| Part ofa series on | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Marxism | ||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Outline | ||||||||||||||||||||
Foundations | ||||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||
Related topics
| ||||||||||||||||||||
Marxism is a method ofsocioeconomic analysis that originates in the works of 19th century German philosophersKarl Marx andFriedrich Engels. Marxism analyzes and critiques the development of class society and especially ofcapitalism as well as the role ofclass struggles in systemic, economic,social and political change. It frames capitalism through a paradigm of exploitation and analyzes class relations andsocial conflict using amaterialist interpretation of historical development (now known as "historical materialism") – materialist in the sense that the politics and ideas of an epoch are determined by the way in which material production is carried on.[1]
From the late 19th century onward, Marxism has developed from Marx's original revolutionary critique of classicalpolitical economy and materialist conception of history into a comprehensive, completeworld-view.[1] There are now many different branches andschools of thought, resulting in a discord of the single definitive Marxist theory.[2] Different Marxian schools place a greater emphasis on certain aspects ofclassical Marxism while rejecting or modifying other aspects. Some schools of thought have sought to combine Marxian concepts and non-Marxian concepts which has then led to contradictory conclusions.[3]
Marxism–Leninism and its offshoots are the most well-knownMarxist schools of thought as they were a driving force ininternational relations during most of the 20th century.[4]
Marxism analyzes the material conditions and the economic activities required to fulfill human material needs to explainsocial phenomena within any given society. It assumes that the form of economic organization, ormode of production, influences all other social phenomena—including wider social relations, political institutions, legal systems, cultural systems, aesthetics, and ideologies; this serves as the fundamentalaxiom of Marxist thought. The economic system and these social relations form abase and superstructure. Asforces of production improve, existing forms of organizing production become obsolete and hinder further progress. AsKarl 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".[5] These inefficiencies manifest themselves as social contradictions in society which are, in turn, fought out at the level of theclass struggle.[6]
.jpg)
Under thecapitalist mode of production, this struggle materializes between the minority (thebourgeoisie) who own themeans of production and the vast majority of the population (theproletariat) who produce goods and services. Starting with the conjectural premise thatsocial change occurs because of the struggle between differentclasses within society who are under contradiction against each other, a Marxist would conclude thatcapitalism exploits and oppresses the proletariat, therefore capitalism will inevitably lead to aproletarian revolution. In a socialist society,private property—in the form of the means of production—would be replaced by co-operative ownership. A socialist economy would not base production on the creation of private profits, but on the criteria of satisfying human needs—that is,production would be carried out directly for use. AsFriedrich Engels said: "Then the capitalist mode of appropriation in which the product enslaves first the producer, and then the 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".[7]
Marxian economics and its proponents view capitalism as economically unsustainable and incapable of improving the living standards of the population due to its need to compensate forfalling rates of profit by cutting employee's wages, social benefits and pursuing military aggression. Thesocialist system would succeed capitalism as humanity's mode of production through workers' revolution. According to Marxiancrisis theory,socialism is not an inevitability, but an economic necessity.[8]
Classical Marxism is the economic, philosophical and sociological theories expounded by Marx and Engels as contrasted with later developments in Marxism, especiallyLeninism andMarxism–Leninism.[9]Orthodox Marxism is the body of Marxism thought that emerged after the death of Marx and which became the official philosophy of the socialist movement as represented in theSecond International until World War I in 1914. Orthodox Marxism aims to simplify, codify and systematize Marxist method and theory by clarifying the perceived ambiguities and contradictions of classical Marxism. The philosophy of orthodox Marxism includes the understanding that material development (advances in technology in theproductive forces) is the primary agent of change in the structure of society and of human social relations and that social systems and their relations (e.g.feudalism,capitalism and so on) become contradictory and inefficient as the productive forces develop, which results in some form of social revolution arising in response to the mounting contradictions. This revolutionary change is the vehicle for fundamental society-wide changes and ultimately leads to the emergence of neweconomic systems.[10]
As a term,orthodox Marxism represents the methods of historical materialism and ofdialectical materialism and not the normative aspects inherent to classical Marxism, without implying dogmatic adherence to the results of Marx's investigations.[11]
Leninism is the body of political theory developed by and named after the Russian revolutionary and later Soviet premierVladimir Lenin for the democratic organisation of a revolutionary vanguard party and the achievement of a dictatorship of the proletariat as political prelude to the establishment of socialism. Leninism comprises socialist political and economic theories developed from Marxism as well as Lenin's interpretations of Marxist theory for practical application to the socio-political conditions of the agrarian early 20th-centuryRussian Empire. Leninism was the Russian application of Marxist economics and political philosophy, effected and realised by the Bolsheviks, the vanguard party who led the fight for the political independence of the working class. In 1903, Lenin stated:
