It’s back! Like the final act of a horror movie, the monster has returned to life for one last scare. A spectre is haunting Europe – the spectre of Communism.
After the fall of the Soviet Union, it seemed like Marxism had finally been proved wrong. Communism had delivered nothing but authoritarianism, brutality, and economic mismanagement. Capitalism was the only show in town, and we had finally reached the glorious “end of history”.
Then the global economic crisis hit. Faith in globalisation and capitalism crumbled. The decade after the crisis has been defined by austerity and precarious employment for the masses, while the richest 1% have accumulated a greater and greater share of global wealth. The unthinkable is no longer unthinkable. In countries from Greece, to Spain, to the United Kingdom, Marxist philosophy has entered mainstream political discourse once more.
May 2018 will mark the 200th anniversary of the birth of Karl Marx, and February 2018 will be the 170th anniversary of the publication of the Communist Manifesto. To mark these dates, Debating Europe is launching a series of online discussions dedicated to examining the impact and legacy of Marx and his writings.
What do our readers think? We had a comment sent in by Udo, who believes that there are many positive examples out there of Marxist political thought being applied in practice: “In many [states] Marx is still read today and socialist politics is designed in his spirit. Some of these states are already doing better than Germany today.”
To get a reaction, we put Udo’s comment to Ulrike Herrmann, a German journalist whose career has focused primarily on the consequences of the global economic crisis. She has just written a book about what we can still learn from the “classics” like Marx and other political economists. Does she believe that Marx is making a political comeback?
This is a misunderstanding: socialist politics has nothing – really nothing – to do with Marx. Politicians like Lenin or Mao have claimed that their policies are Marxist, but that is a baseless assertion, since Marx never commented on Communism… We can find in his writings no statements about how Communism will be designed politically. Rather, Marx analysed capitalism.
After giving up hope for a proletarian revolution in the face of the failed European revolutions of 1848, Marx was a scientist in the second phase of his life. He then analysed capitalism. He hoped that, because of the major contradictions in the system, capitalism would ultimately abolish itself.
For another perspective, we put the same question to Adrian Wooldridge, a British journalist and columnist for The Economist. Does he believe Marx is making a comeback?
Marxism is absolutely making a political comeback. We can say very strongly with the Labour Party in Britain, Jeremy Corbyn is a person who’s very interested in Marx’s thinking. Also, in his team we have his Chancellor, John McDonnell, who is a man who claims to be a Marxist, who thinks that the biggest influences on his way of looking at the world are Marx, Lenin and Trotsky, and the chief-strategist of the party, Seumas Milne, who is very interested in Marxism thought. I don’t think it’s been the case since the 1960s that Marxism has been so fashionable, on the left in general, and I think that the Labour Party now is more interested in Marxist ideas than it was in the 1960s.
Whether this is the case right across Europe, I’m not certain… but I think that also in the United States Bernie Sanders is somebody who talked a lot about Marx, Marxism and the influence of his ideas. So, I think there is a very good reason why Marxism should be making a comeback now, and that’s that we‘ve had a massive financial crisis – the biggest since the 1930s – and we’re seeing inequality growing.
Next up, we had a comment from Alex, who is shocked that Marx’s ideas are still “idealised” today. He remembers how much he suffered under the communist regime in Romania and asks why convinced leftists aren’t emmigrating to Cuba or North Korea. How would Ulrike Herrmann respond?
Finally, what would Adrian Wooldridge say to Alex’s comment?
I mean, they’ve had an extraordinary history of brutality, mass murder, economic inefficiency, and the rest of it. The one obvious exception to that is China, but China is only ‘Marxist’ as a sort of deference to history. It’s a capitalist society that’s pretending to be a Marxist society, pretending to value the ideas of Marx, but it values them essentially in their absence. So, one aspect of Marxism is a notion of how society should be organised and the second notion is a critique of how capitalism works. When it comes to the later, Marxism is still relevant because it makes all the right objections towards capitalism, asks all the right questions about inequality, about rent seeking, about concentration of ownership, about how the poor are treated. But he had the wrong solutions to those problems.
Is Marx making a political comeback? Should the failure of capitalism to prevent the global economic crisis encourage us to reevaluate Marx’s theories and ideas? Let us know your thoughts and comments in the form below and we’ll take them to policymakes and experts for their reactions!
58 comments Post a commentcomment
Really sad if it is..
marxism never left, banks and big enterprises adopt him from the opposite side
Marxism never existed outside the minds of marxists. Hard to say it’s making a comeback.
