Marx argues that in capitalist society, an economic minority (the
bourgeoisie) dominate and exploit an economic majority (the proletariat). Marx argues that capitalism is
exploitative, specifically the way in which unpaid labor (surplus value) is extracted from the working
class (the labor theory of value), extending and critiquing the work of earlier political economists on
value. Such commodification of human labor according to Marx, creates an arrangement of transitory
serfdom. He argued that while the production process is socialized, ownership remains in the hands of
the bourgeoisie. This forms the fundamental contradiction of capitalist society. Without the elimination
of the fetter of the private ownership of the means of production, human society is unable to achieve
further development.
3. Advocacy of proletarian revolution — In order to overcome the fetters of private property the
working class must seize political power internationally through a social revolution and expropriate the
capitalist classes around the world and place the productive capacities of society into collective
ownership. Upon this, material foundation classes would be abolished and the material basis for all
forms of inequality between humankind would dissolve.
Contemporarily, Karl Marx’s innovative analytical methods — materialist dialectics, the labour theory of
value, et cetera — are applied in archaeology, anthropology,[1] media studies,[2] political science,
theater, history, sociological theory, cultural studies, education, economics, geography, literary criticism,
aesthetics, critical psychology, and philosophy.[3]
Contents
[hide]
* 1 Classical Marxism
o 1.1 Marx and Engels
o 1.2 Early intellectual influences
o 1.3 Principal ideas
+ 1.3.1 Exploitation
+ 1.3.2 Alienation
+ 1.3.3 Historical Materialism
# 1.3.3.1 Base and superstructure
# 1.3.3.2 Historical periodisation

+ 1.3.4 Class
# 1.3.4.1 Class consciousness
+ 1.3.5 Ideology
+ 1.3.6 Political economy
* 2 Marxist schools of thought
o 2.1 Marxism-Leninism
+ 2.1.1 Post-Stalin Moscow-aligned communism
# 2.1.1.1 Eurocommunism
+ 2.1.2 Anti-revisionism
# 2.1.2.1 Maoism
# 2.1.2.2 Hoxhaism
o 2.2 Marxism-Deleonism
o 2.3 Trotskyism
o 2.4 Left Communism
o 2.5 Western Marxism
+ 2.5.1 Structural Marxism
+ 2.5.2 Neo-Marxism
+ 2.5.3 The Frankfurt School
+ 2.5.4 Cultural Marxism
+ 2.5.5 Autonomist Marxism
+ 2.5.6 Analytical Marxism
+ 2.5.7 Marxist humanism
+ 2.5.8 Marxist theology
+ 2.5.9 Key Western Marxists
# 2.5.9.1 Georg Lukács

# 2.5.9.2 Karl Korsch
# 2.5.9.3 Antonio Gramsci
# 2.5.9.4 Herbert Marcuse
# 2.5.9.5 Jean-Paul Sartre
# 2.5.9.6 Louis Althusser
# 2.5.9.7 Hill, Hobsbawm, and Thompson
o 2.6 Post-Marxism
o 2.7 Marxist Feminism
* 3 Marxism as a political practice
o 3.1 History
o 3.2 Social Democracy
o 3.3 Socialism
o 3.4 Communism
+ 3.4.1 Marxism-Leninism
+ 3.4.2 Trotskyism
+ 3.4.3 Maoism
+ 3.4.4 Left communism
o 3.5 Disputing these claims
* 4 Criticisms
o 4.1 Right
o 4.2 Left
* 5 See also
* 6 Notes
* 7 References
* 8 External links
o 8.1 General resources
o 8.2 Introductory articles
o 8.3 Marxist websites
o 8.4 Specific topics
[edit] Classical Marxism
Main article: Classical Marxism
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The term Classical Marxism denotes the theory propounded by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.[citation
needed] As such, Classical Marxism distinguishes between “Marxism” as broadly perceived, and “what
Marx believed”; thus, in 1883, Marx wrote to the French labour leader Jules Guesde and to Paul
Lafargue (Marx’s son-in-law) — both of whom claimed to represent Marxist principles — accusing them
of “revolutionary phrase-mongering” and of denying the value of reformist struggle; from which derives
the paraphrase: “If that is Marxism, then I am not a Marxist”.[4] To wit, the US Marx scholar Hal Draper
remarked, “there are few thinkers in modern history whose thought has been so badly misrepresented,
by Marxists and anti-Marxists alike”.[5]
[edit] Marx and Engels
Main articles: Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels
Karl Marx - Founder of Marxism.
Karl Heinrich Marx (5 May 1818—14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, political economist, and
socialist revolutionary, who addressed the matters of alienation and exploitation of the working class,
the capitalist mode of production, and historical materialism. He is famous for analysing history in terms
of class struggle, summarised in the initial line introducing the Communist Manifesto (1848): “The
history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles”. His ideas were influential in his
time, and it was greatly expanded by the successful Bolshevik October Revolution of 1917 in Imperial
Russia.
Friedrich Engels, co-founder of Marxism.
Friedrich Engels (28 November 1820–5 August 1895) was a nineteenth century German political
philosopher and Karl Marx’s co-developer of communist theory. Marx and Engels met in September
1844; discovering that they shared like views of philosophy and socialism, they collaborated and wrote
works such as Die heilige Familie (The Holy Family). After the French deported Marx from France in
January 1845, Engels and Marx moved to Belgium, which then permitted greater freedom of expression
than other European countries; later, in January 1846, they returned to Brussels to establish the
Communist Correspondence Committee.
In 1847, they began writing The Communist Manifesto (1848), based upon Engels’ The Principles of
Communism; six weeks later, they published the 12,000-word pamphlet in February 1848. In March,
Belgium expelled them, and they moved to Cologne, where they published the Neue Rheinische Zeitung,
a politically radical newspaper. Again, by 1849, they had to leave Cologne for London. The Prussian
authorities pressured the British government to expel Marx and Engels, but Prime Minister Lord John
Russell refused.
After Karl Marx’s death in 1883, Friedrich Engels became the editor and translator of Marx’s writings.
With his Origins of the Family, Private Property, and the State (1884) — analysing monogamous
marriage as guaranteeing male social domination of women, a concept analogous, in communist theory,
to the capitalist class’s economic domination of the working class — Engels made intellectually
significant contributions to feminist theory and Marxist feminism.
[edit] Early intellectual influences
Main article: Influences on Karl Marx
Different types of thinkers influenced the development of Classical Marxism; the primary influences
derive from:
* German philosophers: Immanuel Kant, G. W. F. Hegel, Ludwig Feuerbach et al.
* British political economists: Adam Smith & David Ricardo et al.
* French social theorists: Jean-Jacques Rousseau; Charles Fourier; Henri de Saint-Simon; Pierre-Joseph
Proudhon; Flora Tristan; Louis Blanc et al.
and secondary influences derive from:
* Ancient materialism, e.g. Epicurus, Lucretius et al.
* Aristotle
* Giambattista Vico
* Lewis Morgan
* Charles Darwin
[edit] Principal ideas
These are the principal concepts of Marxism:
[edit] Exploitation
A person is exploited if he or she performs more labour than necessary to produce the goods that he
consumes; likewise, a person is an exploiter if he or she performs less labour than is necessary to
produce the goods that he consumes.[6] Exploitation is a matter of surplus labour — the amount of
labour one performs beyond what one receives in goods. Exploitation has been a socio-economic
feature of every class society, and is one of the principal features distinguishing the social classes. The
power of one social class to control the means of production enables its exploitation of the other
classes.
