Based on my understanding (which isn’t much, please mention any additional things I missed) Marx believed that the “proletariat” (the workers) were being abused by the “bourgeois” (the owners) in the capitalist system, and that the proletariat should seize control of the state and the means of production (“dictatorship of the proletariat”), and that the end goal was a stateless, classless society where everyone was equal, and that the state would “wither away”.
As we all know, a perfect communist society was never achieved, and that the state never ended up withering away for any of them.
How would Marx react to the Soviet Union under Stalin and his purges, Khrushchev to his denouncing of Stalinism and brutal crushings of protests in the Warsaw Pact states, to Gorbachev and his “glasnost and perestroika” reforms?
How would Marx react to the communist states that took power in Latin America, Africa, and Asia? Would he be happy that a communist state was able to compete with the capitalist U.S. in terms of global dominance, twice (Soviet Union during the Cold War, PRC in the modern day)?
Note: I am neither procommunist or anticommunist. I think that some if Marx’s ideas were quite good (everyone should be equal, classless society, etc.) but others not so much (history tells us what happens when there is a “dictatorship of the proletariat”, the state never withers away like Marx imagines it would, as power corrupts all)
Disapprove
It’s important to understand that 20th century communist states weren’t just “communist” (there’s no such ideology as communism); they were Marxist-Leninist, which despite the name is a rebranding of Bolshevism by Stalin. “Socialist” and “communist” are incredibly broad terms, and the idea that communist = implementing Marx’s ideas is so reductive as to be just wrong. Now Marx’s opinion would likely vary depending on time and place, but at least he’d probably condemn Stalin’s USSR as an authoritarian hellhole. Beyond that I have no idea, but many Marxists who were contemporary to the things you describe condemned them and many others supported them, so we can’t make a realistic guess without projecting our own values on him. Basically what you’re asking is analogous to “what would Adam Smith think about the current state of the US;” it’s something we can speculate about but generally isn’t as salient a point as seem to you think it is.
PS: I suspect you don’t know much about Marx’s ideas, so you should start from there. First, the dictatorship of the proletariat isn’t necessarily an actual dictatorship (that’s not how the term is used by Marx).
If he spawned in during the cold war he would probably denounce them. The bourgeoisie wasn’t removed, just replaced and the proletariat kept in chains. At least in the Soviet Union 🤷
You should ask on .ml for just for the lulz
Vanguardism and such are closer to fascism and purges killed a lot of communists. Maybe he’d remind that the dictatorship of the working class means true democracy
wait you guys like communism/socialism i thought you only like social democracy?
I know better than to get in any prolong discussion on Lemmy about Karl Marx but it’s worth saying that he would’ve probably been a lot more delighted with Chinese communism (educated peasant uprising) than Russian (unguided peasant revolt taken over by urban intellectual minority), although neither really fit in with his deterministic view of history which said that nations needed a period of liberal capitalism before Communism could be achieved, and he obviously predicted Western Europe would be the nexus for this change.
In China they aren’t in bread lines and a lot of people there seem to have a stable life. A few Chinese people I know do genuinely say that life did get better than what it was under the communist party. Keep in mind, this country was still getting peasant girls into harems for the emperor who couldn’t leave his palace ever during victorian times
I blame the Japanese Imperialists for this.
CCP was about to lose, but of course, fucking imperialists ruining China as per tradition.
Imagine that worldline where the invasion never happened.
ROC wins, warlord period ends and country stablizes. Then eventually they start to liberalize. ROC built nukes, maintains sovereignty, becomes a bastion of freedom.
Modern China is definitely better, but CCP’s China wasn’t the only possibility we have, there are much better alt-timelines.
(Disclaimer: I have nothing against the Japanese people, I’m only mad at the Imperialists specifically)
As for Breadlines… I mean… glances at parents
I don’t know if there are breadlines, but definitely a lot of poverty… very underdeveloped. My parents have extremely frugal behaviors… especially my mom.
In the villages, the only bathrooms are the communal ones…
I have a memory of it being late at night and walking to the bathroom with my dad…
Like, you literally have to leave your own house to go to the bathroom lol.
