Marxism: theory, history, and contemporary applications

Marxism History and Ideology.

An Ideology indicates a structure of ideas that try to elucidate reality. Ideologies are devices since the reality is sometimes very intricate to be comprehended. In almost all the cases they represent a preconception and cater to the objectives of a specific group. Ideologies are seen to be relatively as a contemporary occurrence, in relation to the political and economic circumstances of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Marxism is considered to be a very intricate economic ideology, devised on the basis of an historical analysis underlying the concept of class struggle. (Adams, Ideology)

Marxism is the political experience and social theory framed upon the works of Karl Marx, a renowned German philosopher, economist, journalist, and revolutionary of 19th century and a close associate of Friedrich Engels. Marx was widely influenced by the Philosophy of George Hegel, the Political Economy of Adam Smith, and Economics of David Ricardo along with the French socialism of 19th century and devised a critique of society that he claimed was both scientific and revolutionary. The critique attained its most systematic expression in his masterpiece entitled "Capital: A Critique of Political Economy." (Marxism: Wikipedia Encyclopedia)

As per Marxist theory, the most significant characteristics of a society are its economic classes and their linkage to each other in the means of production of each historical epoch. History is the history of class struggle among the classes existing in the society. The contemporary progressive classes emerge that are associated with new mode of production process and are in conflict with the existing one. New structure of society emerges which are suitable to the new type of production process when the new class succeed in capturing the economic power. This dogma is known as historical materialism. Most of the struggles in history are hovering around class struggles irrespective of the fact that the groups involved pursue other objectives. To illustrate, the Protestants representing the emerging capitalist class is one such case. (Marxism: (www-formal.stanford.edu)

Marxism depicts that in any historical age, there exists an overriding class along with subjugated class and a struggle between the two. The state is the device by which one class overrides the other. Economic status constantly varies, the overriding class loses its command, and its status is deposed and is replaced by the state of a new overriding class. The new economic conditions also generate a new oppressed class and the conflict goes on. The bourgeoisie and the proletariat classes are those acknowledged by Marx in the mid-19th century. The Capitalist system, as per Marx, makes it possible the capitalist to appropriate the worth of labor. It also isolates the value of labor from its human origins and indicates it more particularly in monetary considerations. However, the capitalist system also produces unparalleled material wealth that if distributed justly, will liberate the mankind from its materialist bonds. (Adams, Ideology)

The Capitalism generates the proletariat those have nothing to sell but their labor by ruining the artisan classes and the petty bourgeoisie and leading them to be the Proletariat. The Capitalism allows the capitalists to have the possession of factors of production, the Proletariat to possess their ability to perform the work. Landlords administer the land, and the farmers are less important than workers and are trapped in the absurdity of rural life. In the capitalistic system, the workers 'tend' to have their wages equivalent to the amount necessitated for them to safeguard their families to reproduce. This is due to growing rivalry for jobs from the reserve army of labor, i.e. The unemployed. The capitalist markets the produces of the labor exerted by workers at a cost proportional to its value, that is socially essential labor necessitated to generate it. (Marxism: (www-formal.stanford.edu)

The disparity between what products are sold for and what the workers are paid is excess value and is being appropriated by the capitalist. Since the workers cannot purchase the full product of their labor and the capitalist do not use all the surplus value, there becomes growing recession. The persistent increment in labor saving machinery generates unemployment and forces down the wages. This signifies the tendency for economic recessions. The tendency to pay the workers bare survival wages give rise to the growing immiseration of the proletariat. The other classes, for example, artisans and petty bourgeoisie, to illustrate petty shopkeepers, degenerate and are thrown to the proletariat class. Even the smaller capitalists go degenerated. (Marxism: (www-formal.stanford.edu) the capitalist will employ a cruel competitive struggle with each other and will degenerate themselves and thereby there will be a scope for the workers to bring down the bourgeois state and substitute it with a socialist state. (Adams, Ideology)

The proletariat gains authority by a proletarian revolution. As per Marx and Lenin, this revolution is essentially aggressive, since the bourgeoisie won't give up power by electoral means. Much before the overthrow of the capitalism the proletariat is required to devise its own class awareness. Other classes have their own forms of class consciousness. (Marxism: (www-formal.stanford.edu) Under the socialist state, which Marx refers to as the dictatorship of the proletariat, the class system will be ended through a just distribution of wealth. It is then probable to recover the real value of labor as an expression of human creativity, and the objective that he describes as 'communism' will be attained. (Adams, Ideology)

