When Karl Marx and his fellow sponsor Friedrich Engels wrote their Communist Manifesto , they most likely did not even imagine that this eerie pamphlet about a wandering ghost would be a bestseller, and where in Russia! Marx himself did not like this country for many reasons. Therefore, he could not even imagine that it would become a place of attempt to implement his ideas.
As Vladimir Ulyanov (Lenin) explained popularly after many years, Marxism is a product of the synthesis of three main ingredients: British political economy, the utopian ideas of Thomas More and classical philosophy. They are also sources and components of this teaching.
When G. Plekhanov translated the Manifesto into Russian in 1882, this theory was not very popular in Europe. Marxism in Russia also did not immediately take over the minds, but among its fans disputes immediately began. Disappointed in popularism, intellectuals were looking for a new application for their theoretical research.
Marxism is a theory based on the materialistic perception of the world. George Plekhanov considered philosophy the most important of the sciences, which, unlike other, secondary branches of human knowledge, covers the whole picture of the universe. History, in his opinion, studies the process of development of production relations and productive forces.
The Black Repartition party, created by Plekhanov and Axelrod, became a signal that Russian Marxism arose. He saw the path to social transformation through the struggle between the representatives of the feudal classes who had outlived their historical age and the bourgeoisie. Victory last opened the way for the working class.
More radical measures were going to act a new generation of Russian Marxists - the Social Democrats. They considered both the bourgeoisie and all classes standing between it and the proletariat as reactionary. The contradictions within the RSDLP led it to split into Bolsheviks and Mensheviks in 1903, at the second congress of this party. The initiator of the split was Leon Trotsky, standing on maximalist and implacable positions. In 1917, the Bolsheviks carried out a violent seizure of power. The revolution was not called immediately. For example, I.V. Stalin often refers to this event as a coup, not only in his articles, but also in their names.
Now, nothing prevented a very bold and historically unparalleled experiment on one sixth of the land of an entire planet. It consisted in instilling in the vast and multinational composition of the former Russian Empire many concepts that until then were completely alien to him.
Of course, not all of this theory was vaccinated. Marxism is a theory, but in practice ... The abandonment of property, the institution of marriage and the right to raise their children have remained unrealized elements of a true communist society. Universal equality was also not achieved. People remained people, they wanted to have their own home and their belongings.
However, today there are people for whom Marxism is a method of overcoming the contradictions of modern society. The desire for equality and social justice compels them to open the “Manifesto of the Communist Party” today and to read again with nostalgia about the ghost roaming around Europe ...