No big roads leading to the village, I remember there being a tiny path and we rode cheap motocycles to… I guess the market areas? That’s where you can even get a bus to Guangzhou.
We don’t have time machines so we can’t really speculate…
But I don’t think ROC would be wasting crutial time on some “cultural revolution” stuff and actually starting on building the country. But then again, if Japanese Imperialists didn’t invade, it would’ve been a much better timeline anyways. War ruins shit.
ROC built nukes, maintains sovereignty, becomes a bastion of freedom.
The ROC didn’t become a democracy until the 1990s.
Modern China is definitely better, but CCP’s China wasn’t the only possibility we have, there are much better alt-timelines.
Yeah, that’s basically what I’m saying. However, you can say this about any country. I think the UK would have had a better future if we got “chaos with Ed Milliband”
Disclaimer: I have nothing against the Japanese people, I’m only mad at the Imperialists specifically
You’re allowed to, it’s fine. You shouldn’t need to disclaimer this.
I don’t know if there are breadlines, but definitely a lot of poverty… very underdeveloped. My parents have extremely frugal behaviors… especially my mom.
The Chinese still do that, the ones that came into wealth are still alive. I think that’s the same with any recently developed country. The house I stayed in China was very cluttered but also very clean. Furniture was kind of haphazard and the bathroom was basic. But their tvs and fridges were pretty modern. I think it’s just they don’t know the potential, but this family certainly could have afforded it.
In the villages, the only bathrooms are the communal ones…
I have a memory of it being late at night and walking to the bathroom with my dad…
Like, you literally have to leave your own house to go to the bathroom lol.
What year was this? Genuinely curious. I saw some underdeveloped villages there from the windows of trains and manual farm labourers. My dad also used to have a communal neighbourhood bathroom in the UK when he was younger in the 1970s. Someone else I was talking to was recalling collecting water from the well.
But I don’t think ROC would be wasting crutial time on some “cultural revolution” stuff and actually starting on building the country. But then again, if Japanese Imperialists didn’t invade, it would’ve been a much better timeline anyways. War ruins shit.
Yeah fair, I think if you put China how it is now, ten years ago (accounting for the cultural revolution) it wouldn’t have set it back. Also the one child policy will have extremely concerning implications in a few years
China is such a strange country. The streets are extremely clean minus the dust, the place I was staying had an advanced metro system nearby and endless huge apartments in the area, something I had never seen or experienced ever before. But the water wasn’t running like 30% of the time and even when it was, it was best not to drink it and get it from a machine outside. You’re Chinese so I cannot speak in a position over you, but I do find a lot of westerners seem to underestimate it. And they think we’re behind because there is one bus every thirty minutes to the somewhat big city which is half the side of the centre of their district.
The ROC didn’t become a democracy until the 1990s.
Because the “communist is about to invade us” gave the Kuomingtang pretext to impose martial law and dictatorial rule. If China was united under one nation, under ROC, perhaps public pressure would’ve make it liberalize sooner. Like maybe a 1989-style protest, but there are faction within the ROC government that don’t want to do a crackdown. Or maybe they do a massacre, and then, maybe with western pressure, the government topples and they start doing elections…
What year was this?
Around 2000 to 2010. Taishan. I’m not naming the exact names of villages (dad and mom are from different villages btw)
manual farm labourers.
As far as I know, there were no John Deree machineary stuff, its all manual. My maternal grandmother talked about some worm thing that would bite you and suck your blood. (eww farming must be rough) I mean this is probably why everyone wants to go to the cities. Nobody liked farming. Don’t think anyone got any farming subsidies like American farmers do.
underdeveloped villages
Yea…
Well, sort of.
I remember they have a telephone thing. Fun fact, if you have two receivers, you can like use the other one to listen in and spy on phone calls.
I don’t remember if there was a tv in the villages. Maybe maybe not. But by 2025, I think they probably do. Now, everyone has a phone with wechat. But before 2010, nah.
They do have a sort of mass printing thing. My dad’s village managed to give every family at least one copy of the geneology book (族谱). Copyright like 2008 I think. They have photography and stuff, all using film and not digital.