I doubt society will ever be ready to take on marxism, even if we were to work out some of its mistakes
Given the 100 million dead due to Marxism we should fight it at every turn. Interesting that you should show a picture of Corbyn though given he is under investigation for treason.
WOW we have a common opinion on an issue. Who could have ever thougth that?
Isn’t it 10000000000 billions?
@Gorazd
.
The goal of socialism is communism. – Vladimir Lenin
http://www.thecommentator.com/article/6686/a_century_of_evil_communism_s_100_million_dead
You need sources or get the fuck out. It’s all myths baby.
Depends on what is meant by Marxism, of course. If it refers to the method of socioeconomic analysis that frames capitalism through a paradigm of exploitation, analyses class relations and social conflict using a materialist interpretation of historical development and takes a dialectical view of social transformation, then, of course, it never went away. Indeed, Thomas Piketty’s bestselling book entitled Capital in the 21st Century, is firmly based on Marxist principles, as outlined above.
On the other hand, if by “Marxism”, one refers to the big bogeyman of the so-called “right”, then it’s a very useful strawman, to be sure.
Of course, one shouldn’t confuse actual Marxism with “Cultural Marxism”, which, has been firmly established to have been a CIA plot aimed at destabilising socialist countries and preventing the emergence of politically awareness in the capitalist West.
Name one instance were ‘Marxism’ under any banner has not lead to misery, decline and death.. Just one ? .
How many more time do we have to try Marxism before everyone realises it’s a death cult.
For one thing, there is no “we”. For another, you appear not to have read my post before commenting. What do YOU think Marxism is? It certainly does not appear to be what most mainstream economists think it is! Still, admittedly the language in which the original post by Debating Europe is couched is pretty much troll bait.
As to your question, I am currently living in post-Soviet Russia. Before that, I spent a couple of years in post-Yugoslavian Slovenia. I don’t think many people in either of these countries actually want to return to how things were before the collapse of so-called Communism at the end of the 80s. Still, there is, without doubt, a certain amount of nostalgia, as well as quite a number of relevant institutions having survived (and still doing important work in structuring society).
Of course, both the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia came into being amidst great bloodshed. That seems pretty much inevitable when there is a major revolution, in which millions of poor, uneducated people rise up against those who have kept them poor and uneducated for so long.
In the case of the latter, apart from a brief orgy of violence in the years immediately after the end of WWII, things got remarkably peaceful remarkably quickly and stayed that way for a remarkably long period of time. In the case of the former, of course, violent repression continued for quite a while longer.
However, by the 60s things were starting to quieten down and life became quite good for the majority. There was public healthcare, housing, education, transport. Of course, there was still repression, but it was increasingly non-violent. Compare that situation to the one obtaining in the “liberal” West today!
@Thomas Which western country does not have free healthcare and free education except for US obviously?
I was thinking more about the modes of (mainly) non-violent repression.
Thomas Beavitt Anyone with access to the internet can find everything they need to know about Marxism, Communism, socialism & National socialism and anyone who defends them should prove what they are saying to be true..
Marxism, Communism, socialism & National socialism are cancer to any society.
http://www.thecommentator.com/article/6686/a_century_of_evil_communism_s_100_million_dead
A funny question considering the fact that even in Germany the left is constantly losing support. Social democrats are at embarassing 16% approvement now.
yes, because they have been implementing neoliberal policies the last twenty years.
@Spyros I’d say it’s because they don’t do what their traditionel voters(workers) need them too. They use all the room and good will of their coalition partners during negotiations on tiny side groups like migrants(which don’t have voting rigths) and lgbt people etc. neither of these groups have influence on the outcome of elections, unlike the millions of workers in the country. For a leftist party to be successful they should be pro redistribution of wealth to the little people, while beeing against migration to keep the number of little people as low as possible, so that every workers part of the redistributed wealth is bigger. They do it just the other way around^^
How is Die Linke doing?
カメニャク マリオ between 9 and 11 percent. I’d say that their socioeconomic ideas could actually bring them more. I’d go as far as saying that somethin in the 15-18 margin would be possible. What drags them down are their ideals in society. They are anti nato, some are anti EU(cause it’s apparently neo liberal), some have weird notions in regards to israel and they are the most pro migrant party. also some of their own members have issues with some of these aspects and go against the party and a party that figths against itself will always look like an embarassement and scare voters away.
Your own political bias is clearly demonstrated by showing a picture of man who has always been a democratic socialist and never Marxist….
.
Are you sure ?