In capitalism, the labour theory of value is the operative concern; the value of a commodity equals the
total labour time required to produce it. Under that condition, surplus value (the difference between the
value produced and the value received by a labourer) is synonymous with the term “surplus labour”;
thus, capitalist exploitation is realised as deriving surplus value from the worker.
In pre-capitalist economies, exploitation of the worker was achieved via physical coercion. In the
capitalist mode of production, that result is more subtly achieved; because the worker does not own the
means of production, he or she must voluntarily enter into an exploitive work relationship with a
capitalist in order to earn the necessities of life. The worker's entry into such employment is voluntary in
that he or she chooses which capitalist to work for. However, the worker must work or starve. Thus,
exploitation is inevitable, and that the "voluntary" nature of a worker participating in a capitalist society
is illusory.
[edit] Alienation
Alienation denotes the estrangement of people from their humanity (German: Gattungswesen, “species-
essence”, “species-being”), which is a systematic result of capitalism. Under capitalism, the fruits of
production belong to the employers, who expropriate the surplus created by others, and so generate
alienated labourers.[7] Alienation objectively describes the worker’s situation in capitalism — his or her
self-awareness of this condition is unnecessary.
[edit] Historical Materialism
"Society does not consist of individuals, but expresses the sum of interrelations, the relations within
which these individuals stand."
— Karl Marx, Grundrisse, 1858 [8]
The historical materialist theory of history, also synonymous to “the economic interpretation of history”
(a coinage by Eduard Bernstein),[9] looks for the causes of societal development and change in the
collective ways humans use to make the means for living. The social features of a society (social classes,
political structures, ideologies) derive from economic activity; “base and superstructure” is the
metaphoric common term describing this historic condition.
[edit] Base and superstructure
The base and superstructure metaphor explains that the totality of social relations regarding “the social
production of their existence” i.e. civil society forms a society’s economic base, from which rises a
superstructure of political and legal institutions i.e. political society. The base corresponds to the social
consciousness (politics, religion, philosophy, etc.), and it conditions the superstructure and the social
consciousness. A conflict between the development of material productive forces and the relations of
production provokes social revolutions, thus, the resultant changes to the economic base will lead to the
transformation of the superstructure.[10] This relationship is reflexive; the base determines the
superstructure, in the first instance, and remains the foundation of a form of social organization which
then can act again upon both parts of the base and superstructure, whose relationship is dialectical, not
literal.[citation needed][clarification needed]
[edit] Historical periodisation
Marx considered that these socio-economic conflicts have historically manifested themselves as distinct
stages (one transitional) of development in Western Europe.[11]
1. Primitive Communism: as in co-operative tribal societies.
2. Slave Society: a development of tribal progression to city-state; Aristocracy is born.
3. Feudalism: aristocrats are the ruling class; merchants evolve into capitalists.
4. Capitalism: capitalists are the ruling class, who create and employ the proletariat.
5. Socialism: workers gain class consciousness, and via proletarian revolution depose the capitalist
dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, replacing it in turn with dictatorship of the proletariat through which the
socialization of the means of production can be realized.
6. Communism: a classless and stateless society.
[edit] Class
The identity of a social class derives from its relationship to the means of production; Marx describes the
social classes in capitalist societies:
* Proletariat: “those individuals who sell their labour power, and who, in the capitalist mode of
production, do not own the means of production“.[citation needed] The capitalist mode of production
establishes the conditions enabling the bourgeoisie to exploit the proletariat because the workers’
labour generates a surplus value greater than the workers’ wages.
* Bourgeoisie: those who “own the means of production” and buy labour power from the proletariat,
thus exploiting the proletariat; they subdivide as bourgeoisie and the petit bourgeoisie.
o Petit bourgeoisie are those who employ labourers, but who also work, i.e. small business owners,
peasant landlords, trade workers et al. Marxism predicts that the continual reinvention of the means of
production eventually would destroy the petit bourgeoisie, degrading them from the middle class to the
proletariat.
* Lumpenproletariat: criminals, vagabonds, beggars, et al., who have no stake in the economy, and so
sell their labour to the highest bidder.
* Landlords: an historically important social class who retain some wealth and power.
* Peasantry and farmers: a disorganised class incapable of effecting socio-economic change, most of
whom would enter the proletariat, and some become landlords.
[edit] Class consciousness
Class consciousness denotes the awareness — of itself and the social world — that a social class
possesses, and its capacity to rationally act in their best interests; hence, class consciousness is required
before they can effect a successful revolution.
[edit] Ideology
Without defining ideology,[12] Marx used the term to denote the production of images of social reality;
according to Engels, “ideology is a process accomplished by the so-called thinker consciously, it is true,
but with a false consciousness. The real motive forces impelling him remain unknown to him; otherwise
it simply would not be an ideological process. Hence he imagines false or seeming motive forces”.[13]
Because the ruling class controls the society’s means of production, the superstructure of society, the
ruling social ideas are determined by the best interests of said ruling class. In The German Ideology, “the
ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material
force of society, is, at the same time, its ruling intellectual force”.[14] Therefore, the ideology of a
society is of most importance, because it confuses the alienated classes and so might create a false
consciousness, such as commodity fetishism.[citation needed]
[edit] Political economy
The term political economy originally denoted the study of the conditions under which economic
production was organised in the capitalist system. In Marxism, political economy studies the means of
production, specifically of capital, and how that is manifest as economic activity.
[edit] Marxist schools of thought
[edit] Marxism-Leninism
Main article: Marxism-Leninism
Note: this is a discussion of Marxism-Leninism as a school of thought. For a discussion of its political
practice, see subsection Marxism#Marxism as a political practice below.
At least in terms of adherents and the impact on the world stage, Marxism-Leninism, also known
colloquially as Bolshevism or simply communism is the biggest trend within Marxism, easily dwarfing all
of the other schools of thought combined.[15] Marxism-Leninism is a term originally coined by the CPSU
in order to denote the ideology that Vladimir Lenin had built upon the thought of Karl Marx. There are
two broad areas that have set apart Marxism-Leninism as a school of thought.
First, Lenin's followers generally view his additions to the body of Marxism as the practical corollary to
Marx's original theoretical contributions of the 19th century; insofar as they apply under the conditions
of advanced capitalism that they found themselves working in. Lenin called this time-frame the era of
Imperialism. For example, Joseph Stalin wrote that
“ Leninism grew up and took shape under the conditions of imperialism, when the contradictions
of capitalism had reached an extreme point, when the proletarian revolution had become an immediate
practical question, when the old period of preparation of the working class for revolution had arrived at
and passed into a new period, that of direct assault on capitalism.[16] ”
The most important consequence of a Leninist-style theory of Imperialism is the strategic need for
workers in the industrialized countries to bloc or ally with the oppressed nations contained within their
respective countries' colonies abroad in order to overthrow capitalism. This is the source of the slogan
“ Workers and Oppressed Peoples of the World, Unite![17] ”
which is Lenin's twist on the traditional socialist slogan.
Second, the other distinguishing characteristic of Marxism-Leninism is how it approaches the question of
organization. Lenin believed that the traditional model of the Social Democratic parties of the time,
which was a loose, multitendency organization was inadequate for overthrowing the Tsarist regime in
Russia. He proposed a hardened cadre organization that disciplined itself under the model of
Democratic Centralism.
