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For the political ideology commonly associated with states governed by Communist parties, see Marxism-Leninism.

Marxism is a worldview and method of societal analysis that focuses on class relations and societal conflict, that uses a materialist interpretation of historical development, and a dialectical view of social transformation. Marxist methodology uses economic and sociopolitical inquiry and applies that to the analysis and critique of the development of capitalism and the role of class struggle in systemic economic change.

In the mid-to-late 19th century, the intellectual tenets of Marxism were inspired by two German philosophers: Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Marxist analyses and methodologies have influenced multiple political ideologies and social movements. Marxism encompasses an economic theory, a sociological theory, a philosophical method, and a revolutionary view of social change.[1]

There is no single definitive Marxist theory; Marxist analysis has been applied to diverse subjects and has been misconceived and modified during the course of its development, resulting in numerous and sometimes contradictory theories that fall under the rubric of Marxism or Marxian analysis.[2]

Marxism builds on a materialist understanding of societal development, taking as its starting point the necessary economic activities required by human society to provide for its material needs. The form of economic organization or mode of production is understood to be the basis from which the majority of other social phenomena – including social relations, political and legal systems, morality and ideology – arise (or at the least by which they are directly influenced). These social relations form the superstructure, for which the economic system forms the base. As the forces of production (most notably technology) improve, existing forms of social organization become inefficient and stifle further progress. These inefficiencies manifest themselves as social contradictions in the form of class struggle.[3]

According to Marxist analysis, class conflict within capitalism arises due to intensifying contradictions between highly productive mechanized and socialized production performed by the proletariat, and private ownership and private appropriation of the surplus product in the form of surplus value (profit) by a small minority of private owners called the bourgeoisie. As the contradiction becomes apparent to the proletariat, social unrest between the two antagonistic classes intensifies, culminating in a social revolution. The eventual long-term outcome of this revolution would be the establishment of socialism – a socioeconomic system based on cooperative ownership of the means of production, distribution based on one's contribution, and production organized directly for use. Karl Marx hypothesized that, as the productive forces and technology continued to advance, socialism would eventually give way to a communist stage of social development. Communism would be a classless, stateless, humane society erected on common ownership and the principle of "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs".

Marxism has developed into different branches and schools of thought. Different schools place a greater emphasis on certain aspects of classical Marxism while de-emphasizing or rejecting other aspects of Marxism, sometimes combining Marxist analysis with non-Marxian concepts. Some variants of Marxism primarily focus on one aspect of Marxism as the determining force in social development – such as the mode of production, class, power-relationships or property ownership – while arguing other aspects are less important or current research makes them irrelevant. Despite sharing similar premises, different schools of Marxism might reach contradictory conclusions from each other.[4] For instance, different Marxian economists have contradictory explanations of economic crisis and different predictions for the outcome of such crises. Furthermore, different variants of Marxism apply Marxist analysis to study different aspects of society (e.g. mass culture, economic crises, or feminism).[5]

These theoretical differences have led various socialist and communist parties and political movements to embrace different political strategies for attaining socialism and advocate different programs and policies from each other. One example of this is the division between revolutionary socialists and reformists that emerged in the German Social Democratic Party (SPD) during the early 20th century.

Marxist understandings of history and of society have been adopted by academics in the disciplines of archaeology and anthropology,[6] media studies,[7] political science, theater, history, sociology, art history and art theory, cultural studies, education, economics, geography, literary criticism, aesthetics, critical psychology, and philosophy.[8]


The Marxian analysis begins with an analysis of material conditions, taking at its starting point the necessary economic activities required by human society to provide for its material needs. The form of economic organization, or mode of production, is understood to be the basis from which the majority of other social phenomena – including social relations, political and legal systems, morality and ideology – arise (or at the least by which they are directly influenced). These social relations base the economic system and the economic system forms the superstructure. As the forces of production, most notably technology, improve, existing forms of social organization become inefficient and stifle further progress. As Karl Marx observed: "At a certain stage of development, the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production or_ this merely expresses the same thing in legal terms_ with the property relations within the framework of which they have operated hitherto. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters. Then begins an era of social revolution."[9]