Marxism is cancer to any society, no matter what name it goes by.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/05/08/marx-brothers-jeremy-corbyn-joins-john-mcdonnell-praising-communist/
@Ivan Quoting the “Torygraph” demonstrates the paucity of your argument. And if you don’t know the difference between Marxism and democratic socialism you really shouldn’t be debating with grown ups…. 😂
@Micheal .
Do you prefer the socialist Guardian comrade ? :)
The goal of socialism is communism. – Vladimir Lenin
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/nov/19/marxist-corbyn-revolution-ken-livingstone-labour
@Ivan The idea that the Guardian is Socialist….. bless… a little Tory troll…. how cute 😂
A spectre is still haunting Europe :P.
Yes. And it must be stopped ASAP.
One would wish it would come back! People are fed up with being subjugated by the corporations and the rich. Go to our local Aldi or Lidl – and see how people scrape for food and necessities. It’s perverted and sad.
Whereas with Marxism they just die, Not a great solution.
Dear Ulrike, if you don’t know what Marx has written, why are you commenting on Marx? All real and existing socialist attempts were base on the outline of Marx: central planning, nationalization of “private” means of production, suppression of markets. Lenin in his State and Revolution carefully listed the texts written by Marx, which were served as building blocks for designing the Soviet power. The problem was not the deviation from Marx. The problem was, as Ludwig von Mises had amply demonstrated, that planned economy and outlawing private ownership of the means of production and suppression of markets inevitably leads to despotic dictatorship, poverty and serf-like live to the masses. Hence the fate of real-and existing socialism.
Well said. We need to stand up against the revival of Marxism, we have experienced his idiot ideas. On the other hand, some GuLag might do Ulrike and the rest some good!!
We need Marxism, or we are condemn to get capitalist behaviour to suffocate us or nationalist one.
Seriously ? Marxism has only brought misery, decline and death to any Nation that has tried it, only a lunatic would try it again.
Only a right winger would say that. Socialism have brought hope to the workers and if you don’t work 50 hours each week is only thank to The Reds. Go study some history, our rights come from workers battles. Capitalism have brought destruction over 3/4 of the world
Michele Marco Paolella No I don’t do 50 hrs a week, I’m self employed so I do around 70 hrs. Your claims are just the usual socialist lies in an attempt to rewrite your terrible history. The fact is Capitalism has lifted over 1 billion people out of poverty worldwide in the last 20 years while Socialism has only destroyed Nations and plunged millions of people into poverty. .
https://panampost.com/carlos-sabino/2017/04/27/socialism-is-failing-all-over-the-world/
You shall read some book before state that. Capitalism have killed millions everyhwere in the world from slavery, to the resources war, from dictatorship to famines, from workers rights to world wars. If you like work 70 hours weekly as good britty, stay in your island
@Ivan You are describing nationalism and fascism
The days of the poor downtrodden worker fighting battles against the rich exploiting mill owner are long gone.
If someone wants to work 50 hrs a week to provide more for himself and his family why should he be denied because of legislation born out of other peoples (flawed) ideology?…..far better someone like that than someone who expects the state to provide so they don’t have to get out of bed in the morning
“Marxism”? In its classical definition, the Marxism is dead. Six feet under and with trees above. Globalism and “Free-Trade-ism”, in the other hand, is alive and well.
Dear Adrian, unfortunately, you also your list of “right objections towards capitalism”, which were outlined by Marx is a shamefully superficial reading, showing that you really did not bother the understand the logic of Marx. Marx thought, based on a fatefully wrong value theory, that the logic of capitalism would lead to concentration of wealth into a small circle of the super-rich and consequently, the masses would sink into the abject poverty of proletarian class. Unfortunately for his theory, and fortunately for us, free market economy proved to be a wealth-production institutional order, which allowed the rise of the middle classes (into which much of the working class belongs) and eradicated mass poverty and hunger (as was common for all societies before the rise of markets). Due to the prodigious work of markets, in those societies which allowed market freedom, there have had risen ample middle classes. China, after ending the Marxist central planning and suppression of markets, miraculously mass hunger ended and there have risen an ample middle-class. Actually, it was not Marx, who first raised the issue of rent-seeking and the poverty (and the link between the two phenomena), but Adam Smith (who was studied by Marx). Adam Smith has also provided an answer how to lessen rent-seeking and how to nudge the “wealth of the people”, namely how to eradicate poverty. His recipe proved to be really useful and helped those nations, which followed them, to become middle-class societies. Contrary to the tragedy of those nations, which followed the Marxist recipe.
jo diria que no és el marxisme el que està tornant, més aviat una socialdemocràcia que en tot cas representa el que “hem perdut” durant més de 20 anys de capitalisme neoliberal. No veig avui cap opció marxista amb opcions de disputar el poder polític i econòmic.