Marxism-Leninism was closely associated with the figure of Joseph Stalin until his death. Eventually after
the death of Stalin, Nikita Khrushchev became the leader of the Soviet Union, an act which ultimately
lead to the splintering of the Marxist-Leninism into several competing schools of thought.
[edit] Post-Stalin Moscow-aligned communism
At the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Khrushchev made several ideological
ruptures with his predecessor, Joseph Stalin. First, Khrushchev denounced the so-called Cult of
Personality that had developed around Stalin, which ironically enough Khrushchev had had a pivotal role
in fostering decades earlier. More importantly, however, Khrushchev rejected the heretofore orthodox
Marxist-Leninist tenet that class struggle continues even under socialism. Rather, the State ought to rule
in the name of all classes. A related principle that flowed from the former was the notion of peaceful co-
existence, or that the newly emergent socialist bloc could peacefully compete with the capitalist world,
solely by developing the productive forces of society.
[edit] Eurocommunism
Beginning around the 1970s, various communist parties in Western Europe, such as the Partito
Comunista Italiano in Italy and the Partido Comunista de España under Santiago Carillo tried to hew to a
more independent line from Moscow. Particularly in Italy, they leaned on the theories of Antonio
Gramsci, despite the fact that Gramsci happened to consider himself an orthodox Marxist-Leninist. This
trend went by the name Eurocommunism.
[edit] Anti-revisionism
There are many proponents of Marxist-Leninism who rejected the theses of Khrushchev, particularly
Marxists of the Third World.[citation needed] They believed that Khrushchev was unacceptably altering
or "revising" the fundamental tenets of Marxism-Leninism, a stance from which the label "anti-
revisionist" is derived. Typically, anti-revisionists refer to themselves simply as Marxist-Leninists,
although they may be referred to externally by the following epithets.
[edit] Maoism
Maoism takes its name from Mao Zedong, the erstwhile leader of the Peoples Republic of China; it is the
variety of anti-revisionism that took inspiration, and in some cases received material support, from
China, especially during the Mao period. There are several key concepts that were developed by Mao.
First, Mao concurred with Stalin that not only does class struggle continue under the dictatorship of the
proletariat, it actually accelerates as long as gains are being made by the proletariat at the expense of
the disenfranchised bourgeoisie. Second, Mao developed a strategy for revolution called Prolonged
People's War in what he termed the semi-feudal countries of the Third World. Prolonged People's War
relied heavily on the peasantry. Third, Mao wrote many theoretical articles on epistemology and
dialectics, which he called contradictions.
[edit] Hoxhaism
Hoxhaism, so named because of the central contribution of Albanian statesman Enver Hoxha, was
closely aligned with China for a number of years, but grew critical of Maoism because of the so-called
Three Worlds Theory put forth by elements within the Communist Party of China and because it viewed
the actions of Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping unfavorably. Ultimately, however, Hoxhaism as a trend
came to the understanding that Socialism had never existed in China at all.
[edit] Marxism-Deleonism
Marxism-Deleonism, is a form of syndicalist Marxism developed by Daniel De Leon. De Leon was an early
leader of the first US socialist political party, the Socialist Labor Party. This party exists to the present
day. De Leonism lies outside the Leninist tradition of communism. The highly decentralized and
democratic nature of the proposed De Leonist government is in contrast to the democratic centralism of
Marxism-Leninism and what they see as the dictatorial nature of the Soviet Union. The success of the De
Leonist plan depends on achieving majority support among the people both in the workplaces and at the
polls, in contrast to the Leninist notion that a small vanguard party should lead the working class to carry
out the revolution. Daniel De Leon and other De Leonist writers have issued frequent polemics against
'democratic socialist' movements, especially the Socialist Party of America, and consider them to be
"reformist" or "bourgeois socialist". De Leonists have traditionally refrained from any activity or alliances
viewed by them as trying to reform capitalism, though the Socialist Labor Party in De Leon's time was
active during strikes and such, such as social justice movements.
[edit] Trotskyism
Main article: Trotskyism
Trotskyism is the usual term for followers of the ideas of Russian Marxist Leon Trotsky. Trotsky was a
contemporary of Lenin from the early years of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, where he led
a small trend in competition with both Lenin's Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks; nevertheless Trotsky's
followers claim to be the heirs of Lenin in the same way that mainstream Marxist-Leninists do. There are
several distinguishing characteristics of this school of thought; foremost is the theory of Permanent
Revolution. This stated that in less-developed countries the bourgeoisie were too weak to lead their
own 'bourgeois-democratic' revolutions. Due to this weakness, it fell to the proletariat to carry out the
bourgeois revolution. However, with power in its hands the proletariat would then continue this
revolution (permanently), thus transforming it from a bourgeois to a socialist revolution, and from a
national to an international revolution.
Another shared characteristic between Trotskyists is a variety of theoretical justifications for their
negative appraisal of the post-Lenin Soviet Union; that is to say, after Trotsky was expelled by a majority
vote from the CPSU[18] and subsequently from the Soviet Union. As a consequence, Trotsky defined the
Soviet Union under Stalin, as a planned economy ruled over by a bureaucratic caste. Trotsky advocated
overthrowing the government of the Soviet Union after he was expelled from it.[19]
[edit] Left Communism
Main article: Left Communism
Left communism is the range of communist viewpoints held by the communist left, which criticizes the
political ideas of the Bolsheviks from a position that is asserted to be more authentically Marxist and
proletarian than the views of Leninism held by the Communist International after its first two
congresses.
Although she lived before left communism became a distinct tendency, Rosa Luxemburg has been
heavily influential for most left communists, both politically and theoretically. Proponents of left
communism have included Herman Gorter, Anton Pannekoek, Otto Rühle, Karl Korsch, Amadeo Bordiga,
and Paul Mattick.
Prominent left communist groups existing today include the International Communist Current and the
International Bureau for the Revolutionary Party. Also, different factions from the old Bordigist
International Communist Party are considered left communist organizations.
[edit] Western Marxism
Main article: Western Marxism
Western Marxism is a term used to describe a wide variety of Marxist theoreticians based in Western
and Central Europe (and more recently North America ), in contrast with philosophy in the Soviet Union,
the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia or the People's Republic of China.
[edit] Structural Marxism
Main article: Structural Marxism
Structural Marxism is an approach to Marxism based on structuralism, primarily associated with the
work of the French theorist Louis Althusser and his students. It was influential in France during the late
1960s and 1970s, and also came to influence philosophers, political theorists and sociologists outside of
France during the 1970s.
[edit] Neo-Marxism
Main article: Neo-Marxism
Neo-Marxism is a school of Marxism that began in the 20th century and hearkened back to the early
writings of Marx, before the influence of Engels, which focused on dialectical idealism rather than
dialectical materialism. It thus rejected economic determinism being instead far more libertarian. Neo-
Marxism adds Max Weber's broader understanding of social inequality, such as status and power, to
orthodox Marxist thought.