Capitalism (according to Marxist theory) can no longer sustain the living standards of the population due to its need to compensate for falling rates of profit by driving down wages, cutting social benefits and pursuing military aggression. The socialist system would succeed capitalism as humanity's mode of production through workers' revolution. According to Marxism, especially arising from Crisis theory, Socialism is a historical necessity (but not an inevitability).[10]

In a socialist society private property in the means of production would be superseded by co-operative ownership. A socialist economy would not base production on the creation of private profits, but would instead base production and economic activity on the criteria of satisfying human needs – that is, production would be carried out directly for use. As Engels observed: "Then the capitalist mode of appropriation in which the product enslaves first the producer, and then appropriator, is replaced by the mode of appropriation of the product that is based upon the nature of the modern means of production; upon the one hand, direct social appropriation, as means to the maintenance and extension of production_ on the other, direct individual appropriation, as means of subsistence and of enjoyment."'[11]


Historical Materialism


Russian Marxist theoretician and revolutionary Vladimir Lenin, 1913.[12]



The base and superstructure metaphor explains that the totality of social relations in and by which humans product and re-product their social existence, forms a society's economic base. From this base rises a superstructure of political and legal institutions, i.e., ruling class. The base corresponds to the social consciousness (politics, religion, philosophy, etc.), and it conditions the superstructure and the dominant ideology. 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.[15] This relationship is reflexive; At first the base gives rise to the superstructure and remains the foundation of a form of social organization. Hence, that formed social organization can act again upon both parts of the base and superstructure, whose relationship is not unilinear but dialectic, namely a relationship driven by conflicts and contradictions. As Friedrich Engels clarified: "The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles. Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes."'[16]

Marx considered these socio-economic conflicts as the driving force of human history since these recurring conflicts have manifested themselves as distinct transitional stages of development in Western Europe. Accordingly Marx designates human history as encompassing four stages of development in relations of production.[17]

  2. Slave Society: a development of tribal progression to city-state; aristocracy is born.

Criticism of capitalism


—Martha E. Gimenez, Marxism and Class, Gender and Race: Rethinking the Trilogy[18]






Social classes


  • Proletariat: "those individuals who has nothing to offer but their labour power, because in the capitalist mode of production, they do not own the means of production". As Andrei Platonov expressed "The working class is my home country and my future is linked with the proletariat."[22] 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.





Cuban revolutionary and Marxist-Leninist politician Fidel Castro on discovering Marxism, 2009.[26]

Revolution, socialism, and communism



Classical Marxism

Main article: Classical Marxism

The term Classical Marxism denotes the collection of socio-eco-political theories expounded by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. "Marxism, as Ernest Mandel remarked, is always open, always critical, always self-critical." [29] 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 Marx's letter derives the paraphrase: "If that is Marxism, then I am not a Marxist".[30][31] American Marxist scholar Hal Draper responded to this comment by saying, "there are few thinkers in modern history whose thought has been so badly misrepresented, by Marxists and anti-Marxists alike".[32]



Academic Marxism




Political Marxism

Main article: Political Marxism

Since the late 19th century, Marxist-inspired socialist parties have been internally divided, between proponents of orthodox Marxism and proponents of revisionist Marxism, and between the respective revolutionary and reformist branches. Revolutionary, Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin, said that “the supersession of the bourgeois state by the proletarian state is impossible without violent revolution”.[36] Reformist and democratic socialist political theorist Michael Harrington claims that, in their later life, Engels and Marx had advocated the development of socialism through parliamentary means, wherever possible.[37]

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.[citation needed] 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.[citation needed] This issue caused the communists to break away, forming their own parties which became members of the Third International.[citation needed]

The following countries had governments at some point in the 20th century who at least nominally adhered to Marxism:[38] 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, and Vietnam. In addition, out of twenty eight Indian states, three state viz. Kerala, Tripura and West Bengal have had Marxist governments, but change occurred through electoral processes. Some of these governments such as in Venezuela, Nicaragua, Chile, Moldova and India have been democratic in nature and maintained regular multiparty elections.


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.[39] 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,[40][41][42][43] 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,[44] was executed at great cost in human suffering, along with long-term environmental devastation.[44]


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.