China is such a strange country. The streets are extremely clean minus the dust, the place I was staying had an advanced metro system nearby and endless huge apartments in the area, something I had never seen or experienced ever before.
Ah yes very strange.
The distance between a dilapidated city slum and a modern-looking shopping mall is like 20 minutes away. Like. You walk 20 minutes, and its like you time travelled. So bizzare when I recall the memories.
Near the malls, are McDonald’s, KFC, a Pizzahut. Like its very modern and westernized
and yet… when you go home and its…
it’s a fucking mess. So dirty. I mean it makes sense, anything better and nobody would be able to afford it, so these quickly built slums is all that anyone could afford.
I remember a landline at home. I also remember messing with my dad’s motorola phone, and download some random games. And yea that costed money and dad didn’t like it lol. But not my fault, my older brother tricked me to press the download button. I remember there being a TV at home.
So like… it wasn’t that bad, but… no internet…
We didn’t even know what internet was, no concept of it. Some relative gave us an old XP computer and it was used to play music you obtain from stores or like to view and copy photos to thumb drives or SD cards. There are digital cameras by that time, I think we probably have one in like close to 2008-2010. But no internet.
But yes, you go into the city and suddenly its feels so advanced. Trains stations… I remember it being sort of clean. Zero graffiti. very modern-looking. Platform screen doors.
Knowledge of the world was very limited. No public library to just find whatever you want. You have to buy books.
I remember that children’s book titled 十万个为什么 and it was space themed. That was my first time learning about stars and stuff. But I didn’t even know if the info was accurate.
Some books have like mythology stuff, so my knowledge of the world was a mix of truth and mythology. Like 盘古 created the world or some shit. And his body became the earth, blood became rivers… whatever… so weird lol… every country got their own creation story. I don’t even think kid-me believe those things, reality is like maze, you don’t know what is real and what isn’t. I just knew like… well this world exist… no idea where its from…
No internet. No library. Sitting at home watching stuff like 喜羊羊与灰太狼.
I think that’s why I got very obsessed with space the moment I got access to the internet in the US. I’d constantly wanna look stuff up. Went from almost zero info to an overwhelming infinity of info.
I remember still holding on to the 十万个为什么 book in the US, I remember bring it to school… I remember having it my bookbag, its like… kinda… sentinmental…
But it was like poorly binded and pages just fell apart… oh well… we have internet now… whatever… lol
Here’s a Baidu Streetview of the neighborhood I used to live in. (I think this is safe to share, i mean, its a whole different country, not like any can is gonna track me down by knowing my old place)
Screenshot:
Probably not my alley, but its one like it. Its close enough to where I lived.
This is like one of the many alleyways you go in and then you find your building, and you go in, you walk up a few flights of stairs, no elevators.
I think I shared this story before. Basically on the “in-between” of the stairs like you know… the platform between ground 1st floor and 2nd floor, there is the platform, then stairs turn around and you finish climbing to the next floor. Know what I mean? Well on that “in-between” platform, you look could see outside of the building, you can see into the alleyway, and you could accidentally jump over the concrete barrier and fall and land right outside where the main building door is… Probably not up to code in the US.
Maybe that’s why I have fear of heights? Like I remember having intrusive thoughts like… 如果我下去会怎 then fear kicks in… lol
Why is the stairs partially exposed to the outside lol. Like put some glass windows or something.
Also, I remember there was like separate thing you use to heat up water for a warm bath. Like not a centalized water heater, but a separate add on. You hook up the water to it, boil the water, then pour it on a sort of plastic bathtub thing. Or you can use the 花洒 thing. And I think all the water just gets poured down the same hole you use for the squat toilet thing. Maybe that’s why they don’t make western toilets? Idk…
I remember being afraid of falling in there lol.
Anyways I think I rambled too much, thinking too much starts to put strain on my brain.
He would almost certainly support them based on his support for the deeply flawed paris commune. The communist experiments of the cold war were absolutely not perfect and I am certain Marx would have opinions about their exact natures but it is doubtless he would support them. If he could put up with proudhonist he can put up with anything.
Doesn’t basically every political philosopher hate the governments built off their philosophies?
I don’t think Marx would be as revered by the “communists” (emphasis on the quotation marks) as much as current timeline had he lived longer.