[edit] The Frankfurt School
Main article: Frankfurt School
Part of a series on the
Frankfurt School
Theorists of the Frankfurt School
Major works
Reason and Revolution
Dialectic of Enlightenment
Minima Moralia
Eros and Civilization
One-Dimensional Man
Negative Dialectics
The Theory of Communicative Action

Notable theorists
Max Horkheimer · Theodor Adorno
Herbert Marcuse · Walter Benjamin
Erich Fromm · Friedrich Pollock
Leo Löwenthal · Jürgen Habermas
Important concepts
Critical theory · Dialectic · Praxis
Psychoanalysis · Antipositivism
Popular culture · Culture industry
Advanced capitalism · Privatism
v•d•e
The Frankfurt School is a school of neo-Marxist social theory, social research, and philosophy. The
grouping emerged at the Institute for Social Research (Institut für Sozialforschung) of the University of
Frankfurt am Main in Germany. The term "Frankfurt School" is an informal term used to designate the
thinkers affiliated with the Institute for Social Research or influenced by them: it is not the title of any
institution, and the main thinkers of the Frankfurt School did not use the term to describe themselves.
The Frankfurt School gathered together dissident Marxists, severe critics of capitalism who believed that
some of Marx's alleged followers had come to parrot a narrow selection of Marx's ideas, usually in
defense of orthodox communist or social democratic parties. Influenced especially by the failure of
working-class revolutions in Western Europe after World War I and by the rise of Nazism in an
economically, technologically, and culturally advanced nation (Germany), they took up the task of
choosing what parts of Marx's thought might serve to clarify social conditions which Marx himself had
never seen. They drew on other schools of thought to fill in Marx's perceived omissions.
Max Weber exerted a major influence, as did Sigmund Freud (as in Herbert Marcuse's Freudo-Marxist
synthesis in the 1954 work Eros and Civilization). Their emphasis on the "critical" component of theory
was derived significantly from their attempt to overcome the limits of positivism, crude materialism, and
phenomenology by returning to Kant's critical philosophy and its successors in German idealism,
principally Hegel's philosophy, with its emphasis on negation and contradiction as inherent properties of
reality.
[edit] Cultural Marxism
Main article: Cultural Marxism
Cultural Marxism is a form of Marxism that adds a critical theory based Marxist analysis of the role of
the media, art, theatre, film and other cultural institutions in a society, often with an added emphasis on
race and gender in addition to class. As a form of political analysis, Cultural Marxism gained strength in
the 1920s, and was the model used by the Frankfurt School at Columbia University; and later by another
group of intellectuals at the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies at the University of Birmingham,
England.
[edit] Autonomist Marxism
Main article: Autonomism
Autonomism is a term applied to a variety of social movements around the world, which emphasizes the
ability to organize in autonomous and horizontal networks, as opposed to hierarchical structures such as
unions or parties. Autonomist Marxists, including Harry Cleaver, broaden the definition of the working-
class to include salaried and unpaid labour, such as skilled professions and housework; it focuses on the
working class in advanced capitalist states as the primary force of change in the construct of capital.
Modern autonomist theorists such as Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt argue that network power
constructs are the most effective methods of organization against the neoliberal regime of
accumulation, and predict a massive shift in the dynamics of capital into a 21st Century Empire.
[edit] Analytical Marxism
Main article: Analytical Marxism
Analytical Marxism refers to a style of thinking about Marxism that was prominent amongst a half-dozen
analytically trained English-speaking philosophers and social scientists during the 1980s. It was mainly
associated with the September Group of academics, so called because they have biennial meetings in
varying locations every other September to discuss common interests. The group also dubbed itself
"Non-Bullshit Marxism" (Cohen 2000a). It was characterized, in the words of David Miller, by "clear and
rigorous thinking about questions that are usually blanketed by ideological fog". (Miller 1994)
[edit] Marxist humanism
Main article: Marxist humanism

Marxist humanism is a branch of Marxism that primarily focuses on Marx's earlier writings, especially
the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844 in which Marx develops his theory of alienation, as
opposed to his later works, which are considered to be concerned more with his structural conception
of capitalist society. It was opposed by Louis Althusser's "antihumanism", who qualified it as a revisionist
movement.
Marxist humanists contend that ‘Marxism’ developed lopsided because Marx’s early works were
unknown until after the orthodox ideas were in vogue – the Manuscripts of 1844 were published only in
1932 – and it is necessary to understand Marx’s philosophical foundations to understand his latter works
properly.
[edit] Marxist theology
Ambox question.svg
This section may contain previously unpublished synthesis of published material that conveys
ideas not attributable to the original sources. See the talk page for details. (May 2009)
See also: Black liberation theology, Religious communism, and Religious socialism
Although Marx was intensely critical of institutionalized religion including Christianity, some Christians
have "accepted the basic premises of Marxism and attempted to reinterpret Christian faith from this
perspective."[20] Some of the resulting examples are some forms of liberation theology and black
liberation theology. Pope Benedict XVI strongly opposed radical liberation theology while he was still a
cardinal, with the Vatican condemning acceptance of Marxism. Black liberation theologian James Cone
wrote in his book For My People that "for analyzing the structure of capitalism. Marxism as a tool of
social analysis can disclose the gap between appearance and reality, and thereby help Christians to see
how things really are."[21]
[edit] Key Western Marxists
[edit] Georg Lukács
Georg Lukács (April 13, 1885 – June 4, 1971) was a Hungarian Marxist philosopher and literary critic in
the tradition of Western Marxism. His main work History and Class Consciousness (written between
1919 and 1922 and first published in 1923), initiated the current of thought that came to be known as
Western Marxism. The book is notable for contributing to debates concerning Marxism and its relation
to sociology, politics and philosophy, and for reconstructing Marx's theory of alienation before many of
the works of the Young Marx had been published. Lukács's work elaborates and expands upon Marxist
theories such as ideology, false consciousness, reification and class consciousness.
[edit] Karl Korsch
Karl Korsch (August 15, 1886 - October 21, 1961) was born in Tostedt, near Hamburg, to the family of a
middle-ranking bank official.
In his later work, he rejected orthodox (classical) Marxism as historically outmoded, wanting to adapt
Marxism to a new historical situation. He wrote in his Ten Theses (1950) that "the first step in re-
establishing a revolutionary theory and practice consists in breaking with that Marxism which claims to
monopolize revolutionary initiative as well as theoretical and practical direction" and that "today, all
attempts to re-establish the Marxist doctrine as a whole in its original function as a theory of the
working classes social revolution are reactionary utopias."[22]
Korsch was especially concerned that Marxist theory was losing its precision and validity - in the words
of the day, becoming "vulgarized" - within the upper echelons of the various socialist organizations. His
masterwork, Marxism and Philosophy is an attempt to re-establish the historic character of Marxism as
the heir to Hegel.
[edit] Antonio Gramsci
Antonio Gramsci (January 22, 1891 – April 27, 1937) was an Italian writer, politician and political
theorist. He was a founding member and onetime leader of the Communist Party of Italy. Gramsci can
be seen as one of the most important Marxist thinkers of the twentieth century, and in particular a key
thinker in the development of Western Marxism. He wrote more than 30 notebooks and 3000 pages of
history and analysis during his imprisonment. These writings, known as the Prison Notebooks, contain
Gramsci's tracing of Italian history and nationalism, as well as some ideas in Marxist theory, critical
theory and educational theory associated with his name, such as:
* Cultural hegemony as a means of maintaining the state in a capitalist society.
* The need for popular workers' education to encourage development of intellectuals from the
working class.