Instead of theories and labels why doesn’t the EU focus on putting restrictions and regulations on the capitalists and a more caring, fairer, realistic and social EU for the people. All that is required is balance.
Definitely. Looking foward. :)
COMMUNISM FAILED EVERYTIME
IT WAS TRIED!
^ forgets about china, cuba, Vietnam, laos
It is somehow surprising & disturbing that in today’s modern, educated & advanced European society some sections seem reluctant to move on. Not yet realizing (or do they?) our world has overtaken the industrial revolution of the late18th century of steam power, its justified criticism of the dire social side effects of radical exploitation that followed.
Surely, since than- a process of social evolution with the development of a more equitable and fairer social systems has evolved- addressing many social ills of yesteryear.
Shouldn’t one discard ancient & discredited name calling and labeling as unhelpful? It would be more uniting to create new & befitting words for today’s economic & social system, instead endlessly arguing about the extremes of Marxism or Capitalism.
Let’s agree, the fair and adequate (re) distribution of wealth forms the cornerstone of today’s “to be equalized” society. The word “profit” must not be used (by some) to eliminate, condemn and envy the “owners” of production- as long as it is fair, honest, reasonable and earned in open competition!
“Owners” today are free to chose to be sole proprietors, SME’s, shareholders or governments. Creativity, risk & reward are companions of today’s entrepreneurs.
All must be encouraged- besides producing something worthwhile- to create a profit and be taxed on it. Without profit- no taxes- no (re) distribution is possible.
Equality is often misused- every human should be equal before the law, the tax regime or before god. But one must realize that humans are endowed with unequal capabilities, skills and performances.
Without a “profit” motive & incentive, the economy will collapse. Even “State owned enterprises” must either be profit neutral or be run profitable to benefit all and not a few politicians or seconded political party members.
It is the curse of greed, envy, dishonesty, corruption, nepotism, unfair competition and political stupidity in our economy which needs to be addressed today- not the “academic value” about Marx & Co & their gospels!
To balance: an overall perspective from where the State receives all its income -it re-distributes again.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_revenue
Is Marxism making a political comeback?
Before you can be a critic on this matter you have to understand socialism is not Communism. So what DE has headed this thread with is inaccurate.
Here are a couple of Professors advising us about what ‘socialism’ is and that it is not only good for a nation, or, the world come to that, but essential if we are to continue a civilisation the Western people of this planet want to be part of and live with.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQqRHNR6lOw
And
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tz0w-ilhjI4
No democratic ‘civilised’ system can thrive without first coming from a position of socialism. The NHS is socialism. Your State pension is socialism, nationalised transport is socialism, likewise nationalised utilities, garbage collection, public libraries, roads, schools, and so on.
It simply means the tax payer funds, via government administration, all important parts of our basic daily living needs that must not be withdrawn. Unless, in fact, you want to end up in the same situation and condition you see in Haiti and their like.
For any society to be completely run under Capitalism it means that rather than tax payers money being spent on their own welfare, the Capitalist governments can use those funds for other, non practical uses to the payer. Military rule being the most obvious. They make a lot of personal money from Military expenditure.
Under Capitalism the nation has to rely for their health, education infrastructure, schools, etc., on philanthropy. The way parts of Africa have to rely on people like Gates to decide if they deserve mosquito nets, or, vaccines, etc.. The wealthy decide who will be lucky enough to receive their hand outs, as opposed to the citizens paying into their own insurance policy, a national insurance policy that collectively is used for their benefit as by law. The fat cat can play God under complete Capitalism.
Communism is a totally different concept. It can be oppressive. Whereas Democratic Socialism is rule by the people for the people. And their collective public funds are used in a way that they jointly agree to via their vote. Which is why the Swiss system of Direct Democracy under law is the best for any country to be able to prosper and live comfortably.
Sweden is a good example as well. Although they have problems with the aims of their politicians, as can be seen by their subservience to the Globalist cabal. . That’s why regular votes on any political move a party wants to make is mandatory if you want to keep to the good of the people. You cannot trust politicians unless they are kept on track by those they speak for. They deviate from the original promise of intention to the intention of filling their own pockets as full to busting as they can.
What is our Socialist Labour party, under this new man, offering us in the UK? Well, it sounds all good, except when you scrutinise they too want to import millions of the worlds population into our country, as it raises their chances of election. A majority of immigrants vote for Labour, whereas, indigenous Brits vote more for a party who will stay, or say they will stay, with the more traditional British expectations. The British people are afraid their voice is being lost in the wail of mass migration, which Labour not only supports, but ardently makes it possible. They fell for the rich mans pay off for cheap workers. Blair and his pocket stuffing.
