Karl Marx as the God of Capitalism

March 14th marked the 200th anniversary of Karl Marx’s birth. For most of his life Marx remained on the unknown side of history, he was a part of several radical exiles and failed revolutions. When Marx died, only eleven people showed up to his funeral – it is only after his death that he gained recognition. Marx first proposed his groundbreaking ideology in the Communist Manifesto written in 1848, in collaboration with Friedrich Engels. The manifesto emphasized an on-going class struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie and identified a revolution as the only way of social change. According to Marx, it was only after the oppressed overthrew the oppressors that a communist state can be established. Communism was a rebuttal presented by Marx against the steady-growing capitalist system. Marx openly criticized the capitalist system as enabling the exploitation of the working class that owned nothing but their labor-power, by the ruling class that owns the means of production. Communism is a system transformed from socialism, where there is no exploitation and complete elimination of the class system, where the means of production are owned by society. The early 20th century witnessed a growth of the labor movement which brought about socialist thought, and with that, an interest in Marx and his teachings. Karl Marx is one of the most influential figures in history, his thinking has inspired the Russian Revolution and the creation of the Soviet Union, the ideological war between the United States and Soviet Union resulting in the formation of alliances and organizations present to this day and the creation of what is the basis of international law, and lastly the fight between communism and capitalism was embodied in proxy wars that have caused damaged and instability that is still existing in time.

The Russian Revolution of 1917, more specifically the Bolshevik Revolution, turned out to be the communist revolution that Marx envisioned, only a heavily altered version.Things began to go downhill for the Russian Empire once the Crimean War led by Czar Alexander II was lost. In 1861, the czar abolished serfdom as a part of major reform, he believed that it 'it is better to liberate the peasants from above' than to wait until they won their freedom by risings 'from below'. The emancipation was intended to give Russia the economic and social stability it lacked, and begin the process of industrial growth. However, it was the complete opposite. Feudal landlords were replaced with factory owners, continuing the cycle of oppression Marx highlighted in his work. In 1883, the Emancipation of Labor became the first Russian Marxist group, they translated and distributed the works of Marx and Engel, setting a foundation of Marxism in the Russian Empire. The largest Marxist party was the Russian Social Democratic Party formed in 1989, it was an assembly of several parties. Initially, Russian Marxism faced logistical and ideological problems. As Marx wrote, the socialist revolution, was most prone to happen in countries with an advanced stage of capitalism, a large industrial sector, and a mass of industrial workers. Even after the emancipation, the Russian empire was still struggling to meet these criteria, as most of its economy was agrarian. The worker population consisted of 3 million people which was 2 percent of the population, barely making up the proletariat. Marx expressed his doubts on Russian socialism, writing that the Russian Empire must first remove peasant communes and head towards a more democratic phase. Soon after, Alexander II was assassinated, Marx and Engels applauded the deed, in a letter to a Russian Socialist group, they expressed that the assassination foreshadowed “the formation of a Russian Commune”. It was only after a decade that the Russian Empire witnessed its largest peasant revolution. The defeat of the Russian Empire in the Russo-Japanese war in 1905, led to discontent among the Russian population who began to see the shortcomings of Nicholas II rule and was what sparked the Russian Revolution of 1905. As a result of the revolution, Nicholas II introduced the first constitution and the parliament called “The Duma”. The Duma proved itself to be ineffective and the czar had the power to dismiss the Duma whenever he willed. What sparked the second revolution was Russia's participation in the Great War; the empire was poorly prepared for war, with low troop mobilization and a nationwide famine. The February Revolution of 1917 broke out in Petrograd by a group of factory workers who recently lost their jobs. When the czar demanded that the troops suppress the rioting by the use of force, the troops demonstrated their sympathy to the people by revolting. 