We want to achieve a new and better order of society: in this new and better society there must be neither rich nor poor; all will have to work. Not a handful of rich people, but all the working people must enjoy the fruits of their common labour. Machines and other improvements must serve to ease the work of all and not to enable a few to grow rich at the expense of millions and tens of millions of people. This new and better society is called socialist society. The teachings about this society are called 'socialism'.[12]
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 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!"[13] The other distinguishing characteristic of Leninism is how it approaches the question of organization. Lenin believed that the traditional model of thesocial democratic parties of the time, a loose, multi-tendency organization, was inadequate for overthrowing the Tsarist regime in Russia. He proposed a cadre of professional revolutionaries that disciplined itself under the model ofdemocratic centralism.[14]
 | This sectionneeds additional citations forverification. Please helpimprove this article byadding citations to reliable sources in this section. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.(January 2022) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
Luxemburgism is an informal designation for a current of Marxist thought and practice that originates from the ideas and work ofRosa Luxemburg.[15][16] In particular, it stresses the importance forspontaneous revolution which can only emerge in response to mounting contradictions between the productive forces and social relations of society[17][18] and therefore rejects Leninism[19] andBolshevism for its insistence on a "hands-on" approach to revolution. Luxemburgism is also highly critical of thereformist Marxism that emerged from the work ofEduard Bernstein's informal faction of the Social Democratic Party of Germany. According to Rosa Luxemburg, under reformism "[capitalism] is not overthrown, but is on the contrary strengthened by the development of social reforms".[20]
Although she lived before left communism became a distinct tendency, Luxemburg has been heavily influential for most left communists, both politically and theoretically.
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 theCommunist International after its first two congresses.[21]
Proponents of left communism have includedHerman Gorter,Anton Pannekoek,Otto Rühle,Karl Korsch,Amadeo Bordiga andPaul Mattick. Prominent left communist groups existing today include theInternational Communist Current and the Internationalist Communist Tendency. Different factions from the old Bordigist International Communist Party are also considered left communist organizations.
Council communism is a movement originating from Germany and the Netherlands in the 1920s. TheCommunist Workers' Party of Germany (KAPD) was the primary organization that espoused council communism. Council communism continues today as a theoretical and activist position within both Marxism and libertarian socialism, through a few groups in Europe and North America.[22] As such, it is referred to as anti-authoritarian andanti-Leninist Marxism.[23]
In contrast to reformist social democracy and to Leninism, the central argument of council communism is that democraticworkers councils arising in factories and municipalities are the natural form of working class organisation and governmental power.[24] The government and the economy should be managed by workers' councils[25] composed of delegates elected at workplaces and recallable at any moment. As such, council communists opposeauthoritarian socialism, andcommand economies such asstate socialism andstate capitalism. They also oppose the idea of a revolutionary party since council communists believe that a party-led revolution will necessarily produce a party dictatorship. This view is also opposed to the social democratic and Marxist–Leninist ideologies, with their stress on parliaments and institutional government (i.e. by applying social reforms) on the one hand[26] and vanguard parties and participative democratic centralism on the other.[24][27] Council communists see the mass strike and new yet to emerge forms of mass action as revolutionary means to achieve a communist society.[28][29] Where the network of worker councils would be the main vehicle for revolution, acting as the apparatus by which the dictatorship of the proletariat forms and operates.[30] Council communism and other types of libertarian Marxism such as autonomism are often viewed as being similar to anarchism due to similar criticisms of Leninist ideologies for being authoritarian and the rejection of the idea of a vanguard party.[24][31]
| This sectionneeds additional citations forverification. Please helpimprove this article byadding citations to reliable sources in this section. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.(January 2022) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
Trotskyism is the branch as advocated by Russian MarxistLeon Trotsky, a contemporary of Lenin from the early years of theRussian Social Democratic Labour Party, where he led a small trend in competition with both Lenin'sBolsheviks and theMensheviks. Opposed toStalinism, Trotskyism supports the theory ofpermanent revolution andworld revolution instead of thetwo stage theory andsocialism in one country. It supportedproletarian internationalism and anothercommunist revolution in the Soviet Union which Trotsky claimed had become adegenerated worker's state under the leadership of Stalin in which class relations had re-emerged in a new form, rather than thedictatorship of the proletariat.