The Kuomintang party, a Chinese nationalist revolutionary party, had Marxist members who opposed the Chinese Communist Party. They viewed the Chinese revolution in different terms than the Communists, claiming that China had already passed its feudal stage and was in a stagnation period rather than in another mode of production. These Marxists in the Kuomintang opposed the Chinese communist party ideology.[45]

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. Rifts occurred between the Soviet Union and China,[46] 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.[47]

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 Mao Zedong's legacy in 1980 and the ascent of Deng Xiaoping – seems to have solved the succession crises[citation needed] that have plagued self-proclaimed Leninist governments since the death of Lenin himself. Key to this success is another Leninism which is a NEP 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 arguably 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.[citation needed]

In 1991 the Soviet Union was dismantled and the new Russian state, alongside the other emerging republics, ceased to identify themselves 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. Theorists including Joel Kovel and Michael Löwy have synthesized Marxism, socialism, ecology and environmentalism into an ideology known as Eco-socialism.[48]

Social democracy

Main article: Social democracy

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. Many social democrats reject the idea that socialism can be accomplished only through class conflict, revolution and dictatorship of the proletariat.

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 through the emergence of new theories) and had various, quite different objections to Marxism. The social democrats argued that socialism should be achieved through evolution rather than revolution. Such views were strongly opposed by the revolutionary socialists,[49][50] 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.[citation needed] 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[citation needed] 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. Eventually, after the October Revolution, 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, the Comintern.



Main articles: Socialism and Socialism (Marxism)

The term socialism refers to two fundamentally different ideologies – democratic socialism and Marxist-Leninist socialism. The Marxist-Leninists sought to work towards a classless, stateless, moneyless society with a Marxist ideology by first creating a socialist state, which represents the proletariat. 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 dissolution of the Soviet Union and its satellite states. Very few countries have governments that describe themselves as socialist in the Marxist sense; as of 2012, only Laos, Vietnam, Nepal, Cuba, and the People's Republic of China do so.[citation needed]

On the contrary, electoral parties that 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 the democracies of the developing world and serve as the ruling party or the main opposition party in most 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 People's Republic of 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 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 about its political ideology from its nominal characterization.


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 absolute 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,[51] 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.

Communist governments have historically been characterized by state ownership of productive resources in a centrally 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 totalitarian state apparatus in which decisions are made by the ruling Communist Party. Libertarian communists have characterized the Soviet model as state socialism or state capitalism since the concentrated state played the part formerly capitalist played in economy.


Main articles: Marxism–Leninism and Leninism

Marxism-Leninism, strictly speaking, refers to the ideology based upon the economic theories of Marx and the revolutionary political theories developed by Vladimir Lenin known as Leninism. However, in various contexts, different (and sometimes opposing) political groups have used the term "Marxism–Leninism" to denote 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 revolutionary 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).[citation needed]

Leninism holds that capitalism can only be overthrown by revolutionary means; that is, any attempts to reform capitalism from within, such as social democracy, Fabianism and non-revolutionary forms of democratic socialism, are doomed to fail due to the inherent contradictions of the capitalist and labour class relations.[51] The first goal of a Leninist party is to educate the proletariat, so as to remove the various modes of perceived 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.[citation needed] Once the proletariat has gained class consciousness the party will coordinate the proletariat's total might to overthrow the bourgeois 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 the construction and development of socialism, the lower phase of communism. After this, partisan and non-partisan distinction 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 in the October Revolution as "soviets".


Main article: Trotskyism



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.[52] 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.[52] In the view of many Trotskyists, this is exactly what has happened since the beginning of Glasnost and Perestroika in the USSR. Some[who?] argue that the adoption of market socialism by the People's Republic of China has also led to capitalist counter-revolution.[citation needed] Most modern Trotskyist organisations are organised internationally, such as the International Marxist Tendency, International Socialist Tendency and the Committee for a Workers' International. They are mostly rather small groupings.

Chinese communism

Main article: Maoism

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[which?] 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".


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.[citation needed] 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.[citation needed]

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.

