Karl Marx did not believe that change could come
without revolution. This was one of the
points of considerable dispute amongst Marxists. Those Marxists who followed Lenin believed
that the revolution had to be violent and complete, with the power of the
capitalist class destroyed. Capitalism
would create the conditions for the revolution (the “seeds of its own
destruction”). It would make workers
increasingly miserable. It would bring
large numbers of these unhappy, alienated workers under one roof. It would make the working classes larger and
larger, while the capitalist class became smaller and smaller. It would generate continual wars that would
only benefit the capitalists. However, the revolution would not happen all by
itself. Mobilizing the workers and
instilling revolutionary consciousness in them was the function of the
Communist Party – the vanguard of the proletariat!
“The communists …
openly declare that their ends can be
attained by the
forcible overthrow of all existing social
conditions. Let the
ruling classes tremble at a communistic
revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but
their
chains. They have a world to win. Workers of the world,
unite.” From the Communist Manifesto
It should be noted that there have been no
proletarian revolutions in history. The
revolutions in the Soviet Union and China were undertaken primarily by
peasants and resulted from the chaos in each country following a world
war. Most of the other “communist
countries” became communist due to the force of the Soviet army after World War
II.
Dictatorship of the Proletariat
For more on Karl Marx and Marxism:
Marx's Dialectical Approach and Materialist Interpretation of History
Marx's Class Struggle
Marx on alienation and freedom
Marx's Value and Surplus Value theory
Marx on The Reserve Army of Labor / Unemployed
Marx's Law of Increasing Concentration of Capital
Marx on Contradictions of Capitalism
Marx on the Crises of Capitalism
Marx on the state
Marx on Imperialism
Marx on the dictatorship of the Proletariat -
Summary of the Communist Manifesto
Summary of The German Ideology
Marx's Class Struggle
Marx on alienation and freedom
Marx's Value and Surplus Value theory
Marx on The Reserve Army of Labor / Unemployed
Marx's Law of Increasing Concentration of Capital
Marx on Contradictions of Capitalism
Marx on the Crises of Capitalism
Marx on the state
Marx on Imperialism
Marx on the dictatorship of the Proletariat -
Summary of the Communist Manifesto
Summary of The German Ideology