* The distinction between political society (the police, the army, legal system, etc.) which dominates
directly and coercively, and civil society (the family, the education system, trade unions, etc.) where
leadership is constituted through ideology or by means of consent.
* 'Absolute historicism'.
* The critique of economic determinism.
* The critique of philosophical materialism.
[edit] Herbert Marcuse
Herbert Marcuse (July 19, 1898 – July 29, 1979) was a prominent German-American philosopher and
sociologist of Jewish descent, and a member of the Frankfurt School.
Marcuse's critiques of capitalist society (especially his 1955 synthesis of Marx and Freud, Eros and
Civilization, and his 1964 book One-Dimensional Man) resonated with the concerns of the leftist student
movement in the 1960s. Because of his willingness to speak at student protests, Marcuse soon became
known as "the father of the New Left," a term he disliked and rejected.
[edit] Jean-Paul Sartre
Jean-Paul Sartre (June 21, 1905 – April 15, 1980) was already a key and influential philosopher and
playwright for his early writings on individualistic existentialism. In his later career, he attempted to
reconcile the existential philosophy of Søren Kierkegaard with Marxist philosophy and Hegelian
dialectics in his work Critique of Dialectical Reason.[23]
Sartre was also involved in Marxist politics and was impressed upon visiting Marxist revolutionary Che
Guevara, calling him "not only an intellectual but also the most complete human being of our age".[24]
[edit] Louis Althusser
Louis Althusser (October 16, 1918 – October 22, 1990) was a Marxist philosopher. He was a lifelong
member and sometimes strong critic of the French Communist Party. His arguments and theses were set
against the threats that he saw attacking the theoretical foundations of Marxism. These included both
the influence of empiricism on Marxist theory, and humanist and reformist socialist orientations which
manifested as divisions in the European Communist Parties, as well as the problem of the 'cult of
personality' and of ideology itself. Althusser is commonly referred to as a Structural Marxist, although
his relationship to other schools of French structuralism is not a simple affiliation and he is critical of
many aspects of structuralism.
His essay Marxism and Humanism is a strong statement of anti-humanism in Marxist theory,
condemning ideas like "human potential" and "species-being", which are often put forth by Marxists, as
outgrowths of a bourgeois ideology of "humanity". His essay Contradiction and Overdetermination
borrows the concept of overdetermination from psychoanalysis, in order to replace the idea of
"contradiction" with a more complex model of multiple causality in political situations (an idea closely
related to Antonio Gramsci's concept of hegemony).
Althusser is also widely known as a theorist of ideology, and his best-known essay is Ideology and
Ideological State Apparatuses: Notes Toward an Investigation.[25] The essay establishes the concept of
ideology, also based on Gramsci's theory of hegemony. Whereas hegemony is ultimately determined
entirely by political forces, ideology draws on Freud's and Lacan's concepts of the unconscious and
mirror-phase respectively, and describes the structures and systems that allow us to meaningfully have
a concept of the self.
[edit] Hill, Hobsbawm, and Thompson
British Marxism deviated sharply from French (especially Althusserian) Marxism and, like the Frankfurt
School, developed an attention to cultural experience and an emphasis on human agency while growing
increasingly distant from determinist views of materialism. A circle of historians inside the Communist
Party of Great Britain (CPGB) formed the Communist Party Historians Group in 1946. They shared a
common interest in 'history from below' and class structure in early capitalist society. Important
members of the group included E.P. Thompson, Eric Hobsbawm, Christopher Hill and Raphael Samuel.
While some members of the group (most notably E.P. Thompson) left the CPGB after the 1956
Hungarian Revolution, the common points of British Marxist historiography continued in their works.
They placed a great emphasis on the subjective determination of history. E. P. Thompson famously
engaged Althusser in The Poverty of Theory,[26] arguing that Althusser's theory overdetermined history,
and left no space for historical revolt by the oppressed.
[edit] Post-Marxism
Main article: Post-Marxism

Post-Marxism represents the theoretical work of philosophers and social theorists who have built their
theories upon those of Marx and Marxists but exceeded the limits of those theories in ways that puts
them outside of Marxism. It begins with the basic tenets of Marxism but moves away from the Mode of
Production as the starting point for analysis and includes factors other than class, such as gender,
ethnicity etc., and a reflexive relationship between the base and superstructure.
Marxism remains a powerful theory in some unexpected and relatively obscure places, and is not always
properly labeled as "Marxism". For example, many Mexican and some American archaeologists still
employ a Marxist model to explain the Classic Maya Collapse[citation needed] (c. 900 A.D.) - without
mentioning Marxism by name.
[edit] Marxist Feminism
Main article: Marxist feminism
Marxist feminism is a sub-type of feminist theory which focuses on the dismantling of capitalism as a
way to liberate women. Marxist feminism states that private property, which gives rise to economic
inequality, dependence, political confusion and ultimately unhealthy social relations between men and
women, is the root of women's oppression.
According to Marxist theory, in capitalist societies the individual is shaped by class relations; that is,
people's capacities, needs and interests are seen to be determined by the mode of production that
characterises the society they inhabit. Marxist feminists see gender inequality as determined ultimately
by the capitalist mode of production. Gender oppression is class oppression and women's subordination
is seen as a form of class oppression which is maintained (like racism) because it serves the interests of
capital and the ruling class. Marxist feminists have extended traditional Marxist analysis by looking at
domestic labour as well as wage work in order to support their position.
[edit] Marxism as a political practice
Part of a series on
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(International Workingmen's Association)
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Socialist market economy
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Mode of production
v•d•e
Since Marx's death in 1883, various groups around the world have appealed to Marxism as the
theoretical basis for their politics and policies, which have often proved to be dramatically different and
conflicting. One of the first major political splits occurred between the advocates of 'reformism', who
argued that the transition to socialism could occur within existing bourgeois parliamentarian
frameworks, and communists, who argued that the transition to a socialist society required a revolution
and the dissolution of the capitalist state. The 'reformist' tendency, later known as social democracy,
came to be dominant in most of the parties affiliated to the Second International and these parties
supported their own governments in the First World War. This issue caused the communists to break
away, forming their own parties which became members of the Third International.
The following countries had governments at some point in the twentieth century who at least nominally
adhered to Marxism: Albania, Afghanistan, Angola, Benin, Bulgaria, Chile, China, Republic of Congo,
Cuba, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Ethiopia, Grenada, Hungary, Laos, Moldova, Mongolia,
Mozambique, Nepal, Nicaragua, North Korea, Poland, Romania, Russia, the USSR and its republics, South
Yemen, Yugoslavia, Venezuela, Vietnam. In addition, the Indian states of Kerala, Tripura and West
Bengal have had Marxist governments, but change takes place in the government due to electoral
process. Some of these governments such as in Venezuela, Nicaragua, Chile, Moldova and parts of India
have been democratic in nature and maintained regular multiparty elections.
Marxist political parties and movements have significantly declined since the fall of the Soviet Union,
with some exceptions, perhaps most notably Nepal.
[edit] History
The 1917 October Revolution, led by Vladimir Lenin, was the first large scale attempt to put Marxist
ideas about a workers' state into practice. The new government faced counter-revolution, civil war and
foreign intervention. Many, both inside and outside the revolution, worried that the revolution came
too early in Russia's economic development. Consequently, the major Socialist Party in the UK decried
the revolution as anti-Marxist within twenty-four hours, according to Jonathan Wolff.[citation needed]
Lenin consistently explained "this elementary truth of Marxism, that the victory of socialism requires the
joint efforts of workers in a number of advanced countries" (Lenin, Sochineniya (Works), 5th ed Vol XLIV
p418.) It could not be developed in Russia in isolation, he argued, but needed to be spread
internationally.
