Karl Marx was born on May 5, 1818, in Trier, Germany. Marx, together with his lifelong comrade and friend Friedrich Engels, invented the scientific doctrine of working-class revolution. We call this doctrine “Marxism.”
From German philosophy, and especially from the philosophy of Hegel, Marx developed dialectical and historical materialism—the science of change in all aspects of life.
Surplus value
From English political economy, the most advanced of its day, Marx and Engels took the Labor Theory of Value and developed from it the doctrine of surplus value, “the special law of motion governing the present-day capitalist mode of production” (Engels):
The worker spends one part of the day covering the cost of maintaining himself and his family (wages), while the other part of the day he works without remuneration, creating for the capitalist surplus-value, the source of profit, the source of the wealth of the capitalist class.
The doctrine of surplus-value is the corner-stone of Marx’s economic theory. (Lenin)
Marx developed this scientific theory in his famous work Capital: Critique of Political Economy (also known by its German title Das Kapital), and in shorter, more accessible works such as Wages, Price and Profit.
Class struggle
From French socialist theory, the most advanced and revolutionary of its day since it developed out of the study of the great French Revolution of the 18th century, Marx developed the doctrine of class struggle.
Just as Darwin discovered the law of
development or organic nature, so Marx discovered the law of development of
human history. (Engels)
All societies, past and present, have developed because of the struggle between the exploiting classes—slaveowners, feudal lorders, bourgeois landowners, capitalists—and the exploited classes: slaves, serfs, and the working class. In every age, class struggle is the force that moves forward scientific, social, political, and intellectual development.
Violent revolution; the dictatorship of the proletariat
Marx understood that the struggle of the working class against capitalist exploitation must lead to violent revolution and the forceful overthrow of the capitalist system. In a letter to Joseph Weidemeyer, written in 1852, Marx wrote:
the class struggle leads necessarily to the Dictatorship of the Proletariat; this dictatorship is but the transition to the abolition of all classes and to the creation of a society of free and equal.
Vladimir Lenin, the great Russian revolutionary theorist and political leader and also the greatest student of Marxism, summed up Marxism this way:
The Marxist doctrine is omnipotent because it is true. It is comprehensive and harmonious, and provides men with an integral world outlook irreconcilable with any form of superstition, reaction, or defence of bourgeois oppression.
Marx the revolutionary
Marx was not only a brilliant thinker and theorist. He combined his theoretical work with ground-breaking revolutionary activity.
In 1847 Marx and Engels joined The Communist League, a secret revolutionary society, for which they wrote the famous “Communist Manifesto” (February, 1848). About the Manifesto, Lenin wrote:
This work outlines a new world-conception, consistent with materialism, which also embrace the realm of social life; dialectics, as the most comprehensive and profound doctrine of development; the theory of the class struggle and of the world-historic revolutionary role of the proletariat—the creator of a new, communist society.
The Communist League (1847-1852) was the predecessor of the International Working Men’s Association (The First International). Some of its members later played a leading role in the First International.
In 1864 (September 28) the International Working Men’s Association—the celebrated First International—was founded in London. Marx was the heart and soul of this organization, and author of its first Address and of a host of resolutions, declaration and manifestoes. (Lenin)
The Civil War in France
In 1871 the working class of Paris rebelled against their government and held the city from March 18 until May 28. During this time the city was governed by the Paris Commune, a radical socialist and revolutionary government. In response to the bloody suppression of the Commune by the French Army Marx wrote The Civil War in France. In this work Marx drew the following lessons from this, the first great proletarian revolution in history:
The need to smash (as opposed to taking over or “appropriating”) bourgeois state power and establish the dictatorship of the proletariat.
The need for equality—particularly economic equality—between revolutionary cadre, state functionaries, and the masses of workers.
Immediate recall of leadership by the masses if leaders fail to carry out the desires and aspirations of the working class.
The abolition of a bourgeois-type standing army and the distribution of arms to the masses of people.
Engels wrote:
… Marx was before all else a revolutionist. His real mission in life was to contribute, in one way or another, to the overthrow of capitalist society and of the state institutions which it had brought into being, to contribute to the liberation of the modern proletariat, which he was the first to make conscious of its own position and its needs, conscious of the conditions of its emancipation. Fighting was his element. And he fought with a passion, a tenacity and a success such as few could rival.
And, consequently, Marx was the best hated and most calumniated man of his time … And he died beloved, revered and mourned by millions of revolutionary fellow workers …
PLP fights to carry on Marx’s Legacy
The Progressive Labor Party has studied the history of the communist movement in the light of its successes and errors and of our own. We continue to strongly support Marx’s central theories and respect him as the greatest revolutionary theorist in history. We proudly call ourselves “Marxists.”
Through the lessons of history, we disagree with a few tactics that Marx proposed. We understand that a standing army will be needed by any revolutionary communist society in order to fight off, and carry the battle to, the forces of capitalism and imperialism that will inevitably try to destroy any communist revolution. The Paris Commune was defeated largely because it had no army, and waited passively until the French Army attacked it. This was a fatal error.
We also reject the notion, put forth by Marx in his “Critique of the Gotha Program,” that inequality – Marx calls it “bourgeois right” – must be preserved during the first, or lower, stage of communism. Preserving inequality has been the excuse for Soviet misleaders like Nikita Khrushchev and Mikhail Gorbachev, and Chinese sellouts like Deng Xiaoping, to turn socialist states back to exploitative capitalism.
Standing on the shoulders on giants
Marx was the great philosopher—economist, theorist, thinker, and revolutionary activist—of the modern movement for an egalitarian society run by and for the producers of all value—the working class.
We commemorate him best when we try to follow in his footsteps and build the movement that he began—a movement for justice and equality for all working people.
We have a long way to go. But we have great predecessors, great ancestors, in this movement. Marx is one of the great giants. PLP and the communist movement is standing on his shoulders .
It is fitting that we remember him every day, and especially this month, the two hundredth anniversary of his birth.