Struggling against Stalin for power in the Soviet Union, Trotsky and his supporters organized into theLeft Opposition and their platform became known as Trotskyism. Stalin eventually succeeded in gaining control of the Soviet regime and Trotskyist attempts to remove Stalin from power resulted in Trotsky's exile from the Soviet Union in 1929. While in exile, Trotsky continued his campaign against Stalin, founding in 1938 theFourth International, a Trotskyist rival to theCommunist International. In August 1940, Trotsky was assassinated in Mexico City on Stalin's orders.
Trotsky's followers claim to be the heirs of Lenin in the same way that mainstream Marxist–Leninists do. There are several distinguishing characteristics of this school of thought—foremost is the theory of permanent revolution. This stated that in less-developed countries the bourgeoisie were too weak to lead their ownbourgeois-democratic revolutions. Due to this weakness, it fell to the proletariat to carry out the bourgeois revolution. With power in its hands, the proletariat would then continue this revolution permanently, transforming it from a national bourgeois revolution to asocialistinternational revolution.[32] Trotsky and Trotskyists also differed markedly from Marxist-Leninists (Stalinists) in their support forpolitical pluralism,worker’s participation and a greater degree ofdecentralisation ineconomic planning.[33][34]
Another shared characteristic between Trotskyists is a variety of theoretical justifications for their negative appraisal of the post-Lenin Soviet Union after Trotsky was expelled by a majority vote from theAll-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks)[35] and subsequently from the Soviet Union. As a consequence, Trotsky defined the Soviet Union under Stalin as aplanned economy ruled over by a bureaucratic caste. Trotsky advocated overthrowing the government of the Soviet Union after he was expelled from it.[36]
| This sectionneeds additional citations forverification. Please helpimprove this article byadding citations to reliable sources in this section. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.(February 2022) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
Marxism–Leninism is a political ideology developed by Joseph Stalin which according to its proponents is based in Marxism and Leninism.[37] The term describes the specific political ideology which Stalin implemented in theSoviet Union and in a global scale in theComintern. There is no definite agreement between historians of about whether Stalin actually followed the principles of Marx and Lenin.[38] It also contains aspects which according to some are deviations from Marxism such associalism in one country.[39][40]
Marxism–Leninism was the ideology of the most clearly visible communist movement and is the most prominent ideology associated with communism.[4] It refers to the socioeconomic system and political ideology implemented by Stalin in the Soviet Union and later copied by other states based on theSoviet model (central planning,collectivization of agriculture,communist party-led state, rapid industrialization,nationalization of thecommanding heights of the economy and the theory of socialism in one country)[41] whereasStalinism refers to Stalin's style of governance (cult of personality and atotalitarian state).[42][43] Marxism–Leninism was the officialstate ideology of theSoviet Union and the other ruling parties making up theEastern Bloc as well as the parties of theCommunist International afterBolshevization.[44] Today, Marxism–Leninism is the ideology of several parties around the world and remains the official ideology of the ruling parties ofChina,Cuba,Laos andVietnam.[45]
At the20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union,Nikita Khrushchev made several ideological ruptures with his predecessor, Joseph Stalin. First, Khrushchev denounced thecult of personality that had developed around Stalin, although Khrushchev himself had a pivotal role in fostering decades earlier.[46] Khrushchev rejected the heretofore orthodox Marxist–Leninist tenet thatclass struggle continues even under socialism, but rather the state ought to rule in the name of all classes. A related principle that flowed from the former was the notion ofpeaceful coexistence, or that the newly emergentsocialist bloc could peacefully compete with thecapitalist world, solely by developing the productive forces of society.Anti-revisionism is a faction within Marxist–Leninism that rejects Khrushchev's theses. This school of thought holds that Khrushchev was unacceptably altering or revising the fundamental tenets of Marxism–Leninism, a stance from which the label anti-revisionist is derived.[47]
Maoism takes its name fromMao Zedong, the former leader of the People's Republic of China. It is the variety ofanti-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 thedictatorship 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 forsocialist revolution calledprotracted people's war in what he termed thesemi-feudal countries of theThird World and that relied heavily on the peasantry. Third, Mao wrote many theoretical articles on epistemology and dialectics which he called contradictions.
