1. Mrs. Gregory AP European History
Marxism
Mrs. Gregory
AP European History
Source: AP European History Examination; Ellis Wasson

2. Marxism and the Men Behind the Mask
Marxism: The most influential socialist philosophy that eventually became a doctrine that ruled nearly half of humanity in the 20th century and was responsible for the deaths of as many as 100 million people.
Karl Marx was a middle-class German writer, who lived most of this adult life in England, supported by journalism and subsidies from the profits of a Manchester factory owned by his cohort Friedrick Engels.
They jointly wrote The Communist Manifesto (1848).

3. Marxism…What Is It Exactly?
Marxism (or Communism) was based on the notion that the basis of life is class struggle (dialectical materialism); the dialectical drove history
This is what he believed and preached:
The triumph of bourgeois capitalism (that Marx incorrectly identified with several historical events in the 17th and 18th centuries, such as the English Civil War and the French Revolution) created industrialization, which for the first time gave mankind the opportunity to have abundance.
It was no longer necessary to struggle for scare wealth because machines could give everybody a good life.

4. Marxism Continued…
At the same time, capitalism would inevitably concentrate resources in fewer and fewer hands until the proletariat (industrial working class) would be able to overthrow the rich and exterminate them in a bloody revolution.
The rich would resist, sincerely believing for instance in the system of laws they had established to protect their property and religion they had taught to the workers (as a kind of drug) which emphasized submission and rewards in the next world.

5. Marxism Continued…
Society could then be reordered to eliminate the spirit of competition.
Even the institutions of the state, such as the police, would wither away since crime was a product of unequal distribution of material goods.
History would cease since class struggle would no longer be necessary.
However, near the end of his life, Marx acknowledged it might be possible to achieve change in advance societies by peaceful means.

6. From The Communist Manifesto
1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes. 2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax. 3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance. 4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels. 5. Centralization of credit in the banks of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly. 6. Centralization of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the state. 7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the state; the bringing into cultivation of waste lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan. 8. Equal obligation of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture. 9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the populace over the country. 10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children's factory labor in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, etc.

7. Karl’s Legacy
Marx was wrong about almost everything he wrote except that capitalism is cruel.
Above all, it became puzzlement to his followers why wealth did not become concentrated solely in a tiny group of people in the advanced societies such as England and Germany.

8. His Influence
Lenin (Russia) later came along and retrofitted Marxism in a way that made it possible to justify revolutions in less economically advanced societies such as Russia and China.