Socialism with Chinese characteristics

Socialism with Chinese characteristics (simplified Chinese: 中国特色社会主义; traditional Chinese: 中國特色社會主義; pinyin: Zhōngguótèsè shèhuìzhǔyì), literally the modern form of Chinese Marxism, is the official ideology of the CPC based upon scientific socialism. This ideology supports the creation of a socialist market economy dominated by the public sector since China is in the primary stage of socialism. The Chinese government maintains that it has not abandoned Marxism but has developed many of the terms and concepts of Marxist theory to accommodate reality. The CPC argues that socialism is compatible with these economic policies. In current Chinese Communist thinking, China is in the primary stage of socialism—a view which explains the Chinese government's flexible economic policies to develop into an industrialized nation.

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.

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.[vague]

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[according to whom?] Left Communists were supportive of the October Revolution in Russia,[citation needed] but retained a critical view of its development. Some,[which?] 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.[citation needed]

Left Communism first came into being as a clear movement in or around 1918.[citation needed] 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.[citation needed] Apart from that, there was little in common between the various wings. Only the Italians[original research?] 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.

Dispute that the Soviet Union was Marxist

Marx defined "communism" as a classless, egalitarian and stateless society. To Marx, the notion of a communist state would have seemed an oxymoron,[53][54][55] 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 all class social relations had been abandoned. Such a development has yet to occur in any historical self-claimed socialist state.[53][54][55]

Even within the Stalinist state at its height, there were repressed[53] expressions of Marxist orthodoxy, revealed after the fall of the USSR, arguing that it had developed new class structures: those who are in government and therefore have power (sometimes referred to as the political class), and those who are not in government and do not have power, the working class. 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 capitalist class; this arrangement is referred to as "state capitalism."[53] These statist regimes have generally followed a planned economy model without making a transition to this hypothetical final stage.[56]

Some academics such as Noam Chomsky dispute the claim that the political movements in the former Soviet Union were Marxist.[56] 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.


Marxists can interpret the Manifesto differently, and therefore all variants cannot be covered in this article.


Main article: Marxism–Leninism

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.[57] 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


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, which shows the Leninist conception that not only the proletariat, as is traditional to Marxism, are the sole revolutionary force, but all oppressed people:

Workers and Oppressed Peoples of the World, Unite![59]

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 cadre of professional revolutionaries that disciplined itself under the model of democratic centralism.

Marxism–Leninism after Stalin

For better or worse, Marxism-Leninism as a body of thought and practice was closely identified with the figure of Joseph Stalin after the death of Lenin. After the death of Stalin, the leader of the USSR, Nikita Khrushchev made several ideological and practical ruptures with his predecessor which led to the eventual split of Marxism-Leninism into two main branches, post-Stalin "Moscow-aligned" communism and anti-revisionism. In turn, these branches evolved into multiple schools of thought over time.

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.


Main article: 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 Carrillo 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 by 1921 Gramsci believed that a Communist Party in the Leninist sense was needed. This trend went by the name Eurocommunism.


Main article: Anti-Revisionism

There are many proponents of Marxist-Leninism who rejected the theses of Khrushchev. 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. Usually, they are referred to externally by the following epithets, although anti-revisionists typically refer to themselves simply as Marxist-Leninists.


Main article: Maoism

Maoism takes its name from Mao Zedong, the erstwhile leader of the People's 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.


Main article: Hoxhaism

Hoxhaism, so named because of the central contribution of Albanian statesman Enver Hoxha, was closely aligned with the People's Republic of 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 Chinese Communist Party and because it viewed the actions of Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping unfavourably. Ultimately, however, Hoxhaism as a trend came to the understanding that Socialism had never existed in China at all.


Main article: Trotskyism

Trotskyism is the usual term for followers of the ideas of Russian Marxist Leon Trotsky, the second most prominent leader of the Russian Revolution. 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. 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[60] and subsequently from the Soviet Union. Trotsky characterized the government of the USSR after his expulsion as being dominated by a "bureaucratic caste" and called for it to be overthrown.[61]

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.

Western Marxism

Main article: Western Marxism


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.In Althusser's theory, the structural order of the capitalist mode of production is distinct both from the actual, real agents involved in its relations and from the ideological forms in which those relations are understood. Structural Marxism 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.

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.

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 lopsidedly 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.

