In the modern world Marxism is seen by a lot of people as a dirty word. This is especially the case in the so-called "developed" world where there is currently a hegemony of neo-liberal ideology. The main reason for this is Marx and Marxism's link with Soviet style Communism. The aim of this essay will be to look at this link and to discover where Marx's work and the practicalities of Soviet ideology actually meet or merge.
To gain an understanding of the link between Marx and Soviet Communism one first has to look at the theories that Marx espoused in his many works that make up the basic tenets of the Marxist philosophy. The main idea which influenced Marx's thinking was that of materialism. The theory that states, in Marx's own words;.
"Life is not determined by consciousness but consciousness by life.".
It can be seen to be because of this that the "Communist Manifesto" was a call to arms to the Proletariat rather than merely a thesis, as ideas alone do not change the world.
Straight from this idea comes Marx's basic theory of Historical Materialism. This theory states that all historical revolutions and struggles have been based upon class with a new ruling class taking over from the old. When Marx was writing, the latest stage of this historical materialism was happening all around him with the overthrow of feudal systems by means of a "bourgeois-democratic revolution" such as the French Revolution. If this theory were correct then there must be another stage yet to come after capitalism. .
Marx claimed that this next stage would be a Proletariat revolution caused by the inherent flaws within capitalist society. For instance, within a capitalist economy there is an innate tendency towards recessions. The reasons Marx gives for this are that the workers can't buy the full product of their labour and the capitalist ruling class does not consume all the surplus value. There is also a drive towards labour saving machinery which puts people out of jobs and pushes down wages.
