...According to Eatwell and Wright (Eatwell, Wright. 1999, pg. 104) Marxism is the theory of communism the practice- or else that both are perplexing mixtures of theory and practice. The history of Marxism is essentially the history of putting theories into practice to solve practical problems. which in turn promotes the continuous development of human society. Its impact far exceeds its theoretical scope and significance and an important reason lies in the fact that Marxism originates from practice, guides the practice and is developed in the practice. Karl Marx is considered by many to have been the greatest thinker and philosopher of all time. His idea on life, society and social structure revolutionized the ways in which people think and still holds much relevance in today’s society. Although there were many downfalls within his thinking he still set out the basis of Communism within Russia. Marx drew distinctions between the bases of his own contemporaries and his own scientific theory of which he believed were firmly rooted within society. He believed that social change was needed in order to achieve a better society for everyone and in order to achieve social change there must be class conflict. Marx’s major concern for social change was economic change and his most famous work dealt with the issues of class conflict and the opposition between the capitalists/bourgeoisie and the working class. During that time it was the bourgeoisie who were responsible for the controlling...
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...In immediate terms, it has provoked widespread ideological confusion and demoralisation within the international workers' movement, and on the other side, gloating by the capitalist rulers and their apologists. The latter have used this event to step up their efforts to discredit socialism by identifying it with the bureaucratic dictatorship that has ruled over the Soviet Union since Stalin's rise to power in the 1920s. This, of course, is not something new. The capitalist rulers in the West have always argued that the totalitarian regime created by Stalin and maintained by his heirs was the inevitable consequence of the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. The capitalists were greatly assisted in this task by the Stalinists' claim to represent the tradition of Marx and Lenin. The capitalists cynically accepted the Stalinists' description of their hideous police regimes as representing "socialism" in order to prejudice the workers of the West against socialism by identifying it with the denial of democratic freedoms, and to promote the idea that bourgeois parliamentary democracy is the highest embodiment of human freedom. While this bourgeois propaganda campaign certainly succeeded in discrediting Marxism and Leninism among large sections of working people in the imperialist democracies during the long capitalist boom and the Cold War, there remained a sizable component of the working class and the lower middle-class in many imperialist countries that resisted this ideological campaign...
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...“Strategy was more important than ideology in Mao’s rise to power after 1927.” To what extent do you agree with this statement? I agree with this statement to a small extent as to me strategy was as equally as important as ideology was. An ideology is a set of conscious and unconscious ideas that constitute one's goals, expectations, and actions. Strategy is a plan of action designed to achieve a long-term or overall aim. From 1927 to 1937 the first civil war began when the kmt, victorious over the warlords, turn against the ccp. From 1937 to 1946 second united front unite against the Japanese. 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 focused on the peasantry as a revolutionary force which, he said, could be mobilized by a Communist Party with their knowledge and leadership. The model for this was of course the Chinese Communist rural insurgency 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...
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...Karl Marx: A Man of Many Thoughts Karl Heinrich Marx was born into a wealthy in the Prussian Rhineland of Trier, Germany to Herschel Marx and Henrietta Pressburg. The German born philosopher, economist, historian, journalist and revolutionary socialist was born on May 5, 1818, later becoming a pioneer in the world of economics, focusing on the relationship between labor and capital(Wikipedia). Marx became interested in philosophy after studying the Young Hegelians at the University of Bonn and the University of Berlin (Wikipedia). Later he began associating with a few communist societies, where he would meet the person he would collaborate with from then on. Through his ever changing ideas and philosophies, Karl Marx has influenced Socialist as well as Communist, on his road to becoming one of history’s greatest minds. When Marx was developing as a young economist and historian much of his influence came from his connection he felt to Hegel and the Young Hegelians. Most of the Young Hegelians were instrumental in assisting Hegel by pushing him to further the most conservative implications of his work. Much of Marx’s significant advancements of this time of his life were the result of him trying to find his place in amongst Hegel and the other talented Young Hegelians like Ludwig Feuerbach, who thought to try and re-write the metaphysics Hegel and recently developed in the early 1840’s, critiquing Hegel’s doctrine of religion and the state, in the process. The works...
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...Mohammad Kareem Conservatism: In Theory Communism would work and is the best way to form a government, but as this ideology was implemented in different countries and nations the reality has shown it might be very far from being perfect. This system of government as well as economy is also based on trying to create equality. Communism can be related to Socialism which creates equality by essentially sharing all profits and land with the community. Unlike socialism however,Communism believes that there is no need for a profit to be given to the worker or for land to be owned by any workers because it creates inequality and this must be done to ensure social order. A Lot of the communist ideology is totally opposite and against capitalist views. There is no competition in communism and wages and salaries are equal across all carers and work. In Communist theory, government leaders should only be temporary and used only to gear the population towards true order and then step down and let the work cycle continued. Many of the communist ideology is predominantly theory and is highly criticized by many nations. In today's day and age many countries have decided to opt out of the communist social structure because it is unpractical and does not provide true equality as theorized. Communism was a fairly modern ideology founded only about 120 years ago but has lingered throughout history. The majour man honoured with the creation of communism is Karl Marx who lived between 1818-1883 and...