Marxism-De Leonism

Marxism-De Leonism, 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 Labour 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.[citation needed]

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.[citation needed]


The term "Marxism" was popularized by Karl Kautsky who considered himself an "orthodox" Marxist during the dispute between the orthodox and revisionist followers of Marx.[62] Kautsky's revisionist rival Eduard Bernstein also later adopted use of the term.[62] Engels did not support the use of the term "Marxism" to describe either Marx's or his views.[63] Engels claimed that the term was being abusively used as a rhetorical qualifier by those attempting to cast themselves as "real" followers of Marx while casting others in different terms, such as "Lassallians".[63] In 1882, Engels claimed that Marx had criticized self-proclaimed "Marxist" Paul Lafargue, by saying that if Lafargue's views were considered "Marxist", then "One thing is certain and that is that I am not a Marxist".[63]


Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels

Main articles: Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels

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 (28 November 1820 – 5 August 1895) was a 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.


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.

Late 20th century

Political Marxism

In 1959, the Cuban Revolution led to the victory of anti-imperialist Fidel Castro (1926–) and his July 26 Movement. Although the revolution had not been explicitly socialist, upon victory Castro ascended to the position of Prime Minister and eventually adopted the Leninist model of socialist development, forging an alliance with the Soviet Union.[64] One of the leaders of the revolution, the Argentine Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara (1928–1967), subsequently went on to aid revolutionary socialist movements in Congo-Kinshasa and Bolivia, eventually being killed by the Bolivian government, possibly on the orders of the CIA, though the CIA agent sent to search for Guevara, Felix Rodriguez expressed a desire to keep him alive as a possible bargaining tool with the Cuban government; he would posthumously go on to become an internationally recognised icon.



21st century

Political Marxism

At the turn of the 21st century, China, Cuba, Laos and Vietnam remained the only officially Marxist-Leninist states remaining, although a Maoist government led by Prachanda (1954–) was elected into power in Nepal in 2008 following a long guerrilla struggle. The early 21st century also saw the election of socialist and anti-imperialist governments in several Latin American nations, in what has come to be known as the "Pink tide". Dominated by the Venezuelan government of Hugo Chávez, this trend also saw the election of Evo Morales in Bolivia, Rafael Correa in Ecuador and Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua; forging political and economic alliances through international organisations like the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas, these socialist governments allied themselves with Marxist-Leninist Cuba, and although none of them espoused a Leninist path directly, most admitted to being significantly influenced by Marxist theory. For Italian Marxist Gianni Vattimo in his 2011 book Hermeneutic Communism "this new weak communism differs substantially from its previous Soviet (and current Chinese) realization, because the South American countries follow democratic electoral procedures and also manage to decentralize the state bureaucratic system through the misiones (social missions for community projects). In sum, if weakened communism is felt as a specter in the West, it is not only because of media distortions but also for the alternative it represents through the same democratic procedures that the West constantly professes to cherish but is hesitant to apply"[65]


Main article: Criticisms of Marxism


Socialist critiques

Democratic socialists and social democrats reject the idea that socialism can be accomplished only through extra-legal class conflict and a proletarian revolution. The relationship between Marx and other socialist thinkers and organizations, rooted in Marxism's "scientific" and anti-utopian socialism, among other factors, has divided Marxists from other socialists since Marx's life. After Marx's death, and with the emergence of Marxism, there have additionally been dissensions within Marxism itself- the splitting of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party into Bolsheviks and Mensheviks a notable example. "Orthodox" Marxism became counterposed to a less dogmatic, more innovative, or even revisionist Marxism.

Anarchist critiques

Main article: Anarchism and Marxism

Anarchism has had a strained relationship with Marxism since Marx's life. Anarchists reject the need for a transitory state phase, claiming that socialism cannot be established except through decentralized, noncoercive organization. Individualist anarchists, who are often neither socialists nor capitalists, reject Marxism as a statist ideology.

