Marxist regimes in Russia and Eastern Europe has invalidated Marxism—the
fact that no Marxist had accepted these self-descriptions for a generation before
the collapse rendering the argument invalid.
Marxism
Marxism is a general label to attach to any social theory that can claim a vague
philosophical derivation from the works of KarlMarx. In fact Marxism as a
general position has become so broad that there is often little serious connec-
tion, even in theory. When Marxism is taken to refer also to the operating
policies of so-called Marxist or communist states, as with the Soviet Union
before about 1990, the philosophical gap becomes enormous. This is not to
suggest that the various branches of Marxism are themselves theoretically
incoherent, nor that they have little in common, but that their connections
can best be described as involving ‘family resemblances’ rather than a minimal
set of necessary common postulates. The Marxism associated with the Second
International (seeinternational socialism), for example, is rigorously deter-
ministic in an economic way, while that associated with the French school
inspired by Althusser has distinct undertones offunctionalismand that of the
other French Marxist leader in the post-war years, Poulantzas, allows con-
siderable autonomous political power to the state. Other brands of Marxist-
derived theory may not even have ‘Marx’ as part of the title—Trotskyismand
Maoism, while they are ‘deviations’ from what many would regard as proper
Marxism, have much in common with original writings by Karl Marx that
modern developments of his insights lack. When considering the actual
doctrines of communist societies it is probably better, for the former Soviet
Union and its Eastern European allies, to talk ofMarxist-Leninism, because
Lenin, and to some extentStalin, left major impacts in the process of turning
a general theory into a practical doctrine for revolutionaries and subsequent
post-revolutionary governments.
The most that could be demanded as a common thread to all forms of modern
Marxism would be the following tenets: that economic matters ultimately
control political and cultural phenomena; that abolition of private property is
necessary to ensure equality and an end to exploitation; and that such a society
must be achieved by theproletariat, or its (not necessarily proletarian) leaders,
developing a revolutionary consciousness, grasping power, and acting as a
vanguard to usher in the communist society (seevanguard of the proletariat).
Of particular importance in explaining the various splits is the whole question of
leadership, and the extent to which there has got to be what Marx called a
dictatorship of the proletariatbefore true democraticcommunismcan
flourish. A second distinction can be made between those who argue for the
Marxism