The 1917 October Revolution did help inspire a revolutionary wave over the years that followed, with
the development of Communist Parties worldwide, but without success in the vital advanced capitalist
countries of Western Europe. Socialist revolution in Germany and other western countries failed, leaving
the Soviet Union on its own. An intense period of debate and stopgap solutions ensued, war
communism and the New Economic Policy (NEP). Lenin died and Joseph Stalin gradually assumed
control, eliminating rivals and consolidating power as the Soviet Union faced the events of the 1930s
and its global crisis-tendencies. Amidst the geopolitical threats which defined the period and included
the probability of invasion, he instituted a ruthless program of industrialization which, while successful,
was executed at great cost in human suffering, including millions of deaths, along with long-term
environmental devastation.
Modern followers of Leon Trotsky maintain that as predicted by Lenin, Trotsky, and others already in the
1920s, Stalin's "socialism in one country" was unable to maintain itself, and according to some Marxist
critics, the USSR ceased to show the characteristics of a socialist state long before its formal dissolution.
In the 1920s the economic calculation debate between Austrian Economists and Marxist economists
took place. The Austrians claimed that Marxism is flawed because prices could not be set to recognize
opportunity costs of factors of production, and so socialism could not make rational decisions.
Following World War II, Marxist ideology, often with Soviet military backing, spawned a rise in
revolutionary communist parties all over the world. Some of these parties were eventually able to gain
power, and establish their own version of a Marxist state. Such nations included the People's Republic of
China, Vietnam, Romania, East Germany, Albania, Cambodia, Ethiopia, South Yemen, Yugoslavia, Cuba,
and others. In some cases, these nations did not get along. The most notable examples were rifts that
occurred between the Soviet Union and China, as well as Soviet Union and Yugoslavia (in 1948), whose
leaders disagreed on certain elements of Marxism and how it should be implemented into society.
Many of these self-proclaimed Marxist nations (often styled People's Republics) eventually became
authoritarian states, with stagnating economies. This caused some debate about whether Marxism was
doomed in practise or these nations were in fact not led by "true Marxists". Critics of Marxism
speculated that perhaps Marxist ideology itself was to blame for the nations' various problems.
Followers of the currents within Marxism which opposed Stalin, principally cohered around Leon
Trotsky, tended to locate the failure at the level of the failure of world revolution: for communism to
have succeeded, they argue, it needed to encompass all the international trading relationships that
capitalism had previously developed.
The Chinese experience seems to be unique. Rather than falling under a single family's self-serving and
dynastic interpretation of Marxism as happened in North Korea and before 1989 in Eastern Europe, the
Chinese government - after the end of the struggles over the Mao legacy in 1980 and the ascent of Deng
Xiaoping - seems to have solved the succession crises that have plagued self-proclaimed Leninist
governments since the death of Lenin himself. Key to this success is another Leninism which is a NEP
(New Economic Policy) writ very large; Lenin's own NEP of the 1920s was the "permission" given to
markets including speculation to operate by the Party which retained final control. The Russian
experience in Perestroika was that markets under socialism were so opaque as to be both inefficient and
corrupt but especially after China's application to join the WTO this does not seem to apply universally.
The death of "Marxism" in China has been prematurely announced but since the Hong Kong handover in
1997, the Beijing leadership has clearly retained final say over both commercial and political affairs.
Questions remain however as to whether the Chinese Party has opened its markets to such a degree as
to be no longer classified as a true Marxist party.[citation needed] A sort of tacit consent, and a desire in
China's case to escape the chaos of pre-1949 memory, probably plays a role.
In 1991 the Soviet Union collapsed and the new Russian state ceased to identify itself with Marxism.
Other nations around the world followed suit. Since then, radical Marxism or Communism has generally
ceased to be a prominent political force in global politics, and has largely been replaced by more
moderate versions of democratic socialism—or, more commonly, by neoliberal capitalism. Marxism has
also had to engage with the rise in the Environmental movement. A merging of Marxism, socialism,
ecology and environmentalism has been achieved[where?], and is often referred to as Eco-socialism.
[edit] Social Democracy
Main article: Social Democracy
Social democracy
Precursors[show]
Age of Enlightenment
Classical liberalism
Utopian socialism
Trade unionism
Revolutions of 1848
Orthodox Marxism
Development[show]
Revisionism
Reformism
Gradualism
Frankfurt Declaration
Policies[show]
Representative democracy
Civil liberties
Economic democracy
Labor rights
Mixed economy
Nationalization
Welfare state
Fair trade
Environmental protection
Rhine Capitalism
Secularism
Social corporatism
Social Market Economy
Organizations[show]
Social democratic parties
Party of European Socialists
International Trade
Union Confederation
People[show]
Clement Attlee · Eduard Bernstein · Léon Blum · Hjalmar Branting · Ignacy Daszyński · Tommy Douglas ·
Friedrich Ebert · Michael Joseph Savage · Bülent Ecevit · Jean Jaurès · Belinda Stronach · Karl Kautsky ·
Willy Brandt · Olof Palme · Georgi Plekhanov · John Curtin · Andreas Papandreou · Felipe Gonzalez
v•d•e
Social democracy is a political ideology that emerged in the late 19th and early 20th century. Many
parties in the second half of the 19th century described themselves as social democratic, such as the
British Social Democratic Federation, and the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. In most cases
these were revolutionary socialist or Marxist groups, who were not only seeking to introduce socialism,
but also democracy in un-democratic countries.
The modern social democratic current came into being through a break within the socialist movement in
the early 20th century, between two groups holding different views on the ideas of Karl Marx. Many
related movements, including pacifism, anarchism, and syndicalism, arose at the same time (often by
splitting from the main socialist movement, but also by emerging of new theories.) and had various
quite different objections to Marxism. The social democrats, who were the majority of socialists at this
time, did not reject Marxism (and in fact claimed to uphold it), but wanted to reform it in certain ways
and tone down their criticism of capitalism. They argued that socialism should be achieved through
evolution rather than revolution. Such views were strongly opposed by the revolutionary socialists, who
argued that any attempt to reform capitalism was doomed to fail, because the reformists would be
gradually corrupted and eventually turn into capitalists themselves.
Despite their differences, the reformist and revolutionary branches of socialism remained united until
the outbreak of World War I. The war proved to be the final straw that pushed the tensions between
them to breaking point. The reformist socialists supported their respective national governments in the
war, a fact that was seen by the revolutionary socialists as outright treason against the working class
(Since it betrayed the principle that the workers "have no nation", and the fact that usually the lowest
classes are the ones sent into the war to fight, and die, putting the cause at the side). Bitter arguments
ensued within socialist parties, as for example between Eduard Bernstein (reformist socialist) and Rosa
Luxemburg (revolutionary socialist) within the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). Eventually,
after the Russian Revolution of 1917, most of the world's socialist parties fractured. The reformist
socialists kept the name "Social democrats", while the revolutionary socialists began calling themselves
"Communists", and soon formed the modern Communist movement. (See also Comintern)
Since the 1920s, doctrinal differences have been constantly growing between social democrats and
Communists (who themselves are not unified on the way to achieve socialism), and Social Democracy is
mostly used as a specifically Central European label for Labour Parties since then, especially in Germany
and the Netherlands and especially since the 1959 Godesberg Program of the German SPD that rejected
the praxis of class struggle altogether.