Economic critiques


V. K. Dmitriev, writing in 1898,[67] Ladislaus von Bortkiewicz, writing in 1906–07,[68] and subsequent critics have alleged that Marx's value theory and law of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall are internally inconsistent. In other words, the critics allege that Marx drew conclusions that actually do not follow from his theoretical premises. Once these alleged errors are corrected, his conclusion that aggregate price and profit are determined by, and equal to, aggregate value and surplus value no longer holds true. This result calls into question his theory that the exploitation of workers is the sole source of profit.[69]

Both Marxism and socialism have received considerable critical analysis from multiple generations of Austrian economists in terms of scientific methodology, economic theory, and political implications.[70][71] During the marginal revolution, subjective value theory was rediscovered by Carl Menger, a development which undermined the British cost theories of value fundamentally. The restoration of subjectivism and praxeological methodology previously employed by classical economic scientists including Richard Cantillon, Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot, Jean-Baptiste Say, and Frédéric Bastiat led Menger to criticise historicist methodology in general. Second-generation Austrian economist Eugen Böhm von Bawerk employed praxeological and subjectivist methodology attacking the law of value fundamentally. Non-Marxist economists have regarded his criticism as definitive with Gottfried Haberler arguing that Böhm-Bawerk's critique of Marx's economics was so thorough and devastating that as of the 1960s no Marxian scholar had conclusively refuted it.[72] Third-generation Austrian Ludwig Von Mises sparked the economic calculation debate by identifying that without price signals in capital goods all other aspects of the market economy are irrational. This led him to declare "...that rational economic activity is impossible in a socialist commonwealth."[73] Mises then elaborated on every form of socialism more completely in his 1922 book Socialism, an Economic and Sociological Analysis. Contemporary Austrian critics include Murray Rothbard, David Gordon Yuri Maltsev, Gary North, and Joseph Salerno.

