Marxism is a general label to attach to any social theory that can claim a vague philosophical derivation from the works of Karl Marx. In fact Marxism as a general position has become so broad that there is often little serious connection, even in theory. When Marxism is taken to refer also to the operating policies of so-called Marxist or communist states, as with the Soviet Union before about 1990, the philosophical gap becomes enormous. This is not to suggest that the various branches of Marxism are themselves theoretically incoherent, nor that they have little in common, but that their connections can best be described as involving ‘family resemblances’ rather than a minimal set of necessary common postulates. The Marxism associated with the Second International (see international socialism), for example, is rigorously deterministic in an economic way, while that associated with the French school inspired by Althusser has distinct undertones of functionalism and that of the other French Marxist leader in the post-war years, Poulantzas, allows considerable autonomous political power to the state.
Other brands of Marxist-derived theory may not even have ‘Marx’ as part of the title—Trotskyism and Maoism, while they are ‘deviations’ from what many would regard as proper Marxism, have much in common with original writings by Karl Marx that modern developments of his insights lack. When considering the actual doctrines of communist societies it is probably better, for the former Soviet Union and its Eastern European allies, to talk of Marxist-Leninism, because Lenin, and to some extent Stalin, left major impacts in the process of turning a general theory into a practical doctrine for revolutionaries and subsequent post-revolutionary governments.
The most that could be demanded as a common thread to all forms of modern Marxism would be the following tenets: that economic matters ultimately control political and cultural phenomena; that abolition of private property is necessary to ensure equality and an end to exploitation; and that such a society must be achieved by the proletariat, or its (not necessarily proletarian) leaders, developing a revolutionary consciousness, grasping power, and acting as a vanguard to us her in the communist society (see vanguard of the proletariat). Of particular importance in explaining the various splits is the whole question of leadership, and the extent to which there has got to be what Marx called a dictatorship of the proletariat before true democratic communism can flourish. A second distinction can be made between those who argue for the abolition of capitalism through revolution, and those, for example Gramsci and Eurocommunism in general, who favour gradualism.
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