[edit] Socialism
Main article: Socialism (Marxism)
Main article: Socialism
The term "socialism" could be used to describe two fundamentally different ideologies - democratic
socialism and Marxist-Leninist socialism. While Marxist-Leninists (Trotskyists, Stalinists, and Maoists) are
often described as communists in the contemporary media, they are not recognized as such
academically or by themselves. The Marxist-Leninists sought to work towards the workers' utopia in
Marxist ideology by first creating a socialist state, which historically had almost always been a single-
party dictatorship. On the other hand, democratic socialists attempt to work towards an ideal state by
social reform and are often little different from social democrats, with the democratic socialists having a
more leftist stance.
The Marxist-Leninist form of government has been in decline since the collapse of the Soviet Union and
its satellite states. Very few countries have governments which describe themselves as socialist. As of
2007, Laos, Vietnam, Cuba, and the People's Republic of China had governments in power which
describe themselves as socialist in the Marxist sense.
On the contrary, electoral parties which describe themselves as socialist or democratic socialist are on
the rise, joined together by international organizations such as the Socialist International and the Fourth
International. Parties described as socialist are currently dominant in Third World democracies and serve
as the ruling party or the main opposition party in all European democracies. Eco-socialism, and Green
politics with a strong leftist tinge, are on the rise in European democracies.
The characterization of a party or government often has little to do with its actual economical and social
platform. The government of mainland China, which describes itself as socialist, allows a large private
sector to flourish and is socially conservative compared to most Western democracies. A more specific
example is universal health-care, which is a trademark issue of many European socialist parties but does
not exist in mainland China. Therefore, the historical and cultural aspects of a movement must be taken
into context in order for one to arrive at an accurate conclusion of its political ideology from its nominal
characterization.
[edit] Communism
Part of the series on
Communism
Hammer-and-sickle symbol
Concepts[show]
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Communist League
First International
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People[show]
François-Noël Babeuf Gracchus Babeuf
Karl Marx Karl Marx
Friedrich Engels Friedrich Engels
Peter Kropotkin Peter Kropotkin
Rosa Luxemburg Rosa Luxemburg
Antonio Gramsci Antonio Gramsci
Vladimir Lenin Vladimir Lenin
Leon Trotsky Leon Trotsky
Herman Gorter Herman Gorter
Joseph Stalin Joseph Stalin
Mao Zedong Mao Zedong
Che Guevara Che Guevara
Fidel Castro Fidel Castro

Josip Broz Tito Josip Broz Tito
Anarchism · Anti-capitalism
Anti-communism
Cold War
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New Class · New Left
Post-Communism
Primitive communism
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Socialism · Socialist economics
Soviet Union
v•d•e
Main article: Communist state
A number of states declared an allegiance to the principles of Marxism and have been ruled by self-
described Communist Parties, either as a single-party state or a single list, which includes formally
several parties, as was the case in the German Democratic Republic. Due to the dominance of the
Communist Party in their governments, these states are often called "communist states" by Western
political scientists. However, they have described themselves as "socialist", reserving the term
"communism" for a future classless society, in which the state would no longer be necessary (on this
understanding of communism, "communist state" would be an oxymoron) – for instance, the USSR was
the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Marxists contend that, historically, there has never been any
communist country.
Communist governments have historically been characterized by state ownership of productive

resources in a planned economy and sweeping campaigns of economic restructuring such as
nationalization of industry and land reform (often focusing on collective farming or state farms.) While
they promote collective ownership of the means of production, Communist governments have been
characterized by a strong state apparatus in which decisions are made by the ruling Communist Party.
Dissident 'authentic' communists have characterized the Soviet model as state socialism or state
capitalism.
[edit] Marxism-Leninism
Main articles: Marxism-Leninism and Leninism
Marxism-Leninism, strictly speaking, refers to the version of Marxism developed by Vladimir Lenin
known as Leninism[citation needed]. However, in various contexts, different (and sometimes opposing)
political groups have used the term "Marxism-Leninism" to describe the ideologies that they claimed to
be upholding. The core ideological features of Marxism-Leninism are those of Marxism and Leninism,
that is to say, belief in the necessity of a violent overthrow of capitalism through communist revolution,
to be followed by a dictatorship of the proletariat as the first stage of moving towards communism, and
the need for a vanguard party to lead the proletariat in this effort. Those who view themselves as
Marxist-Leninists, however, vary with regards to the leaders and thinkers that they choose to uphold as
progressive (and to what extent). Maoists tend to downplay the importance of all other thinkers in
favour of Mao Zedong, whereas Hoxhaists repudiate Mao.
Leninism holds that capitalism can only be overthrown by revolutionary means; that is, any attempts to
reform capitalism from within, such as Fabianism and non-revolutionary forms of democratic socialism,
are doomed to fail. The first goal of a Leninist party is to educate the proletariat, so as to remove the
various modes of false consciousness the bourgeois have instilled in them, instilled in order to make
them more docile and easier to exploit economically, such as religion and nationalism. Once the
proletariat has gained class consciousness the party will coordinate the proletariat's total might to
overthrow the existing government, thus the proletariat will seize all political and economic power.
Lastly the proletariat (thanks to their education by the party) will implement a dictatorship of the
proletariat which would bring upon them socialism, the lower phase of communism. After this, the party
would essentially dissolve as the entire proletariat is elevated to the level of revolutionaries.
The dictatorship of the proletariat refers to the absolute power of the working class. It is governed by a
system of proletarian direct democracy, in which workers hold political power through local councils
known as soviets.
[edit] Trotskyism
Main article: Trotskyism
Trotskyism is the theory of Marxism as advocated by Leon Trotsky. Trotsky considered himself a
Bolshevik-Leninist, arguing for the establishment of a vanguard party. He considered himself an
advocate of orthodox Marxism. His politics differed sharply from those of Stalin or Mao, most
importantly in declaring the need for an international "permanent revolution". Numerous groups
around the world continue to describe themselves as Trotskyist and see themselves as standing in this
tradition, although they have diverse interpretations of the conclusions to be drawn from this.
Trotsky advocated proletarian revolution as set out in his theory of "permanent revolution", and he
argued that in countries where the bourgeois-democratic revolution had not triumphed already (in
other words, in places that had not yet implemented a capitalist democracy, such as Russia before
1917), it was necessary that the proletariat make it permanent by carrying out the tasks of the social
revolution (the "socialist" or "communist" revolution) at the same time, in an uninterrupted process.
Trotsky believed that a new socialist state would not be able to hold out against the pressures of a
hostile capitalist world unless socialist revolutions quickly took hold in other countries as well, especially
in the industrial powers with a developed proletariat.
On the political spectrum of Marxism, Trotskyists are considered to be on the left. They fervently
support democracy, oppose political deals with the imperialist powers, and advocate a spreading of the
revolution until it becomes global.