It’s easy to idolize dead people, after all, they can’t denounce your movement from the grave.
I mean, you can see this with both PRC and ROC reveres 孫中山 (Sun Yat-sen) as the 國父 founder of the country, but… imagine if he lived longer…
Maybe there wouldn’t be a civil war? Maybe CCP still wins and then Sun Yat-sen is not idolized within PRC in this new timeline… who knows?
We don’t really have a magical brain-scan of them to recreate a simulation of their brains, so its really just speculation.
But I don’t think Marx and Stalin would be on the same side. Perhaps there might not been a dictator Stalin, if Marx was alive. What’s for certain is that there would be a huge butterfly effect.
I think if he were honest with himself he would see that what he got wasn’t what he had envisioned in any of the countries that claimed to be communist/socialist. But they were his team so he would publicly support them. You can sell his stance as an evolvement of the theory rather than admitting mistakes. Not too dissimilar from the way the PRC sells its version of communism to its people: communism “with Chinese characteristics.”
Chances are though that he would have perished in one of the purges happening in whichever communist country he would have chosen to reside in. He would have enough clout to niggle at leadership openly about stuff going wrong and eventually be would deliver the straw that broke his camel’s back. He would be mind-holed and his legacy rectified so he wouldn’t be the lighthouse of the movement that he could only become because he died early. And he didn’t starve millions. And communism would become the thing created by the people through an arduous march and not a system dreamed up by some German philosophers.
I think if he were honest with himself he would see that what he got wasn’t what he had envisioned in any of the countries that claimed to be communist/socialist.
I mean… obviously? Bolshevik theory (which is what all future socialist/“socialist” states would adopt) was their own take on Marxism with a lot of original thought. That’s where the authoritarianism comes from, and it’s not like the Bolsheviks were trying to hide it. Odds are Marx would denounce the Bolsheviks as heretics.
You’re citing my text but cutting off just before the point I was trying to make. I think be would still side with the people who claim to follow his ideology (yes, piss poor efforts objectively speaking but that’s irrelevant to him because he would prefer them over the folks entrenched in capitalism on the other side).
Ideologs are a dangerous breed because they are surprisingly flexible under realpolitik conditions when the alternative is having to admit defeat. Or in Marx’s case admitting that his ideas didn’t work or the fact that they didn’t work as intended cost the lives of millions. Surely he wouldn’t like Stalin’s Russia or Mao’s China and well apoortioned crticism thereof (or of the GDR or wherever) would have eventually spent his good will capital (pun intended) with the local leadership and he would end up in a gulag or erased from history. Karl-Marx-Stadt would have been renamed sooner.
You’re citing my text but cutting off just before the point I was trying to make.
Yes, because my point is that your point doesn’t make sense.
I think be would still side with the people who claim to follow his ideology
Why…? That’s not how leftwing politics worked, ever, and it’s not like there has ever been a shortage of leftwing criticism of Leninism and Stalinism.
r in Marx’s case admitting that his ideas didn’t work or the fact that they didn’t work as intended cost the lives of millions.
Yeah that’s my point: They’re not his ideas; they’re their ideas. Lenin for example, aside from being an authoritarian dickhead, was an intellectual juggernaut and a lot of his ideas would be baked into the foundation of the Soviet Union. What you’re presenting here is a false dichotomy.
Yes, because my point is that your point doesn’t make sense.
That’s a remarkable statement in the context of a hypothetical, counterfactual scenario where we are attempting to interpret the possible thinking of a long deceased man displaced in time for the benefit of said scenario.
You may disagree with me. You haven’t changed my mind either. So let’s leave it at that.
You can sell his stance as an evolvement of the theory rather than admitting mistakes.
I dunno, that sounds an awful lot like “reform” to me.
If Marx was alive in 1970, then he could not write his books 100 years before.
History were all different then.
He would probably react by finding a relative of one of his long-dead rich friends or family, and try to convince them to fund his next treatise on the stage that happens after communism (aka, buy him more beer)
Judging by his behavior during the First International, I reckon he would have approved of Lenin’s vanguard and applauded the rise of the Stalinist empire.