Marx narrates that in a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labor, there follows the antithesis between mental and physical labor. Marx indicated that in a higher stratum of the communist society, after the enchained subjugation of the individual to the division of labor, and the antithesis between the mental and physical labor, have vanished; labor becomes not only a means of life but the prime desire of the life. This happens after the productive forces have also enhanced the all-round development of the individual, and all the springs of the co-operative wealth flow more plentifully. Only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be surpassed in its entirety and society inscribe upon its goals: 'From each according to his ability and to each according to his needs'. (Marxism: (www-formal.stanford.edu)

This is an ideology that although it involves a careful historical analysis, becomes finally a utopian vision. It has the influence of a collective sense of realism with an impossible dream. That was a strong mixture that has appealed, through several different interpretations, to millions of people in the 19th and 20th centuries. In the highly developed industrial nations of Western Europe, Marxist ideologies were assimilated by intellectuals and by the leaders of working class parties, some of whom believed their objectives could be attained by working within the structure of the existing states where some of the wealth was piercing down to the working class. Moreover, in nations with liberal Constitutional governments, the leadership of the working class was expected to exert some political influence. In less industrialized nations, there was a little scope of working with prevailing governments, and Marxist parties became identified with struggles to overthrow the government. Thus the Marxist ideology was applied in different modes in consonance with the real political environments in various nations. (Adams, Ideology)

Since Marxism is necessarily critical of capitalism as the great cause of injustice in the world, those who realized in ideological jargon became aware that the Soviet state is dedicated to the degeneration of the capitalist states. The Ideology in the Soviet Union became slightly more than a frontage sustained to convince people that the regime was acknowledged with a noble cause. Marxism as a result of its triumphant prediction that the working class would bring down the capitalist state and entail justice to the workers had an appeal to downtrodden, less advantaged people irrespective of class. While Marxism is known by intellectuals and political leaders in less developed areas of the world, where industrialization was in its initial stages and the vast mass of people were farmers, not workers, the ideology was further re-interpreted. It became an ideology indicating class struggle by peasants against the landlord class. This has been predicted by the identification of Lenin with the peasant cause at the moment of Russian Revolution. The prime illustration of this interpretation of Marxism was put forth by Mao Ze Dhong in China. (Adams, Ideology)

B- Short Biography of Famous Marxists:

1- Karl Marx

Karl Marx - the philosopher, social scientist, historian and revolutionary was regarded as the most prominent social thinker appeared in the 19th century. Karl Heinrich Marx took his birth on May 5, 1818 in a middle-class home in Trier on the river Moselle in Germany. Marx was admitted into the Faculty of Law in the University of Bonn, at the age of seventeen. Pursuing the university career terminated by the Prussian administration, Marx was motivated towards journalism and in October 1842, became editor, in Cologne, of the influential Rheinishce Zeitung, a liberal newspaper supported by industrialists. Marx later immigrated to France. Reaching Paris towards the end of 1843, Marx quickly made contact with organized groups of emigre German workers and with several sects of French socialists. During his first few months in Paris, Marx became a communist and put forth his views in a plethora of writings known as the Economic and philosophical Manuscripts, that remained unpublished until the 1930s. It was also in Paris that Marx developed his life long association with Friedrich Engels. (Karl Marx, 1818-1883)

At the end of 1844 Marx was debarred from Paris and with Engels migrated to Brussels. In the initiation of 1848, Marx moved back to Paris when a revolution first emerged and onto Germany where he instituted again in Cologne, the Neue Rheinishce Zeitung. In later periods Marx settled in London, and was optimistic about the imminence of a new revolutionary emergence in Europe. He re-entered the Communist League and wrote two prolonged pamphlets on the 1848 revolution in France and its repercussions, the Class Struggles in France and the 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte. He had a large manuscript containing about 800 pages on capital, landed property, wage labor, the state, foreign trade and the world market. During the last periods of his life, the health condition of Marx degenerated and he was not able to extend the enduring efforts that had so characterized his previous work. Marx breathed his last on March 14, 1883 and was buried at Highgate Cemetery in North London. (Karl Marx, 1818-1883)

2- Vladimir Lenin

Vladimir Lenin took his birth on April 10, 1870 in the family of a Russian nobleman. He entailed splendid influence on the characteristics of the Russians and of course the world. In school he demonstrated himself to be very smart irrespective of his alienation as a result of this. As Lenin gave up religion and the political system and being the brother of dead revolutionary he was not allowed in any University. At last he was accepted in a Kazan University where he studied law. This was to be temporal as he was debarred for attending a peaceful resistance after three months. He studied law on his own and got through the exam. He went to St. Petersburg in 1893 and practiced law. An underground movement in line with Marxism was initiated by him while he was there. The St. Petersburg Massacre incited Lenin to advocate violent action in 1905. This event led to several revolts in Russia. Ultimately the revolution in Russia broke out in 1917. After almost a bloodless coup Lenin captured power in October. Vladimir Ilich Lenin became the president of the Society of People's Commissars or Communist Party at the age of forty-seven. (Vladimir Lenin biography)

