Marxism is a doctrine based on the postulates of Karl Marx.
Marxism is a doctrine that has its bases in the theories developed by the famous Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels . Both intellectuals of German origin reinterpreted the dialectical idealism popularized by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel as dialectical materialism and proposed the creation of a society without class distinctions . Political organizations created according to the guidelines of this doctrine are described as Marxist .
It should be noted that in addition to Hegel , other thinkers have contributed to the expansion of Marxism, such as Adam Smith , David Ricardo , Ludwig Feuerbach and the different exponents of French utopian socialism of the 19th century.
"Capital", the main work of Marxism
The most important work of Marxism is "Capital" ( "Das Kapital" , in German). Marx published only the first volume during his lifetime, which appeared in 1867 . The remaining three books appeared between 1885 and 1894 , being edited by Engels from Marx 's manuscripts.
Marx's fundamental proposal, the one he postulates in "Capital" , is to achieve a society without class distinction where both the production process, the productive forces and the relationships that arise from production become a social good . In this it differs from capitalism where work is social but its appropriation is private and work is bought for money.
Marx's analysis of societies was based on the class division proposed by capitalism, which did not coincide at all with the intellectual's notion of what a just society was. On the one hand there was the working class, which is also called the proletariat , who sell their labor and receive money in exchange, but who do not have the means for production, the main people responsible for providing wealth to a society (they build, manufacture , produce services, etc.). In turn, this class is divided into ordinary proletariat (those who find work easily and receive a fairly reasonable payment for their services) and lumpenproletariat (those who live in absolute poverty and cannot find stable jobs: immigrants, prostitutes, beggars, etc.) . The other class is the bourgeoisie , to which belong those who have the means of production and buy the service of the proletariat for their exploitation. This class can be divided into the very rich bourgeoisie and the petty bourgeoisie (the latter are those who use labor but must also work: merchants, small landowners, peasants with little land, etc.).
Karl Marx detailed his best-known theories in "Capital."
Revolutionary proposal
The idea of Marxism is to expropriate the means of production from the bourgeoisie and leave them in the hands of the proletariat so that the working classes are the only ones who benefit from the fruit of their labor. In any case, this analysis does not include mechanisms to end the class division.
Anarchism , which emerged years later, clung to the idea of ending them, and its fundamental thinkers Mikhail Bakunin and Pyotr Kropotkin called Marxism incoherent by proposing a revolution leaving the existence of a State. They assured that a true revolution must end not only economic social divisions, but also political hierarchies. However, history ended up leaving anarchism as a utopia even more distant than Marxism itself.
Marxism and religion
In the field of religions, Marxism has always been totally contrary to them. There is a phrase that says that religion is the opium of the people that, although it is not known whether it was really Marx, Nietzsche or Mao Tse Tung who uttered it first, can clearly define the opinion that Marxists and later communists have. about religious beliefs.
It should be noted that for Marxism the essence of every human being is found in the set of their relationships with the other individuals in the group. Relationships that are spiritual and material and where individual and collective consciousness occupy one of the fundamental places.
Divisions and currents
After Marx's death in 1883, several divisions emerged within the movement. Among the main ones appear that of the social democrats (they considered that socialism could develop in a capitalist and multi-party society) and that of the communists (they appealed to the revolution as an engine for an absolutely structural change), who were fundamental for the development of the events. politicians seen at the beginning of the 20th century. These parties were inspired by Marxism to undertake their revolutions . Among the most important of the century were the Bolshevik revolution led by Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky , which took place in October 1917 in Russia , which was the first large-scale attempt to install a workers' state with socialist characteristics. In this way, Soviet Marxism ended up transforming into Stalinism , a movement led by Joseph Stalin and criticized by many Marxists for considering its spirit to be dictatorial and bureaucratic.
After World War II , and thanks to Soviet support, the Communist Party managed to come to power in the People's Republic of China , Vietnam , East Germany , Poland , Albania and Romania , among other countries.
Intellectuals of Marxism
Of the most outstanding Marxist intellectuals of the 20th century, we can mention Georg Lukács , Louis Althusser and Antonio Gramsci .
Today there are still many movements born from Marxism, but most of them, especially those descended from social democracy, have completely moved away from the ideas of Karl Marx , in fact the revolutionaries too since they are based on politics of extortion and imposition of new social regimes, emphatic and immovable.
There has not been a Marxist State that respects the ideas put forward by Marx. In her book "Hunger and Silk", Herta Müller analyzes the regime of Nicolae Ceauşescu where she states that that utopia that many continue to seek, Marxism as a political form that directs the destiny of all peoples, does not exist and that in its place Yes, there have been numerous cases of Marxist governments that have harassed towns and murdered entire families outright. For her, political ideas cannot be measured solely from theory , since it is in practice where they are recognized and it is possible to know if they are essential or not. Possibly only those who have lived under a regime of the savage magnitude of Nicolae Ceauşescu can understand his words.