# Marxism

*Not to be confused with communism.*

Marxism comprises of ideas, theories (known as *historical materialism*) and ideologies strongly based in works of Karl Marx (and also Friedrich Engels), roughly aiming for (and scientifically predicting) a violent revolution that should end capitalism, replace it with "socialist" society and eventually a truly communist society. Despite the terms Marxism and communism NOT being equal (communism is a general idea with many branches, e.g. anarcho communism, Christian communism etc.), most common people see them as equivalent, which is unfortunate because communism is a purely good idea while Marxism is mostly a bad way of trying to achieve and sustain their own idea of communism (the relationship between communism and Marxism may be roughly compared to the relationship between Christianity and Catholicism). **Existence of Marxism is probably as great a tragedy for communism as the existence of capitalism**. Marxism comes with aggressive, revolutionary mindset that has caused great tragedies mainly during the 20th century (see especially USSR). Many non-Marxist communists even see Marxist "communist" states as capitalist (so called state capitalism). Marxism sees itself as a scientific effort, it is studied by intellectuals and lives mainly in written works of Marxists.

Marx himself wasn't just some angry peasant pissed of at the system, but more of an intellectual, a philosopher who tried to scientifically examine history and came up with so called historical materialism, a theory that basically states that everything (structure of society, its law, culture etc.) is subdued to human production and economic forces and that society changes exclusively due to these forces, i.e. things like changes in technology, modes of production, economic relationships etc. -- he said individual humans are just slaves to these forces, their will cannot change them. He identified certain classes in society, mainly the proletariat (workers) and bourgeoisie (their overlords) and then reasoned some stuff about their conflict etcetc. until he came to the conclusion that capitalism will be surpassed by socialism and eventually communism -- not as anything ethical or "just", but purely as superior systems in terms of economy. So he basically only predicted the revolution would inevitably happen, however some other people -- those whom we typically now use the term "Marxists" for -- took this theory and started to use it as a basis to PROMOTE an active revolution.

**We, LRS, are communists but do NOT embrace Marxism!** Though we do agree with Marxists on many things (mostly identifying issues of capitalism), we can't ever approve of some inherent traits of Marxism, mainly the following. Marxism is **violent**, aggressive and revolutionary, often highly hostile to anarchism and pacifism (which we highly embrace), wanting to FORCE communism. Marxists promote establishment of temporary **dictatorship** of the proletariat as they see it the only way to ending capitalism. **Marxists are NOT altruists**, their desire of communism doesn't come from love of life, they simply see it as a more efficient societal system than capitalism that's a natural and inevitable next step in evolution of society, they see a man as servant of society, **they are obsessed with work** (even preferring to call themselves *workers* rather than *people*; language matters) and see people who don't share their values as undesirable -- these undesirable people are not only capitalists, but also people who don't want to work, religious people or people who refuse to fight for their society. They say that ends justify the means and will happily utilize means such as war, dictatorship, executions, censorship, cults of personality and propaganda. We cannot ever stand behind this.

## See Also

- historical materialism