See also



  1. ^ social science : Marxist influences – Britannica Online Encyclopedia
  2. ^ Wolff and Resnick, Richard and Stephen (August 1987). Economics: Marxian versus Neoclassical. The Johns Hopkins University Press. p. 130. ISBN 0801834805. "Marxian theory (singular) gave way to Marxian theories (plural)." 
  4. ^ O'Hara, Phillip (September 2003). Encyclopedia of Political Economy, Volume 2. Routledge. p. 107. ISBN 0-415-24187-1. "Marxist political economists differ over their definitions of capitalism, socialism and communism. These differences are so fundamental, the arguments among differently persuaded Marxist political economists have sometimes been as intense as their oppositions to political economies that celebrate capitalism." 
  5. ^ Wolff and Resnick, Richard and Stephen (August 1987). Economics: Marxian versus Neoclassical. The Johns Hopkins University Press. p. 130. ISBN 0801834805. "The German Marxists extended the theory to groups and issues Marx had barely touched. Marxian analyses of the legal system, of the social role of women, of foreign trade, of international rivalries among capitalist nations, and the role of parliamentary democracy in the transition to socialism drew animated debates...Marxian theory (singular) gave way to Marxian theories (plural)." 
  9. ^ A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, Introduction 1859
  10. ^ Free will, non-predestination and non-determinism are emphasized in Marx’s famous quote "Men make their own history..." The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, Karl Marx 1852.
  11. ^ Socialism, Utopian and Scientific, Chapter three 1882
  12. ^ Lenin 1967 (1913). p. 15.
  14. ^ Evans, p. 53; Marx's account of the theory is the Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (1859). [1]. Another exposition of the theory is in The German Ideology. It, too, is available online from
  16. ^ Communist manifesto, chapter one 1847
  19. ^ Lenin 1967 (1913). p. 07.
  20. ^ Marx 1849.
  21. ^ "Alienation" entry, A Dictionary of Sociology
  22. ^ Andrei Platonov, the 20th-century Russian writer
  23. ^ Joseph McCarney: Ideology and False Consciousness, April 2005
  25. ^ "Karl Marx, The German Ideology". 
  26. ^ Castro and Ramonet 2009. p. 100.
  27. ^ Lenin 1967 (1913). p. 35.
  28. ^ Lenin 1967 (1913). p. 35–36.
  29. ^ Ernest Mandel, German Marxist.
  31. ^ Hall, Stuart; Dave Morely, Kuan-Hsing Chen (1996). Stuart Hall: Critical Dialogues in Cultural Studies. London: Routledge. p. 418. ISBN 9780415088039. Retrieved 4 March 2013. "I have no hesitation in saying that this represents a gigantic crudification and simplification of Marx's work – the kind of simplification and reductionism which once led him, in despair, to say "if that is marxism, then I am not a marxist"" 
  32. ^ Not found in search function at Draper Arkiv
  33. ^ Callinicos 2010. p. 12.
  34. ^ Trigger 2007. p. 326–340.
  35. ^ Green 1981. p. 79.
  36. ^ Robert Vincent Daniels. A Documentary History of Communism in Russia: From Lenin to Gorbachev. Lebanon, New Hampshire, USA: University of New England Press, 1993. Pp. 48.
  37. ^ Michael Harrington. Socialism: Past and Future. Reprint edition of original published in 1989. New York, New York, USA: Arcade Publishing, 2011. Pp. 42.
  38. ^ Service, Robert (2008). Comrades: Communism: A World History. Pan MacMillan. ISBN 0-330-43968-5 
  39. ^ "Documents on the Russian Revolution". Marxists Internet Archive. Retrieved 16 May 2011. 
  40. ^ Rees, Simon. "". Retrieved 16 May 2011. 
  41. ^ "The Hungarian Revolution of 1919 (i)|International Communist Current". Retrieved 16 May 2011. 
  42. ^ "Working-class activity and councils – Germany 1918‑1923 – Peter Rachleff|". Retrieved 16 May 2011. 
  43. ^ "The History of the German Revolution: 1918–1923". Marxists Internet Archive. Retrieved 16 May 2011. 
  44. ^ a b "Collectivization and Industrialization". Ibiblio. Retrieved 16 May 2011. 
  45. ^ T. J. Byres, Harbans Mukhia (1985). Feudalism and non-European societies. Psychology Press. p. 207. ISBN 0-7146-3245-7. Retrieved 2010-11-28. 
  46. ^ "The Great Debate: Documents of the Sino-Soviet Split.". Marxists Internet Archive. Retrieved 16 May 2011. 
  47. ^ "Behind the Stalin-Tito Clash". Retrieved 16 May 2011. 
  48. ^ Joel Kovel; Michael Löwy (September 2001). "An Ecosocialist Manifesto". International Endowment for Democracy. Retrieved 2 September 2010. 
  49. ^ "V. I. Lenin: The Tasks of the Proletariat in the Present Revolution (a.k.a. the April Theses)". Marxists Internet Archive. Retrieved 17 May 2011. 
  50. ^ Lenin, Vladimir. "The State and Revolution". Marxists Internet Archive (in an English Translation). Retrieved 17 May 2011. 
  51. ^ a b "Marxism and the National Question". Marxists Internet Archive. Retrieved 25 May 2011. 
  52. ^ a b Trotsky, Leon. "The Revolution Betrayed". Marxists Internet Archive. Retrieved 5 June 2013. "The Soviet Union is a contradictory society halfway between capitalism and socialism, in which: (a) the productive forces are still far from adequate to give the state property a socialist character; (b) the tendency toward primitive accumulation created by want breaks out through innumerable pores of the planned economy; ... (g) a further development of the accumulating contradictions can as well lead to socialism as back to capitalism; (h) on the road to capitalism the counterrevolution would have to break the resistance of the workers; (i) on the road to socialism the workers would have to overthrow the bureaucracy." 
  53. ^ a b c d The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics is a Capitalist Society Raya Dunayevskaya under the name of Freddie James 1941
  54. ^ a b Communist Manifesto Study Questions
  55. ^ a b Anomalistic History
  56. ^ a b The Soviet Union Versus Socialism Chomsky, 1986
  57. ^ For example, the Communist Party of China alone has more than 66 million members. See
  58. ^ The Foundations of Leninism
  59. ^ The right of self-determination and the class struggle
  60. ^ [2][dead link]
  61. ^ "The characterisation of the anti-bureaucratic revolution as "political revolution" referred to the fact that the bureaucracy had politically expropriated the proletariat ..."
  64. ^ See Coltman 2003 and Bourne 1986.
  70. ^ [3] What We Can Know About The World. Hans F. Sennholz.
  71. ^ [4] Omnipotent Government. Ludwig Von Mises
  73. ^ Von Mises, Ludwig (1990). Economic calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth (pdf). Ludwig von Mises Institute. Retrieved 2008-09-08. 


External links

General resources

Introductory articles

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