After his rise to power several initiatives were made by him. The land was reallocated as collective farms. Factories, mines, banks and utilities were all nationalized by the State. His rule led to the disestablishment of the Russian Orthodox Church. There was staunch resistance to these and the consequence became a civil war in 1918 between the Mencheviks and the Bolsheviks. In between 1919 to 1921 famine and the typhus affected Russia and resulted in the death of 27 million people. In order to counterbalance such disasters Lenin infused the New Economic Plan. This plan involved some capital ideologies like confined private industry in order to regenerate the deteriorating economy. But he was never to visualize the full influence of his measures. In May 1922, Lenin underwent the first of a series of strokes and within less than a year subsequently he suffered a second one. During his last two years he attempted to reformulate some extremes of the era. He degenerated further in 1923 and had another stroke that made him paralyzed and speechless. He could never be fully recovered and died of a cerebral hemorrhage on January 21, 1924. (Vladimir Lenin biography)

3- Mao Zedong

The myths of Mao Tse-Tung points out his birth in a poor peasant family, but actually, he was born on the 26th of December, 1893, in the home of a fairly well-to-do peasant in Hunan. During the year 1911, the revolution under Dr. Sun Yat-Sen ousted the imperial government and Mao was captured in the political volatility and dropped his studies at the school. In 1920 Mao became the principal of a primary school in Changsha, where in his leisure time he assisted in instituting Changsha branch of the Communist Party. Mao was a dynamic member of the Kuomintang - KMT and was even opposed by CCP members who took him to be too zealous. (Mao Zedong: A Biography) With the death of Sun Yat Sen in 1925, the man who overrode the Kuomintang, Chinag Kai Sheck, harshly got rid of the Party's left. Mao, who had already, had difficulties with the mainstream Kuomintang leadership fled to his base in the Ching-Kang Mountains. With the assistance and shelter extended by their peasant base, Mao and his comrades could hold out against Chiang's forces. In November of 1934 the Chinese Soviet Republic was announced to be within the Kiangsi province taking Mao as its chairman. (Biography: Mao Zedong)

Mao was not clear that the Russian Political model was suitable for China and in order to accommodate the large peasantry that had promoted his revolution he went aboard on what is very likely the most hazardous experiment in social engineering in human history. To this project presently he accorded the now ironical name, 'The Great Leap Forward'. Targets both agricultural and industrial were set absurdly high at the time of the three years of the Great Leap and resulted in famines during which some thirty million people died. When the full consequence of what Mao had performed initiated to be realized, it gave rise to a demonstration at the highest level set him in opposition against Liu Shaoqui, chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, a battle that Mao lost. Being curtailed with most of his authority Mad washed out into the background of party life, however, continued to be a powerful symbol, a benefit he would exploit a little later when he was back with more strength than before, to infuse the extremities of Cultural Revolution on an enhanced terrified nation. (Biography: Mao Zedong)

C- Comparing Lenin-Marxism and Mao-Marxism. (2.5 pages)

The theories of Masses by Karl Marx uprising to sweep away the bourgeoisie never practiced while he was alive, but did set the phase for the subsequent development and exploitation of his ideas by a number of leaders like Vladmir Lenin and Mao Tse-Tung, who further improved and exploited these early concepts of revolution. These subsequent ideas and interpretations included political and military ideas that have inconsistency with those of Marx and Engels. (Lesson 12: Modern theorists (III): Revolutionary War) Vladmir Illyich Lenin and Mao Zedong were the significant founders of the revolution in their relevant countries, and hence the revolutions in China and Russia were basically steered by the ideology of these leaders. Karl Marx regarded as the father of communism, participated in an influential role in the dogma of both Mao and Lenin, yet practical difficulties in their respective nations compelled the two to reformulate their ideology to cater to the circumstances of their own nations. (the Revolutionary Potential of the Peasants According to Lenin and Mao Zedong)

When Leninism-Maoism spread throughout the world, the capitalist and imperialist factors were forced to support Marxism, though not honestly and were disloyal to the proletariat class and oppressed people. In this circumstance, the statement of Lenin that the dialectics of history is such that the ideological victory of Marxism forces the enemies to put on a mask of Marxism is debatable. Lenin had shown with sufficient proof that revisionism along with the development of imperialism splits the national circle and turns international. Presently, the imperialism has arrested the leadership of socialist system build by the sacrifice of millions of workers and distorted it and they have once again announced that Marxism has twisted ineffective and are celebrating. (Marxism-Leninism-Maoism or Revisionism?)