Trotsky developed the theory that the Russian workers' state had become a "bureaucratically
degenerated workers' state". Capitalist rule had not been restored, and nationalized industry and
economic planning, instituted under Lenin, were still in effect. However, the state was controlled by a
bureaucratic caste with interests hostile to those of the working class. Trotsky defended the Soviet
Union against attack from imperialist powers and against internal counter-revolution, but called for a
political revolution within the USSR to restore socialist democracy. He argued that if the working class
did not take power away from the Stalinist bureaucracy, the bureaucracy would restore capitalism in
order to enrich itself. In the view of many Trotskyists, this is exactly what has happened since the
beginning of Glasnost and Perestroika in the USSR. Some argue that the adoption of market socialism by
the People's Republic of China has also led to capitalist counter-revolution.
[edit] Maoism
Main article: Maoism
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Maoism or Mao Zedong Thought (simplified Chinese: 毛泽东思想; traditional Chinese: 毛澤東思想;
pinyin: Máo Zédōng Sīxiǎng), is a variant of Marxism-Leninism derived from the teachings of the Chinese
communist leader Mao Zedong (Wade-Giles transliteration: "Mao Tse-tung").
The term "Mao Zedong Thought" has always been the preferred term by the Communist Party of China,
and the word "Maoism" has never been used in its English-language publications except pejoratively.
Likewise, Maoist groups outside China have usually called themselves Marxist-Leninist rather than
Maoist, a reflection of Mao's view that he did not change, but only developed, Marxism-Leninism.
However, some[who?] Maoist groups, believing Mao's theories to have been sufficiently substantial
additions to the basics of the Marxist canon, call themselves "Marxist-Leninist-Maoist" (MLM) or simply
"Maoist".
In the People's Republic of China, Mao Zedong Thought is part of the official doctrine of the Communist
Party of China, but since the 1978 beginning of Deng Xiaoping's market economy-oriented reforms, the
concept of "socialism with Chinese characteristics" has come to the forefront of Chinese politics,
Chinese economic reform has taken hold, and the official definition and role of Mao's original ideology in
the PRC has been radically altered and reduced (see History of China).
Unlike the earlier forms of Marxism-Leninism in which the urban proletariat was seen as the main
source of revolution, and the countryside was largely ignored, Mao believed that peasantry could be the
main force behind a revolution, led by the proletariat and a vanguard Communist party. The model for
this was of course the Chinese communist rural Protracted People's War of the 1920s and 1930s, which
eventually brought the Communist Party of China to power. Furthermore, unlike other forms of
Marxism-Leninism in which large-scale industrial development was seen as a positive force, Maoism
made all-round rural development the priority.
Mao felt that this strategy made sense during the early stages of socialism in a country in which most of
the people were peasants. Unlike most other political ideologies, including other socialist and Marxist
ones, Maoism contains an integral military doctrine and explicitly connects its political ideology with
military strategy. In Maoist thought, "political power grows from the barrel of the gun" (a famous quote
by Mao), and the peasantry can be mobilized to undertake a "people's war" of armed struggle involving
guerrilla warfare in three stages.
[edit] Left communism
Main article: Left communism
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Left communism
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Left communism is the range of communist viewpoints held by the Communist Left, which criticizes the
political ideas of the Bolsheviks from a position that is asserted to be more authentically Marxist and
proletarian than the views of Leninism held by the Communist International after its first two
Congresses.
Two major traditions can be observed within Left communism: the Dutch-German tradition; and the
Italian tradition. The political positions those traditions have in common are a shared opposition to what
is termed frontism, nationalism, all kinds of national liberation movements and parliamentarianism and
there is an underlying commonality at a level of abstract theory. Crucially, Left Communist groups from
both traditions tend to identify elements of commonality in each other.
The historical origins of Left Communism can be traced to the period before the First World War, but it
only came into focus after 1918 . All Left Communists were supportive of the October Revolution in
Russia, but retained a critical view of its development. Some, however, would in later years come to
reject the idea that the revolution had a proletarian or socialist nature, asserting that it had simply
carried out the tasks of the bourgeois revolution by creating a state capitalist system.
Left Communism first came into being as a clear movement in or around 1918. Its essential features
were: a stress on the need to build a Communist Party entirely separate from the reformist and centrist
elements who were seen as having betrayed socialism in 1914, opposition to all but the most restricted
participation in elections, and an emphasis on the need for revolutionaries to move on the offensive.
Apart from that, there was little in common between the various wings. Only the Italians accepted the
need for electoral work at all for a very short period of time, and the German-Dutch, Italian and Russian
wings opposed the "right of nations to self-determination", which they denounced as a form of
bourgeois nationalism.
[edit] Disputing these claims
Some academics[who?] dispute the claim that the above political movements are Marxist. Communist
governments have historically been characterized by state ownership of productive resources in a
planned economy and sweeping campaigns of economic restructuring such as nationalization of industry
and land reform (often focusing on collective farming or state farms.) While they promote collective
ownership of the means of production, Communist governments have been characterized by a strong
state apparatus in which decisions are made by the ruling Communist Party. Dissident communists have
characterized the Soviet model as state socialism or state capitalism. Further, critics such as Leon
Trotsky and Rosa Luxemburg have often claimed that a Stalinist or Maoist system of government creates
a new ruling class, usually called the nomenklatura.
Marx defined "communism" as a classless, egalitarian and stateless society. To Marx, the notion of a
communist state would have seemed an oxymoron, as he defined communism as the phase reached
when class society and the state had already been abolished. Once the lower stage towards
communism, commonly referred to as socialism, had been established, society would develop new
social relations over the course of several generations, reaching what Marx called the higher phase of
communism when not only bourgeois relations but every class social relations had been abandoned.
Such a development has yet to occur in any historical self-claimed socialist state.
Some[who?] argue that socialist states have contained two new distinct classes: those who are in
government and therefore have power, and those who are not in government and do not have power.
Sometimes, this is taken to be a different form of capitalism, in which the government, as owner of the
means of production, takes on the role formerly played by the bourgeois class; this arrangement is
referred to as "State capitalism". These statist regimes have generally followed a command economy
model without making a transition to this hypothetical final stage.
[edit] Criticisms
For more details on this topic, see Criticisms of Marxism.

Criticisms of Marxism are many and varied. They concern both the theory itself, and its later
interpretations and implementations.
[edit] Right
Marx and Engels never dedicated much work to show how exactly a communist economy would
function, leaving Marxism, at least in its classical form, a "negative ideology," concerned primarily with
criticism of the status quo. Later generations of Marxists have attempted to fill in the gap, resulting in
several different and competing Marxist views of the way a communist society should be organized.
Prominent economist Milton Friedman was of the opinion that free markets are the best and most
efficient way of running the economy for the benefit of all.[27] In the economic calculation debate
between Austrian Economists and Marxist economists, the Austrians claimed that Marxism is flawed
because without a market for productive factors, which Marxism would abolish, productive factors could
not be labeled with market prices and therefore, so the Austrians say, Marxism makes rational economic
calculation impossible and would lead to social collapse. This criticism could also be seen as part of the
Austrian School's general criticism of command-control-type mathematical modelling and Keynesian
"fine-tuning" of the economy generally, which Austrian economists believe is not possible due to the
inherent complexity of market participants' ever-evolving subjective choices.
Individualists disagree with the basic approach of Marxism, that of viewing all people as acting under the
influence of socio-economic forces, and instead focus on the differences and unpredictable actions of
individuals.

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The Communist Manifesto

A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy

The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon

The German Ideology

Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844

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