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...Adrienne Korson Marxism: For and Against Marxism is essentially a critique of Capitalism. In order to understand Marxism, one needs to evaluate the history of Marxism. Heilbroner described Marxism as being “inescapable” (Heilbroner, 15). Marxism is credited with the contribution for uncovering an unsuspected level of reality beneath the surface of capitalism. His mode of inquiry for uncovering the hidden reality of capitalism is through his own invented process of socioanalysis. Because of Marx’s legacy of revealing the reality of capitalism, Heilbroner compares him to Freud and Plato, all whose works are inescapable for the truths they have unveiled. Freud and Plato both unveiled hidden realities. Marx shared a further similarity in the sense that his “combination of insight and method permanently altered the manner in which reality would thereafter be perceived” (Heilbroner, 17). Marx’s works in his book Capital is still more relevant today than Adam Smith’s renowned work Wealth of Nations. Marx‘s book placed importance on technology and crises and social tension, and more importantly, undertakes the task of critiquing the political economy. However, the problem of Marxism is within trying to define it. Heilbroner believes that there exists a set of premises that can assist in defining Marxist thought, “so that any analysis that contains these premises can be properly classified as Marxist” (Heilbroner, 20). There are four main premises as described by Heilbroner; the...
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...By 1860 Irish immigrants had largely replaced the New England mill girls as textile workers. The pace of industrialization and economic expansion had a significant impact on society, as the distribution of wealth between successful entrepreneurs and the laboring classes grew. ” Before long, 45% the capital assets in the United States belong to the top 10% of the population. In Boston in 1845 the top 4% of the people owned 65% of the wealth, and in Philadelphia the top 1% owned 50% by 1860.” These statistics help explain the gap between the wealthier classes in the working classes widened, but living standards for all continue to rise. Since the time period of 1800-1860 industrialization fundamentally affected the political structure , economic status, and social class of American. The North and South had many different views on a lot of aspects of life and what they believed was right and wrong and how they wanted for their regions. People like Karl Marx and John Adams had a lot to say about what the tariff of abominations and the textile manufactures affected the North and South. People in America were experiencing a lot of change during this time period. The Industrial Revolution fundamentally changed...
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..."Unless we accept the claim that Leninism gave birth to an entirely new state, and indeed to a new era in the history of mankind, we must recognize in today Soviet Union the old empire of the Russians -- the only empire that survived into the mid 1980's" (Luttwak, 1). In their Communist Manifesto of 1848, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels applied the term communism to a final stage of socialism in which all class differences would disappear and humankind would live in harmony. Marx and Engels claimed to have discovered a scientific approach to socialism based on the laws of history. They declared that the course of history was determined by the clash of opposing forces rooted in the economic system and the ownership of property. Just as the feudal system had given way to capitalism, so in time capitalism would give way to socialism. The class struggle of the future would be between the bourgeoisie, who were the capitalist employers, and the proletariat, who were the workers. The struggle would end, according to Marx, in the socialist revolution and the attainment of full communism (Groiler's Encyclopedia). Socialism, of which "Marxism-Leninism" is a takeoff, originated in the West. Designed in France and Germany, it was brought into Russia in the middle of the nineteenth century and promptly attracted support among the country's educated, public-minded elite, who at that time were called intelligentsia (Pipes, 21). After Revolution broke out over Europe in 1848 the modern working class...
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...ideology: Maoism is a form of communism developed by Mao Tse Tung. It is a doctrine to capture State power through a combination of armed insurgency, mass mobilization and strategic alliances. Propaganda and disinformation against State institutions are used as additional tools. Mao called this process, the ‘Protracted Peoples War’. The central theme of Maoist ideology is resorting to violence as a tool to capture State power. ‘Bearing of arms is non-negotiable’ as per the Maoist insurgency doctrine. Maoism has a definite view about how to get to socialism, and about what needs to be done to meet the basic needs of everyone in a poor country. Development is to be on an egalitarian basis—we are all in it together and everyone rises together. 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 focused on the peasantry as a revolutionary force which, he said, could be mobilized by a Communist Party with their knowledge and leadership. The model for this was of course the Chinese Communist rural insurgency 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 were 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...
