Marxism - Political Marxism

Political Marxism

Since the late 19th century, Marxist-inspired socialist parties have been internally divided, between proponents of orthodox Marxism and proponents of revisionist Marxism, and between the respective revolutionary and reformist branches. Revolutionary, Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin, said that “the supersession of the bourgeois state by the proletarian state is impossible without violent revolution”. Reformist and democratic socialist political theorist Michael Harrington claims that, in their later life, Engels and Marx had advocated the development of socialism through parliamentary means, where-ever possible.

Since Marx's death in 1883, various groups around the world have appealed to Marxism as the theoretical basis for their politics and policies, which have often proved to be dramatically different and conflicting. One of the first major political splits occurred between the advocates of 'reformism', who argued that the transition to socialism could occur within existing bourgeois parliamentarian frameworks, and communists, who argued that the transition to a socialist society required a revolution and the dissolution of the capitalist state. The 'reformist' tendency, later known as social democracy, came to be dominant in most of the parties affiliated to the Second International and these parties supported their own governments in the First World War. This issue caused the communists to break away, forming their own parties which became members of the Third International.

The following countries had governments at some point in the 20th century who at least nominally adhered to Marxism: Albania, Afghanistan, Angola, Benin, Bulgaria, Chile, China, Republic of Congo, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Ethiopia, Grenada, Hungary, Laos, Moldova, Mongolia, Mozambique, Nepal, Nicaragua, North Korea, Poland, Romania, Russia, the USSR and its republics, South Yemen, Yugoslavia, Venezuela, Vietnam. In addition, out of twenty eight Indian states, three state viz. Kerala, Tripura and West Bengal have had Marxist governments, but change occurred through electoral processes. Some of these governments such as in Venezuela, Nicaragua, Chile, Moldova and India have been democratic in nature and maintained regular multiparty elections.