Hoxhaism, so named because of the central contribution of Albanian statesmanEnver Hoxha, was closely aligned with China for a number of years, but it grew critical of Maoism because of the so-calledThree Worlds Theory put forth by elements within theChinese Communist Party and because it viewed the actions of Chinese leaderDeng Xiaoping unfavorably. However, Hoxhaism as a trend ultimately came to the understanding that socialism had never existed in China at all.
Maoism (Chinese:毛泽东思想;pinyin:Máo Zédōng sīxiǎng;lit. 'Mao Zedong Thought') is the theory thatMao Zedong developed for realising a socialist revolution in the agricultural, pre-industrial society of theRepublic of China and later the People's Republic of China. The philosophical difference between Maoism and Marxism–Leninism is that thepeasantry are therevolutionary vanguard in pre-industrial societies rather than theproletariat. This updating and adaptation of Marxism–Leninism to Chinese conditions in which revolutionary praxis is primary and ideological orthodoxy is secondary represents urban Marxism–Leninism adapted to pre-industrial China. The claim that Mao had adapted Marxism–Leninism to Chinese conditions evolved into the idea that he had updated it in a fundamental way applying to the world as a whole.[48][49][50][51][52]
From the 1950s until theChinese economic reforms ofDeng Xiaoping in the late 1970s, Maoism was the political and military ideology of the Chinese Communist Party and of Maoist revolutionary movements throughout the world.[53] After theSino-Soviet split of the 1960s, the Chinese Communist Party and theCommunist Party of the Soviet Union claimed to be the sole heir and successor to Joseph Stalin concerning the correct interpretation of Marxism–Leninism and ideological leader ofworld communism.[48]
In the late 1970s, the Peruvian communist partyShining Path developed and synthesized Maoism intoMarxism–Leninism–Maoism, a contemporary variety of Marxism–Leninism that is a supposed higher level of Marxism–Leninism that can be applied universally.[54]
Libertarian Marxism is a broad range of economic and political philosophies that emphasize theanti-authoritarian aspects of Marxism. Early currents of libertarian Marxism, known as left communism,[55] emerged in opposition to Marxism–Leninism[56] and its derivatives, such as Stalinism, Maoism and Trotskyism.[57] Libertarian Marxism is also critical ofreformist positions, such as those held bysocial democrats.[58] Libertarian Marxist currents often draw from Marx and Engels' later works, specifically theGrundrisse andThe Civil War in France,[59] emphasizing the Marxist belief in the ability of the working class to forge its own destiny without the need for a revolutionary party orstate to mediate or aid its liberation.[60] Along withanarchism, libertarian Marxism is one of the main currents oflibertarian socialism.[61]
Libertarian Marxism includes such currents asautonomism,council communism,left communism,Lettrism,Luxemburgism, theJohnson-Forest tendency, theNew Left,Situationism,Socialisme ou Barbarie,world socialism andworkerism.[62] Libertarian Marxism has often had a strong influence on anarchism, especiallypost-left andsocial anarchists. Notable theorists of libertarian Marxism have includedAnton Pannekoek,Raya Dunayevskaya,C. L. R. James,Antonio Negri,Cornelius Castoriadis,Maurice Brinton,Guy Debord,Daniel Guérin,Ernesto Screpanti andRaoul Vaneigem.
Western Marxism is a current ofMarxist theory that arose fromWestern and Central Europe in the aftermath of the 1917October Revolution in Russia and the ascent of Leninism. The term denotes a loose collection of Marxist theorists who emphasisedculture,philosophy, andart, in contrast to the Marxism of the Soviet Union.[63]
Georg Lukács (13 April 1885 – 4 June 1971) was a Hungarian Marxist philosopher andliterary critic, who founded Western Marxism with his magnum opusHistory and Class Consciousness. Written between 1919 and 1922 and first published in 1923, the collection of essays contributed to debates concerning Marxism and its relation to sociology, politics and philosophy. The book also reconstructed aspects ofMarx's theory of alienation before the publication of theEconomic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844, in which Marx most clearly expounds the theory.[64] Lukács's work underlines Marxism's origins inHegelianism and elaborates Marxist theories such as ideology,false consciousness,reification andclass consciousness.