The February revolution ended with the abdication of Czar Nicholas II and the collapse of the imperial government, the Duma took over as the provisional government. Vladimir Lenin, a Marxist who has been previously exiled from Russia and the founder of Bolsheviks, a former faction of the Russian Social Democratic Party, upon hearing the news of the revolution set out for Russia. At this time the provisional government was trying to draft out a new constitution while maintaining the position of Russia in the war. Lenin wrote a series of ten directives called the April Theses, in which he demanded that Russia leave the war brought about by the competition of capitalist nations for markets, and the Bolsheviks should support the Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies as the ultimate revolutionary government, and lastly, “the nationalization of all lands in the country” and control of the land by local soviets. Lenin was an advocate of Marxism, but not a strict one, he adapted Marxism to the circumstances in Russia. Lenin believed that there was no cooperation possible between Bolsheviks and the liberal reformers, he wanted to overthrow capitalism with a group of well-disciplined revolutionaries on behalf of the proletariat. Contrasting to Marx’s belief that there should be a condition created by history for a revolution, Lenin did not want to wait and thought that the “vanguard of the proletariat” could create these conditions. The goal of this leading group was to seize political power and eliminate any opposition, thus inventing an idea of a single ruling party. That is why Lenin’s ideology is called Leninism or Leninism- Marxism rather than Marxism. On November 6, 1917, a second wave of the revolution hit, Bolsheviks overthrew the provisional government and established the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic with Lenin as the head. An immediate reform took place, Russia made a swift exit from the Great War although it cost it a major portion of its land, the government took control of the banks, foreign trade, large industries, and railways, and the workers were given land and the means of production and any form of inequality based on class, sex, nationality or religion was made illegal. The Russian Civil War took place between 1917 to 1920, and the Bolsheviks won over the opposing White Army, leaving no opposition to the government. Soviet Russia soon became the leading communist state, influenced by Marx’s emphasis on the struggle for liberation from oppressive power structures. Although Soviet Russia was in no way the communist society that Marx envisioned and became more of totalitarian in later years, the revolution itself had roots in Marxist thought of equality for all and the elimination of capitalism-induced class division.

After the end of the second world war, began a new strategic and ideological competition between the superpowers the United States and the USSR. At this point in time, USSR had shifted from having an agricultural based economy to an industrial one with the help of Stalin’s Five-Year Plans. The communist party completely drifted away from Marxist values. Stalin was infamous for his poor treatment of workers and was known to send farmers who did not oblige with his ideals to forced-labour camps. Stalinism became a new form of the communist theory, still applying the principles of a command economy but refusing the “universal communist revolution” and fixating on USSR completely, ignoring the workers’ rights, and creating a brand new elite class composed of the Communist Party leaders. Meanwhile, the U.S. was a free market, based on capitalist values of private ownership and economic freedom. The international relations between the years of 1940 to 1980 was defined as bipolar – two states dominated all others in terms of political, military, economic, and cultural power and created two rival spheres of influence. In this case, most Western and capitalist states fell under the influence of the U.S, while most communist states fell under the influence of USSR. These two powers competed for the support of unclaimed, neutral areas and aimed to undermine each other’s hegemony, in whatever way they could. On March 12, 1947, President Truman addressed the Congress in what would be called the Truman Doctrine, he called for containment of communism and made it a mission to “help free people maintain the free institutions and their national integrity against aggressive movements that seek to impose upon them totalitarian regimes”. The Truman Declaration is viewed by many as the official declaration of the cold war. In 1947, the Marshall Plan was introduced; to aid post-war European countries that agree to balance their budget, stabilize exchange rates, and eliminate government control of prices. The U.S. sent thirteen billion to Europe for economic recovery and to eliminate communist influence. The plan proved to be useful as Italy and France got rid of their communist ministers when they received the aid. This marked the beginning of an economic battle between communist and capitalist states. The Soviets responded to the Marshall Plan with the Council for Mutual Economic Resistance, created in 1949. The purpose of COMECON was to integrate Eastern European economies and stimulate industrial development, and it was successful at it. The Cold War became much more concrete with the formation North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1949, with initial 12 member states. NATO was an agreement that “ an armed attack to one or more of the states shall be considered as an attack against all of them”, setting up a common defense system and a unified command. The Soviets created the Warsaw Pact, bringing together European communist states into a joint defense agreement. The geopolitical tension escalated in the form of the arms race. The U.S. had established their power in terms of nuclear warfare after it launched an atomic bomb to Japan in the duration of World War II. The Soviet Union did not lag and had its first successful atomic bomb testing in 1949. The countries continued spending vast amounts of money on growing their nuclear arsenals. After avoiding a full-blown nuclear war during the Cuban Missile Crisis, it was internationally agreed that there needs to be arms control. The Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons was created by the United Nations in 1968, shortly after the Soviet Union and the U.S began the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks which ended with a mutual agreement to limit the number of arms. To put it all together, the ideological differences between communism and capitalism, led to years and years of competition. The cold war alliances still carry their relevance to this day, and the organizations formed still exist. It is said that the second cold war is happening right at this moment, with the Syrian Civil War.

