I am not a Marxist, but neither am I blinded to the genius that is Karl Marx. I am continually irritated by people who automatically associate Marx with communism. Now that must seem very silly as Marx was the joint author of the Communist Manifesto, but my point is that when people today talk of communism they associate it with the Soviet Union, or China and Cuba etc. Those states are political systems that call themselves communist, but the important point is that their communism is the result of the writings of Lenin, not Marx.
In his writings Lenin, claiming to be the natural successor to Marx described what, in his opinion, a communist state should look like, and, to this end, he described the political concept of democratic centralism founded on what he termed the dictatorship of the proletariat which resulted in a one-party dictatorship. Marx never outlined the structure of a communist society except to stress that it would be classless, ruled by proletarian democracy under which, once the class nature of the state had been abolished, the state itself would wither away. At this point, I should explain that this is the principal reason why I do not consider myself a Marxist, because, I believe that the human being is a political animal and therefore a regulatory being, that is, the human being regulates its environment. It does this in many ways, through custom, habit, by establishing value systems that necessitate social norms, but importantly by establishing formal law. As the human is a regulatory being, it establishes formal regulatory bodies, the most obvious being decision-making forums such as the British Parliament. As a result, I cannot conceive of a situation whereby the state will ever wither away. In my view, both government and the state are derivative, that is they derive their existence and their functions from the social and regulatory nature of the human species. Thus there will always be some form of political and regulatory mechanisms such as parliaments and an administrative state. The important questions are therefore who should control such mechanisms and what should their roles and functions be? Not whether they should exist or not. That however does not make Marx wrong indeed it is more likely to be me. However, on that point Marx and I disagree.
Thus, it was Lenin who designed the fundamental structure of a communist, one party dictatorship, not Marx. This was later embedded even deeper by Stalin and that form and structure became the template for all future communist style governments. I therefore take the view that, from my readings of Marx, a communist state guided by a Marxist philosophy would look quite different. As a result I am neither a Marxist nor a communist.
I am however, an admirer of Marx's economics and sociology and am impatient with people who ignore his writings because they dislike what we see as communism in the modern world and proceed to blame him for it. I do not have the space to comment on his works here, but suffice it to say that it is impossible to understand the real nature of a blatantly class driven society such as the UK without understanding Marx. Equally if you do not consider Marx's theories of alienation you will never understand a modern capitalist economy. Marx's economics and sociology are brilliant, they are genius. I do not agree with everything he wrote, but that is natural and does not detract from his genius. He was a human being and therefore flawed and my reading of him and subsequent understanding of what I read will most certainly be similarly flawed. His explanation of the base and superstructure of society is, in my opinion, unparalleled.
So, don't be influenced by propaganda and lies. Marxism is not a dirty word, and, quite frankly, if you never read Marx you are denying yourself one of the keys to understanding the human condition. You will not be poisoned, I promise you, you will be enlightened as long as you remember to never confuse what we today call communism with Marxism. That's what Westminster and its lackeys in the media want you to do, because I promise you, none of these intellectual cripples even begin to understand it.
Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat
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