Karl Korsch (15 August 1886 – 21 October 1961) was born in Tostedt, near Hamburg, to the family of a middle-ranking bank official.[65] His masterworkMarxism and Philosophy, which attempts to re-establish the historic character of Marxism as the heir toGeorg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, earned him condemnation from theThird International.[66] Korsch was especially concerned that Marxist theory was losing its precision and validity—in the words of the day, becoming "vulgarized"—within the upper echelons of the various socialist organizations.
In his later work, he rejected Orthodox Marxism as historically outmoded, wanting to adapt Marxism to a new historical situation. He wrote in hisTen Theses (1950) that "the first step in re-establishing a revolutionary theory and practice consists in breaking with that Marxism which claims to monopolize revolutionary initiative as well as theoretical and practical direction" and that "today, all attempts to re-establish the Marxist doctrine as a whole in its original function as a theory of the working classes social revolution are reactionary utopias".[67]
| This sectiondoes notcite anysources. Please helpimprove this section byadding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged andremoved.(January 2022) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
Antonio Gramsci (22 January 1891 – 27 April 1937) was an Italian writer, politician and political theorist. He was a founding member and onetime leader of theCommunist Party of Italy. He wrote more than 30 notebooks and 3,000 pages of history and analysis during his imprisonment by the ItalianFascist regime. These writings, known as thePrison Notebooks, contain Gramsci's tracing of Italian history and nationalism as well as some ideas in Marxist theory,critical theory and educational theory associated with his name such as:
| This sectiondoes notcite anysources. Please helpimprove this section byadding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged andremoved.(January 2022) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
Herbert Marcuse (19 July 1898 – 29 July 1979) was a prominent German-American philosopher and sociologist of Jewish descent and a member of the Frankfurt School.
Marcuse's critiques of capitalist society (especially his 1955 synthesis of Marx andFreud,Eros and Civilization and his 1964 bookOne-Dimensional Man) resonated with the concerns of the leftist student movement in the 1960s. Because of his willingness to speak at student protests, Marcuse soon became known as "the father of theNew Left", a term he disliked and rejected.
Jean-Paul Sartre (21 June 1905 – 15 April 1980) was already a key and influential philosopher and playwright for his early writings onindividualisticexistentialism. In his later career, Sartre attempted to reconcile the existential philosophy ofSøren Kierkegaard with Marxist philosophy and Hegelian dialectics in his workCritique of Dialectical Reason.[68] Sartre was also involved in Marxist politics and was impressed upon visiting Marxist revolutionaryChe Guevara, calling him "not only an intellectual but also the most complete human being of our age".[69]
| This sectionneeds additional citations forverification. Please helpimprove this article byadding citations to reliable sources in this section. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.(January 2022) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
Louis Althusser (16 October 1918 – 22 October 1990) was a Marxist philosopher. He was a longtime member and sometimes strong critic of theFrench Communist Party. His arguments and theses were set against the threats that he saw attacking the theoretical foundations of Marxism. These included both the influence ofempiricism on Marxist theory andhumanism andreformist socialist orientations which manifested as divisions in the European Communist parties as well as the problem of the cult of personality and of ideology itself. Althusser is commonly referred to as a structural Marxist, although his relationship to other schools of Frenchstructuralism is not a simple affiliation and he is critical of many aspects of structuralism.
His essayMarxism and Humanism is a strong statement of anti-humanism in Marxist theory, condemning ideas like "human potential" and "species-being", which are often put forth by Marxists, as outgrowths of a bourgeois ideology of "humanity". His essayContradiction and Overdetermination borrows the concept ofoverdetermination frompsychoanalysis to replace the idea of "contradiction" with a more complex model of multiplecausality in political situations (an idea closely related to Gramsci's concept ofhegemony).