Labour slashed free education, free training of our NHS staff, apprenticeships, academic free schooling for poor kids, and so on. In other words they betrayed the working class they pretended they were backing with socialism. And now they are using that same old mantra to get the votes they seek to be in power. Yet, intend to continue mass immigration through the back door.
However, they are stupid enough to believe the people, voter, can’t see that if you bring in millions from the rest of the world and try to fool those same millions at home into believing they will be recipients of our already in place welfare system, it is not possible to raise standards of living. The pie can only be sliced according to its size. So, it’s obvious to any thinker they are lying in what they offer for the future. They are simply offering more of the same. The take over of our society and culture by alien cultures that are costly and destructive.
You cannot feed the rich in their hysterical need for cheap workers whilst offering to return to a socialist welfare State, one that was once the prize of our country. Not just our country, the prize of our Western civilization.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shwYmXPgEOI
The UK
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tz0w-ilhjI4
Americans today don’t even know this existed for them. The young have been denied the education that would make them understand the benefits of taxes paid for their own right to life.
Today’s Brits likewise have been led up the garden path into believing we never had such rights or if we did, that these policies ever worked. Just as this thread is trying to imply by calling it ‘Communism.’
Embracing Empire the way politicians did and do today has caused the chaos we are in. Yet still they pretend it has nothing to do with it.
Mm I think first we should all sit down and bother reading the book before judging an ideology and mixing it up with its application in history. One thing for sure: unrestrained capitalism is not environmentally nor socially sustainable. So the question of how to reign it is as relevant as ever, only now the context changed. For one, it’s more urgent from an environmental perspective. Second, we have a lot of empowering technologies that make more democratic involvement and bottom-up decision-making a true possibility, which may provide the means to avoid a type of ecosocialist dictatorship. Third, inequities globally are growing. Therefore sustainable, smart and equitable development has become the new black – at least in academic circles. If Marxist theory helps make it all happen, why not?
it is obvious from the comments that ppl aint got a clue about what marxism is. They think it is a benevolent ideology that will free them from the ills of evil capitalism. (they don’t know much about capitalism either). the spectre still haunts Europe and burdens modern notions of progress
In order to “spoil” the current Marx frenzy a bit, which is fueled by comments of fellow “Journalists” like e.g. Ulrike Hermann: “Marx was a scientist……..”??
Sorry, Marx was never a (social) scientist in his life, but labeled a philosopher, economist, historian, political theorist, sociologist, journalist and revolutionary!
Why are “real scientists” not protesting?
http://www.libertarian.co.uk/lapubs/socin/socin013.pdf
follows his post with a libertarian source lmao. what a joke
If we consider social structure as a dominant class over the others,with a simbolic power on his side,of course Marxism is back.Here they are in full force,political and regulator classes!
It’s true unfortunately. As an example : There is a new political organisation called VOLT. Under a clever disguise as EU federalists and self entitled “progressive”, these ones are rejecting free markets and deny the crimes ( during pace period ) of communist era within half of the world with no exception. So sad we need to walk same steps without learning.
Marxism itself is not.
“Cultural Marxism” aka New Left which should be called Cultural Bolshevism is getting stronger.
People can argue about how evil Marxism or Communism was. Thats fine.
But any theory goes to practice becomes bad or evil, ones the EVIL elites abuse it. Power Corrupts.
Yes Marxism is 100% on it’s way back. It’s like a disease that you can put into remission with strong medicine but it just keeps coming back and will not stop. Countries that have lost their Christian morals are ones affected by this i.e. England, Ireland, Sweden, Germany etc…
People think european countries are deliberately being flooded with migrants so that islam can take over are incorrect, The purpose of the migrant influx is to destroy the cultures in these countries and destabilize societies. The initial pre migrant stages of liberalism lgbt, abortion, transgender-ism, feminism were to destroy the country’s Christian values and to brain wash the masses through guilt to accept millions of “refugees” into their countries. This then leads to chaos and a breakdown in society. It’s at this point the communists take control. We are currently in the second stage (mass migration) of this communist takeover in europe, however nationalism is on the rise so it’s hard to know what countries will fall and which ones won’t. I might also add the disease of communism is not only affecting europe, but pockets of the US also.
Nationalism and a return to morals is the only solution for this scourge.
Biran
Lol all these reactionaries. Marxist-leninism is on the rise today and will dominate the world for the betterment of mankind.
Haha. We’ve got and Antifa genius on our hands. Sure, any time now.