Cold War was called a “cold” war since there was no direct military action between the U.S. and USSR. Instead, the war happened through proxy wars - third parties and non-state actors were used to do the fighting on the behalf of America and the USSR. Numerous amounts of proxy wars were instigated throughout the 40-year period of the Cold War, completely compromising the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the target states for the higher goal of setting up a communist or capitalist state. The most prominent proxy wars are the Korean, Vietnam, and Afghan wars. After World War II, the 38th parallel was used to divide Korea into a capitalist state led by Syngman Rhee up south and a communist state led by Kim II Sung down north. Both governments claimed to be the only legitimate government of Korea. The conflict began in 1950 when North Korea, supported by USSR and China, crossed the border and invaded South Korea. The United Nations Security Council authorized the dispatch of U.S. soldiers to Korea to fight against the North Korean Invasion. The war lasted three years and ended with a military stalemate, the 38th parallel once again became the dividing line and a demilitarized, buffer zone between North and South Korea. No peace treaty was signed between the two states so the Korean Conflict is ongoing, as both countries believe that they are authentic Korea. Not long after the Korean War, began the Vietnamese War. Starting in 1955, two primary military organizations were a part of this war: The people’s Army of Vietnam backed by Soviet forces, and the Army of the Republic of Vietnam backed by the U.S. Vietnam was a part of the French colony of Indochina, until the Vietminh, a communist-led movement, established their independence only to be recognized by China and USSR. The U.S funded the French army in fighting off the Vietminh, however, the French ended up being accepting the division of two zones after. The United States got involved in the war by sending military advisers and equipment to South Vietnam. The war escalated to the point where the U.S had 540 000 troops in Vietnam and ordered massive destruction missions against the North. Protests began in the U.S. as the Vietnam war prolonged, people were taking an anti-war approach. Due to the unpopularity of the war amongst the citizens and many other factors, the war ended for the U.S. in 1973, but it continued for South and North Vietnam until 1975 when South Vietnam collapsed. Vietnam unified in the year of 1976 and became the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. The proxy war that had the greatest impact on the trajectory of the Cold War, and in its aftermath, was the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, a country that had become the focal point of the competition because of its strategic position in the way of both the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean. Russia’s interest in Afghanistan has a long history, stretching back to the 19th century. USSR invaded Afghanistan in 1979 and set up a Marxist government as a way of keeping Afghanistan friendly to Soviet Russia. The pro-soviet regime brought about a lot of backlash from the Islamic population specifically the opposition group of Mujahideen, which considered communism to be a godless foreign regime. The Soviets began sending military assistance to the Pro-Soviets in Afghanistan to help out with the growing insurgency, and internal fighting and coups between factions. The U.S. supplied the Mujahideen with missiles and other artillery. In 1989, after 9 years of conflict - with 15,000 of its troops killed and over 500,000 injured- the Soviet Union withdrew its forces. President Carter described the intervention in Afghanistan as the “greatest threat to peace since the Second World War” and made it America’s mission to aid Afghanistan with retaliatory policies, including economic sanctions; embargoes on the sale of U.S. products, and a boycott of 1980 Moscow Olympics. Like in Vietnam, the war ended for Russia but continued for Afghans. The United States became extremely involved with the affairs in Afghanistan after the Soviet Union retreated their troops, the U.S. troops remain in Afghanistan due to the terrorist attacks of 2001 and are yet to leave.

It is undeniable that Karl Marx is one of the most influential figures in history. What began as the Communist Manifesto and Capital became the inspiration behind the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 and the foundation of the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics, which encompassed 15 different states. The Cold War began as a result of the ideological differences between capitalist America and communist Russia, as America stood for everything that Marx was against throughout his life. The Cold War led to a creation of alliances through the NATO and the Warsaw Pact which very blatantly continue their existence to this day, nearly 30 years after the cold war ended. The proxy wars fought in the period of the Cold War brought about damage and instability, and conflict going on in some of these countries. Marx was just a thinker, he proposed the idea of communism and socialism, and he was not responsible for the extreme alterations and implementations of his ideas. It was through these implementations of Marxism and the leftist radicalism, we began to see that the best possible government is the one that does not lie on the opposites of the political spectrum but somewhere in between. Marx and his theories are more relevant now than ever, with free markets and capitalism booming, the issues Marx wrote about 200 years ago are the same issues we are facing.

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