Althusser is also widely known as a theorist of ideology and his best-known essay isIdeology and Ideological State Apparatuses: Notes Toward an Investigation.[70] The essay establishes the concept of ideology, also based on Gramsci's theory of hegemony. Whereas hegemony is ultimately determined entirely by political forces, ideology draws onSigmund Freud's andJacques Lacan's concepts of the unconscious and mirror-phase respectively and describes the structures and systems that allow us to meaningfully have a concept of the self.
| This sectiondoes notcite anysources. Please helpimprove this section byadding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged andremoved.(January 2022) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
Structural Marxism is an approach to Marxism based on structuralism, primarily associated with the work of the French theorist Louis Althusser and his students. It was influential in France during the late 1960s and 1970s and also came to influence philosophers, political theorists and sociologists outside France during the 1970s.
| This sectiondoes notcite anysources. Please helpimprove this section byadding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged andremoved.(January 2022) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
Neo-Marxism is a school of Marxism that began in the 20th century and hearkened back to the early writings of Marx before the influence of Friedrich Engels, which focused on dialectical idealism rather than dialectical materialism. It thus rejected economic determinism, being instead far morelibertarian. Neo-Marxism addsMax Weber's broader understanding ofsocial inequality, such asstatus andpower, to orthodox Marxist thought.
| Part ofa series on the |
| Frankfurt School |
|---|
 |
Major works |
| This sectiondoes notcite anysources. Please helpimprove this section byadding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged andremoved.(January 2022) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
TheFrankfurt School is a school of neo-Marxist social theory, social research and philosophy. The grouping emerged at theInstitute for Social Research (Institut für Sozialforschung) of theUniversity of Frankfurt am Main in Germany. The term "Frankfurt School" is an informal term used to designate the thinkers affiliated with the Institute for Social Research or influenced by them—it is not the title of any institution and the main thinkers of the Frankfurt School did not use the term to refer to themselves.
The Frankfurt School gathered together dissident Marxists, severe critics of capitalism who believed that some of Marx's alleged followers had come to parrot a narrow selection of Marx's ideas, usually in defense of orthodox communist or social democratic parties. Influenced especially by the failure of working-class revolutions in Western Europe afterWorld War I and by the rise ofNazism in an economically, technologically and culturally advanced nation (Germany), they took up the task of choosing what parts of Marx's thought might serve to clarify social conditions which Marx himself had never seen. They drew on other schools of thought to fill in Marx's perceived omissions.
Max Weber exerted a major influence, as did Sigmund Freud (as inHerbert Marcuse'sFreudo-Marxist synthesis in the 1954 workEros and Civilization). Their emphasis on the "critical" component of theory was derived significantly from their attempt to overcome the limits ofpositivism, crude materialism andphenomenology by returning toImmanuel Kant'scritical philosophy and its successors in Germanidealism, principally Hegel's philosophy, with its emphasis onnegation andcontradiction as inherent properties of reality.
Marxist feminism is a philosophical variant offeminism that incorporates and extends Marxist theory, focusing on the dismantling of capitalism as a way to liberate women. Marxist feminism analyzes the ways in which women are exploited through capitalism and the individual ownership of private property,[71] stating that these give rise toeconomic inequality as well as dependence, political confusion and ultimately unhealthy social relations between men and women, which are the root of women's oppression. According to Marxist feminists,women's liberation can only be achieved by dismantling the capitalist systems in which they contend much of women's labor is uncompensated.[72] Marxist feminists extend traditional Marxist analysis by applying it to unpaid domestic labor and sex relations.[73]
According to Marxist theory, in capitalist societies the individual is shaped by class relations[74]—that is people's capacities, needs and interests are seen to be determined by the mode of production that characterises the society they inhabit.[75] Marxist feminists seegender inequality as determined ultimately by thecapitalist mode of production, with gender oppression and women's subordination seen asclass oppression[76] which is maintained (like racism) because it serves the interests of capital and theruling class.[72] Because of its foundation in historical materialism, Marxist feminism is similar tosocialist feminism and, to a greater degree,materialist feminism. The latter two place greater emphasis on what they consider the "reductionist limitations"[77] of Marxist theory but, as Martha E. Gimenez notes in her exploration of the differences between Marxist and materialist feminism, "clear lines of theoretical demarcation between and within these two umbrella terms are somewhat difficult to establish."[77]
Marxist humanism is an international body of thought and political action rooted in ahumanist interpretation of Marx that draws heavily from his earlier writings. It is an investigation into "what human nature consists of and what sort of society would be most conducive to human thriving"[78] from a critical perspective rooted inMarxist philosophy. Marxist humanists argue that Marx himself was concerned with investigating similar questions.[79]
