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Old Tuesday, January 22, 2019
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Originally Posted by aishalam View Post
Well basically Marxism came first. It is ideology based on works of Karl Marx from the 19th century. Marx was a heavy critic of the capitalistic system which he believed was responsible for the class system in the world. He said that the world is divided into two main classes based on factors of production; the Bourgeois (the rich-they own capital and land and they employ workers), and the Proletariat (the workers who have nothing but their labor to sell). He believed that the working class should (and would eventually) stand up for their rights since they are paid less than they are due by the rich land-owners and factory-masters. He also believed that everything in Human history was (and would always be) based on some sort of "conflict" (conflict between the rich and poor, east and west, male and female). He co-wrote the famous book "The Communist Manifesto" upon which the other two ideologies are based.


Politically Marx believed that the eventual revolution of the working class would lead to a “dictatorship” of the proletariat and they would ultimately form the communist system. I must point out an important point here. Dictatorship to Marx didn't exclusively mean what we think it means today. In many of his works he called the democratic government of the time "a dictatorship of the aristocrats" since very few working class people ever got into politics and even if they did rarely were in positions of power.

Moving on to Leninism. It is the ideology of Vladimir Lenin who was a Russian Marxist. He agreed with everything Marx said so where do they differ? Lenin believed in Marx's theories and even wanted communism. Where he differed was simply in how to get to that stage. He believed that Capitalism wouldn't just topple over itself. He suggested that a few people from the working class need to form a party and do the revolution themselves on behalf of everyone else and he did exactly that. Lenin was the mastermind behind the Russian Revolution of 1917 which overthrew and assassinated the Russian Tsar. Politically he also differed with Marx in the sense that he took "dictatorship of the proletariat" very literally. He believed that to get to communism first they must establish a temporary stage called socialism. He also believed that ONE party, to achieve its goals and guide the people to communism, needed the monopoly of state power and authority. So basically he wanted to establish a REAL dictatorship, which he did in Russia, and his Bolshevik party was highly organized, didn't tolerate internal dissent and crushed the other, more democratic socialist groups in Russia after the revolution. Note that this is the actual practical model that is being applied in the Communist countries of today.

Now here we shall talk about Stalinism which is based on Joseph Stalin's ideology. Stalin was actually Lenin's right-hand man even though they disagreed a lot. The basic differences between the two is how far aggression and totalitarian regimes can go. Lenin believed that the original Revolution and assassination of the Royal family was necessary but after that he was willing to listen to other people and exchange ideas. He also wanted to export the communist ideals that he had developed to other countries so they could overthrow their Bourgeois governments as well. Lenin was also fairly popular with human rights activists across the globe since he believed that all classes were equal under communist rule.

Stalin was a lot more aggressive and closed off. He basically killed off anyone who wasn't of importance to him anymore. He also was highly influences by Fascist ideals. In short, Stalin was very very VERY authoritarian. He also disagreed with Lenin's ideas of "exporting communism" to the world. He introduced "communism in one country" which basically just meant that the USSR should build itself up within its own borders against the rest of the Capitalistic world and not worry about helping people in other countries who were open to communism (You can read up on the case of former Yugoslavia after WWI which under Tito would not accept Stalin adamant demands that Yugoslavia become a Soviet satellite state and swear loyalty to Moscow. This caused the famous Tito-Stalin split.)

This was a very brief outline of how these three differ. They all essentially had the same goals but chose different means to get to that end.
thankyou
why socialism failed in USSR while succeeded in china ?
can present china be categorised as a socialist state?
what was stalin and trotsky conflict about?
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