“Workers of the world unite; you have nothing to lose but your chains.”
[1]Karl Marx, the son of Hirschel and Henrietta Marx, was born in Trier, Germany, in 1818. Hirschel Marx was a lawyer and to escape anti-Semitism decided to abandon his Jewish faith when Karl was a child. Although the majority of people living in Trier were Catholics, Marx decided to become a Protestant. He also changed his name from Hirschel to Heinrich. After schooling in = (1830-35), Marx entered University to study law. At university he spent much of his time socializing and running up large debts. His father was horrified when he discovered that Karl had been wounded in a duel. Heinrich Marx agreed to pay off his son’s debts but insisted that he moved to the more sedate University. The move to Berlin resulted in a change in Marx and for the next few years he worked hard at his studies. Marx came under the influence of one of his lecturers, , whose atheism and radical political opinions got him into trouble with the authorities. B introduced Marx to the writings of , who had been the professor of philosophy at Berlin until his death in 1831. Marx was especially impressed by Hegel’s theory that a thing or thought could not be separated from its opposite. For example, the slave could not exist without the master, and vice versa. Hegel argued that unity would eventually be achieved by the equalizing of all opposites, by means of the dialectic (logical progression) of thesis, antithesis and synthesis. This was Hegel’s theory of the evolving process of history.
Has there ever been a successful socialist revolution? Let us first understand when can be a socialist revolution called successful? Is it by the time socialism is being practiced and unpracticed after a few weeks or months? Or is it by the time it is being practiced and still practicing up to this very moment or be permanent?
Successful socialist revolution may be hard to achieve as a whole or a socialist country or government but it has won great achievements. Like for example, the Europe revolution; it was the year 1848 that saw the overthrow of King and the proclamation of a republic in France, but it did not stop there. When the second republic was founded, and was elected president over Cavaignac and Lamartine, there is a general feeling of goodwill, but it disappears due to class conflict. There is a call for reform, mass activism, and feelings of uneasiness among the Bourgeoisie. In Germany; Marx’s predictions came swiftly true. A revolution began uniting the capitalist class, the peasants and the workers in struggle against the landowners and their regime. But the capitalists quickly did a deal with Kaiser and therefore won some concessions for them, and left the working class without political rights. The reason of the defeat of the revolutionary wave in 1848 was the aim that not to accept half-way measures, but to “make the revolution permanent” by pushing on to the overthrow of the capitalists and the establishment of a working class government. Another example is in 1871, when the revolutionary storm broke out once again. In a mass uprising in Paris, the first ever working class government, the Paris Commune, was formed. Marx threw himself into support for this historic step forward. From the defeat of the Commune he drew a vital lesson: that for the working class to set about introducing real socialist measures, it will not be possible to use the capitalists’ state apparatus, their parliament and armed forces. But once again they have failed because these institutions must be penetrated by revolutionaries in order to undermine them, but the working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready-made state machinery and wield it for its own purposes. Instead, the military and bureaucratic state machine of the capitalists would have to be smashed and replaced by a far more democratic system of working class councils or communes, and a militia based on the arming of the whole working class.
Karl Marx died in London in March 1883. His ideas have shaped the century that we live in. But as the century draws to a close, more people than ever believe that Marx and Marxism are somehow a thing of the past. They could not be more wrong. The collapse of the Soviet Union was not proof that “socialism does not work”, but that without full working class democracy, the transformation of society among socialist lines is impossible.
Is the concept of socialism unrealistic? According to Marx, the concept of socialism is to refer to a society where political agency is derived from work, a truly democratic society where people have a say in determining what technology will produce through their labor. Though it has never won the battle to fight for a better society, the concept of socialism is never and never will be unrealistic. For those people who believe that socialism offers a system of values never fully achieved, and not a constructed model on display in any particular place, the concept of it is not unrealistic. In fact, the issue of socialism is being raised once again in other countries. Like for example, the countries in the East. The people start to struggle with unequal weapons. Intuitively, one can understand why people who have by force of arms made their own socialist, nationalist, and popular revolutions (the USSR, China, Yugoslavia, etc.) have an ideological weapon that may enable them to put a progressive complexion on their struggles. Now, if the concept of Socialism is unrealistic, why these people of the various countries are still trying to struggle for a better society?
Has modernity defeated socialism? Though socialism never won any battle to fight for a better society yet won great achievements on implementing it in different ways, modernity has never defeated socialism. Like what I said, socialism is still the issue of various countries right now. Like for example, Philippines. Some or most of the Filipinos are still struggling for a better society up to now; for them to have a greener pasture. Some rallies are being conducted by the labor force and poor people in demand for the equal distribution of rights. And I know for a fact that Philippines is not the only country suffering from this crisis. Considering modernity, the issue of socialism has never been buried nor defeated.
Is Karl Marx irrelevant? [2]Karl Marx’s ideas can be understood by anyone who takes the trouble to study them. They are not mechanical or needlessly abstract, but contain important truths about history and human society. They are not old fashioned or a failure, because they explain the world today. They are not boring or grey because they are about the red hot business of revolution. If Karl Marx is irrelevant, why does his studies of capitalism and how it works led him to predict such phenomena as globalization, monopolization, the growing divide between rich and poor and the strengthening of the proletariat, and so on. In fact, his philosophical outlook, dialectical materialism, has stood the test of time, and is a precious instrument in our hands to unravel all the complex mechanisms of economy, politics, and even science. It allows us to have a global view of all processes and thus be able to develop a perspective for the future development of society. Up to date, was voted most revered philosopher on BBC website. If Karl Marx is irrelevant, no one will admire his works and no one will remember him until now.
Do certain elements of socialism linger in the contemporary world? Though socialism have not been able to successfully create a fully institutionalized socialist socioeconomic system because the forces of the capitalist world-economy, some of its elements still exists in a form of labor codes and laws that are being adopt from the early struggle for a better society; interests of laborers. It is being used to protect laborers’ interest from greedy capitalists. Somewhere; somehow, certain elements of socialism linger in the contemporary world.
[1] Jewish Virtual Library, a Division of the American – Israeli Cooperative enterprise http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/marx.html
[2] Revolution: socialist youth movement http://www.worldrevolution.org.uk/index.php?id=6,22,0,0,1,0
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