Marxist humanism was born in 1932 with the publication of Marx'sEconomic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 and reached a degree of prominence in the 1950s and 1960s. Marxist humanists contend that there is continuity between the early philosophical writings of Marx, in which he develops histheory of alienation, and the structural description of capitalist society found in his later works such asCapital.[80][81] They hold that it is necessary to grasp Marx's philosophical foundations to understand his later works properly.[82] Marxist humanism was opposed byLouis Althusser's "antihumanism", who qualified it as a revisionist movement.[83]
Although Marx was intensely critical of institutionalized religion including Christianity, some Christians have "accepted the basic premises of Marxism and attempted to reinterpret Christian faith from this perspective".[84] Some of the resulting examples are some forms ofliberation theology andblack theology.Pope Benedict XVI strongly opposed radical liberation theology while he was still a cardinal, with the Vaticancondemning acceptance of Marxism. Black theologianJames H. Cone wrote in his bookFor My People that "for analyzing the structure of capitalism. Marxism as a tool of social analysis can disclose the gap between appearance and reality, and thereby help Christians to see how things really are".[85]
Autonomism is a category of Marxist social movements around the world that emphasize the ability to organize in autonomous and horizontal networks, as opposed to hierarchical structures such as unions or parties.[86][87][88] Early autonomist theorists such asAntonio Negri,[89] as well asMario Tronti,Paolo Virno,Sergio Bologna andFranco "Bifo" Berardi, developed notions of "immaterial" and "social labour", which broaden the definition of the working-class to include salaried and unpaid labour, such as skilled professions and housework, this extended the Marxist concept of labour to all society. They suggested that modern society's wealth was produced by unaccountablecollective work, which in advanced capitalist states as the primary force of change in the construct of capital, and that only a little of this was redistributed to the workers in the form of wages. Other theorists includingMariarosa Dalla Costa andSilvia Federici emphasised the importance offeminism and the value of unpaid female labour to capitalist society, adding these to the theory of Autonomism.[90][91] Negri andMichael 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 a21st century empire.Harry Cleaver is an autonomist andMarxist theoretician, who authoredReading Capital Politically, an autonomist reading of Marx'sCapital.[92]
Analytical Marxism refers to a style of thinking about Marxism that was prominent among a half-dozenanalytically trained English-speaking philosophers and social scientists during the 1980s. It was mainly associated with theSeptember Group of academics, so called because they have biennial meetings in varying locations every other September to discuss common interests. The group also dubbed itself "Non-Bullshit Marxism".[93] In the words ofDavid Miller, it was characterized by "clear and rigorous thinking about questions that are usually blanketed by ideological fog".[94]
The British Marxist historians were a circle of scholars that originated in theCommunist Party of Great Britain in the 1930s, eventually forming theCommunist Party Historians Group in 1946. They shared a common interest in "history from below" and class structure in early capitalist society. Important members of the group wereMaurice Dobb,Dona Torr,A. L. Morton,Rodney Hilton,E. P. Thompson,Eric Hobsbawm,George Rudé,Christopher Hill,Dorothy Thompson,John Saville,Victor Kiernan andRaphael Samuel.[95]
While some members of the group (most notably E. P. Thompson) left the party after theHungarian Revolution of 1956, the common points of British Marxist historiography continued in their works. They placed great emphasis on human agency, cultural experience and the subjective determination of history, while growing increasingly distant fromdeterminist views of materialism. E. P. Thompson famously engaged Louis Althusser inThe Poverty of Theory,[96] arguing that Althusser's theory overdetermined history and left no space for historical revolt by the oppressed.
Austro-Marxism was a school of Marxist thought centered inVienna that existed from the beginning of the 20th century until the 1930s. Its most eminent proponents wereMax Adler,Otto Bauer,Rudolf Hilferding andKarl Renner.[97] It was influenced by contemporaneous intellectual trends, including the prominence ofneo-Kantianism and positivism in philosophy and the emergence ofmarginalism in economics.[98] The group confronted issues such as the problem of theNational Question within theAustro-Hungarian Empire,[99]: 295–298 the rise of the interventionist state, and the changing class-structure of early 20th century capitalist societies.[100]
| This sectionneeds additional citations forverification. Please helpimprove this article byadding citations to reliable sources in this section. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.(January 2022) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
Orthodox Marxism is the body of Marxist thought that emerged after the death of Karl Marx (1818–1883) and which became the official philosophy of the majority of the socialist movement as represented in the Second International until theFirst World War in 1914. Orthodox Marxism aims to simplify, codify and systematize Marxist method and theory by clarifying the perceived ambiguities and contradictions ofclassical Marxism.