But their celebration is similar to a self-contentment of a man on death bed and it is being established by the facts of history and worldwide struggle that can shake the world and worldwide economic crises. The very essentials on what depends upon the imperialist declaration that Marxism has been old have proved it irrefutable. The history has once again placed the liability on the shoulder of proletarian strugglers to slice into pieces the webs of puzzlement of modern revisionists and been motivating them to advance on the worldwide victory campaign. Due to this it has been a task of primary importance for the revolutionary Marxist as a subjective preparation to interpret revisionism and imperialism and demonstrate its real face, to the subjugated people and make them realize the reality. (Marxism-Leninism-Maoism or Revisionism?)

However, Mao was not as inflexible as were Marx and Lenin but his cruelty was varied from that of Lenin only in magnitude. Mao acknowledged the declaration of Marx in "The Communist Manifesto" that 'the history of all existing societies is the history of the class struggle'. (Forty Years of China: Chapter 11 - the thoughts and acts of Mao Tse-tung) He trusted with Lenin that is an unavoidable process of history that the class that regulated the means of production will be brought down by the class that does not and hat when this occurs, the classless society will be attained by the autocracy of the proletariat. Henceforth through different phases of socialism will come the ideal society of communism where as Engels put it, 'the state will shrink away, to become unnecessary as of all people residing in harmony' Religion too will vanish out since all material necessarily satisfied in the new society, people will no longer necessitate the comfort of religion. Mao also approved the beliefs of Marx and Engels that this new society could only come through sanguinary revolution since capitalists could not vary and would not renounce their power and possessions without war. Similarly, he took the illustration of Lenin in having faith on whatever they did in enhancing the reason of revolution was right. (Forty Years of China: Chapter 11 - the thoughts and acts of Mao Tse-tung)

The perception of the State could be visualized as perceived by Lenin and that perceived by Mao in his theory of New Democratic State. Mao indicates that, This New Democratic republic will be varied from the old European-American form of capitalist republic under bourgeois dictatorship. Alternatively, it will also be varied from the kind of socialist republic of the soviet type under the autocracy of proletariat. But for some specific historical period, this type is not appropriate for the revolutions in the colonial and semi-colonial nations. During this period, therefore a third form of the state is required to be adopted in the revolutions of all colonial and semi-colonial countries, which is the new democratic republic. Lenin differs in this sphere. The kind of bourgeois state is widely varied; however, their spirit is quite similar. Irrespective of the structure of such states, ultimately in the final analysis are unavoidably the autocracy of the bourgeoisie. (Was Chairman Mao a Marxist-Leninist?)

The transformation from capitalism to communism definitely cannot but entail a tremendous abundance and variety of political forms, but the essence will unavoidably be the similar: the dictatorship of the proletariat. Lenin is of the opinion that the states that institute the autocracy of the proletariat will make a transformation from capitalism to socialism. All other states are different forms of bourgeois states. When a state emerges after the successful national democratic revolution that does not transform from the first phase of the revolution, to the second socialist stage, then the state will only cater to the democratic phase at the most. The Marxist-Leninists have always advocated entering the second phase without any hindrance. Lenin said that out of the democratic revolution, this is at once and just in line with the measure of out strength, the strength of the class conscious and organized proletariat started to move to the Socialist revolution. (Was Chairman Mao a Marxist-Leninist?)

Now the question arises as to what a Communist Party is and what its structure is. Revolutionary Marxists such as Lenin and Mao have discovered to have visualized it as a militant, disciplined and class conscious precursor of the proletariat and experienced accordingly. The revolutionary Marxism has been always stressing the fact that this kind of Party should be continued by adhering to the ideological political and practical struggle against all kinds of non-proletarian tendencies and characters. Lenin has devised a widespread, intensive and concrete theory on the Party of the proletariat. Lenin introduced Bolshevism by revealing a merciless, rigid and life and death struggle against the scopes available within his own Party, those generated hurdles in discovering the Party as militant and disciplined precursor of the proletarian class. Mao had always laid emphasis on development of a Communist Party on the basis of revolutionary working style in consonance with the Marxist-Leninists principle and line. (Marxism-Leninism-Maoism or Revisionism?)