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...KARL MARX Karl Heinrich Marx (5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, sociologist, historian, political economist, political theorist and revolutionary socialist, who developed the socio-political theory of Marxism. His ideas play a significant role in both the development of social science and also in the socialist political movement. Marx's theories about society, economics and politics, which are collectively known as Marxism, hold that all society progresses through class struggle. He was heavily critical of the current form of society, capitalism, which he called the "dictatorship of the bourgeoisie", believing it to be run by the wealthy middle and upper classes purely for their own benefit, and predicted that, like previous socioeconomic systems, it would inevitably produce internal tensions which would lead to its self-destruction and replacement by a new system, socialism. Marx polemic with other thinkers often occurred through critique, and thus he has been called "the first great user of critical method in social sciences. Fundamentally, Marx assumed that human history involves transforming human nature, which encompasses both human beings and material objects. Humans recognise that they possess both actual and potential selves. Marx had a special concern with how people relate to that most fundamental resource of all, their own labour power.[120] He wrote extensively about this in terms of the problem of alienation. Refers to the separation...
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...When a social system and its productive relation are no longer compatible with its demand for productivity development, people are going to overthrow that system and introduce a new one suitable to current economic situation. In the case of Europe, when history rolled its wheel to 1500’s, such a situation applied. In this century, alongside the great discovery, the activities of Europeans was suddenly not confined to the continent and the neighboring waters, but reached great remote oceans and any corners of the world with their vessels and compasses. Trade and commerce grew exponentially as several small nations like Spain, Portugal, and later Holland became masters of the sea and the route of their vessels reached more and more land and the people on it. The great discovery changed, to a great extent, the people’s outlook on the world and the development of trade and commerce facilitated by this discovery increased substantially the riches of European countries and their people, propelling the economic development to such a point that the old social structure became compatible no more. On the other hand, the Renaissance emancipated people’s mind and facilitated the spread of ideas as freedom, equality and democracy which are essential to the founding of modern society. If the great discovery updated people’s physical outlook on the world, the Renaissance transformed their conception upon society and human beings. They became more conscious of the position they were in and...
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...Stalin the Red Tsar. How far do you agree with this judgement? Stalin, upon his rise to power in 1929, assured the Russian peoples that he was a dedicated follower of Leninism; often saying that “Lenin is always with us” indicating that he wished to show how similar to Lenin he was going to be in his leadership. Despite this claim, in actual fact there were a number of distinctly Tsarist elements to his leadership. A Tsar is a leader who rules without parliaments in an absolute autocracy, often being resistant to any reforms; maintaining the feudal, peasant-based illiterate society. Furthermore, they were often intrinsically bound with the Russian Orthodox Church as well as being distinctively imperialistic and chauvinistic. To a large degree, Stalin fitted this model, perhaps most notably due to his “top-down” approach to leadership, thus leading to the idea that he was a “Red Tsar”. He did not fit the model fully, though, especially when it came to being anti-reform, where in fact Stalin was all for reform (though not always for the better) and believed in modernising the USSR and, despite his anti-Western stance, was a Westerniser and not a Slavophile. He was also not imperialistic like the Tsarist leaders had been, and knew that people would react badly to Russian cultural imperialism. The belief that Stalin was a Red Tsar perhaps also came from his self-portrayal as a ‘God-like’ figure, and his employment of very traditional tactics of fear and propaganda in his unquestionable...
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...a communist country should look like but Stalin’s tactics were the most brutal and oppressive. His personal distrust of the people around him led to purges and while he did manage to accelerate the USSR’s economic standpoint, it came at a high cost leading to widespread starvation. While essentially the communists planned to destroy the bourgeoisie to create a classless society, and thus equality, the implementation of such a plan was poor and gave the opportunity for a mere secretary of the party to rise to totalitarian rule. While World War I was coming to an...
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...Heather Jones Contemporary Political Thought Dr. Pickell November 24, 2015 Karl Heinrich Marx Throughout history many ideologies have been created and many philosophers have explained their thoughts and ideas. It has been over a century since Marx’s death, but he still remains to be one of the most highly influential figures (Prychitko). Karl Marx was not known as a 19th century philosopher, yet he was known as a German journalist, revolutionary socialist, and revolutionary communist. Not only did he discuss political and social issues, but he also inquired about history. Karl Marx was born to Heinrich and Henrietta Marx in Trier, on May 5, 1818 and was one of nine siblings. According to Ball, Dagger, and O’Neill, his father Heinrich was a Jewish, wealthy lawyer in Trier, but was forced to convert to Christianity because the government did not allow Jews to practice law. He was privately educated prior to going to college, and because Marx’s family was wealthy, he went to study law at the University of Bonn. There his grades began to deteriorate because he dedicated himself to his friends, alcohol, and trouble instead of his studies. As a consequence, his father made him relocate to University of Berlin, and while studying philosophy and pursuing law here he was introduced to the ideas Hegel and Feuerbach. In 1941, Marx graduated with a doctorate in Philosophy, but later turned to journalism because with his radical way of thinking he was unable to find an academic...
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