The philosophy of orthodox Marxism includes the understanding that material development (advances in technology in the productive forces) is the primary agent of change in the structure of society and of human social relations and that social systems and their relations (e.g. feudalism, capitalism and so on) become contradictory and inefficient as the productive forces develop, which results in some form of social revolution arising in response to the mounting contradictions. This revolutionary change is the vehicle for fundamental society-wide changes and ultimately leads to the emergence of new economic systems.[10]
In the term orthodox Marxism, the word "orthodox" refers to the methods ofhistorical materialism and of dialectical materialism—and not the normative aspects inherent to classical Marxism, without implying dogmatic adherence to the results of Marx's investigations.[101]
One of the most important historical proponents of Orthodox Marxism was the Czech-Austrian theoristKarl Kautsky.
| This sectiondoes notcite anysources. Please helpimprove this section byadding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged andremoved.(January 2022) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
The Praxis school was a dissident Marxist humanist philosophical movement, whose members were influenced by Western Marxism. It originated in Zagreb and Belgrade in the SFR Yugoslavia, during the 1960s.
Prominent figures among the school's founders includeGajo Petrović andMilan Kangrga of Zagreb andMihailo Marković of Belgrade. From 1964 to 1974 they published the Marxist journalPraxis, which was renowned as one of the leading international journals in Marxist theory. The group also organized the widely popular Korčula Summer School in the island ofKorčula.
| This sectionneeds additional citations forverification. Please helpimprove this article byadding citations to reliable sources in this section. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.(January 2022) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
De Leonism is a form ofsyndicalist Marxism developed byDaniel De Leon.[102][103] De Leon was an early leader[104][105] within the first United States socialist political party, theSocialist Labor Party of America which exists to the present day.[106]
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.[107] 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. De Leon and other De Leonist writers have issued frequent polemics againstdemocratic socialist movements—especially theSocialist Party of America—and consider them to be reformist orbourgeois 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, likesocial justice movements.
Beginning around the 1970s, various communist parties in Western Europe such as theItalian Communist Party underEnrico Berlinguer and theCommunist Party of Spain underSantiago Carrillo tried to hew to a more independent line from Moscow. Particularly in Italy, they leaned on the theories of Antonio Gramsci. This trend went by the nameEurocommunism was especially prominent in Italy, Spain and France.[108]
| This sectionneeds additional citations forverification. Please helpimprove this article byadding citations to reliable sources in this section. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.(January 2022) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
Post-Marxism represents the theoretical work of philosophers and social theorists who have built their theories upon those of Marx and Marxists, but exceeded the limits of those theories in ways that puts them outside of Marxism. It begins with the basic tenets of Marxism, but moves away from the mode of production as the starting point for analysis and includes factors other than class, such as gender, ethnicity etc. and a reflexive relationship between the base and superstructure.
Marxism remains a powerful theory in some unexpected and relatively obscure places and is not always properly labeled as "Marxism". For example, many Mexican and some American archaeologists still employ a Marxist model to explain theClassic Maya collapse[109] (c. 900 A.D.) – without mentioning Marxism by name.
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).
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.
Men make their own history.
Orthodox Marxism, therefore, does not imply the uncritical acceptance of the results of Marx's investigations. It is not the 'belief' in this or that thesis, nor the exegesis of a 'sacred' book. On the contrary, orthodoxy refers exclusively to method.
The Permanent Revolution is Not a 'Leap' by the Proletariat, but the Reconstruction of the Nation under the Leadership of the Proletariat.
[S]ocialism in one country, a pragmatic deviation from classical Marxism"
{{cite journal}}:Missing or empty|title= (help)Socialism in one country, a slogan that aroused protests as not only it implied a major deviation from Marxist internationalism, but was also strictly speaking incompatible with the basic tenets of Marxism.
Orthodox Marxism, therefore, does not imply the uncritical acceptance of the results of Marx's investigations. It is not the 'belief' in this or that thesis, nor the exegesis of a 'sacred' book. On the contrary, orthodoxy refers exclusively to method.
