Revolutionary Marx

Marx & Engels
by Kevin Steinhardt, used under CC BY

By: Alina Cappadora

 “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.” – Karl Marx

Cartoon published in the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW)
by Ralph Chaplin, used under CC0

The Communist Manifesto came about due to the fact that all of the European powers objected to the idea of Communism, and the ideas needed to be shared according to Marx and Engels.

The quote above is the basic belief that Marx had as the basis of Communism. He believed that struggle in society comes from the separation of classes. The working class (the Proletariate) and the middle class (the Bourgeoisie), in his opinion would always be exactly that if society did not revolt to change this. He does believe that with time, the class system could fall apart, and eventually people would be working for the common good of society. This would stop just one class from obtaining all of the wealth and power and this wealth and power would be distributed evenly between everyone(Marx, 1998).

Marx believed that the Proletariate deep down had all of the power to change society. He stressed that as the working class that was not receiving the larger end of wealth, had no power or rights to lose by revolting. He wanted to see the land worked on, ran by, and wealth given to them as a whole. The Communist theory essentially worked for the abolishment of private property. Marx believed that, although the Proletariate owned their private property, it was controlled by the Bourgeoise, thus making them lose everything they had even worked for. He wanted to make private property a common property, shared by all. If private property were taken away, then the Proletariate would then be working for their own sake, rather than the sake of the Bourgeoise controlling their property.

Overall, it is not just the Bourgeoisie that Marx and fellow communists were trying to overthrow, he stated, “…the Communists everywhere support every revolutionary movement against the existing social and political order of things” (Marx 91). This shows that the beliefs of Communism were to ensure that there was no separation of powers and that everyone provide labor and share the wealth evenly.

Below is a link to a video called “The Communist Smurfs.” Although not proven factual, the video gives a great brief overview of the conditions of living in a communist society and goes to show how Marx’s ideas have revolutionized society based off of his beliefs.

Marx, K., & Engels, F. (1998). The Communist Manifesto. New York, NY: New American Library.