Marxism like Christianity is a term that stands for a
family of doctrines attributed to a founder who could
not have plausibly subscribed to all of them, since some
of these doctrines flatly contradict each other. Conse-
quently any account that professes to do justice to
Marxism must be more than an account of the ideas
of Karl Marx even if it takes its point of departure
from him.
As a set of ideas one of the remarkable things about
Marxism is that it is continually being revived despite
formidable and sometimes definitive criticisms of its
claims and formulations. For this and other reasons,
it cannot be conceived as a purely scientific set of ideas
designed “to lay bare the economic law of motion of
modern society” (Preface to first edition of Capital)
and to explain all cultural and political developments
in terms of it. There is little doubt that Karl Marx
himself thought that his contributions were as scientific
in the realm of social behavior as Newton's in the field
of physics and Darwin's in biology. But there is no
such thing as a recurring movement of Newtonianism
or Darwinism in physics or biology. The mark of a
genuine science is its cumulative development. The
contributions of its practitioners are assimilated and
there is no return to the original forms of theories or
doctrines of the past.
The existence of Marxism as a social and political
movement inspired by a set of ideas, sometimes in open
opposition to other movements, is further evidence that
we are dealing with a phenomenon that is not purely
scientific. For such a movement obviously goes beyond
mere description or the discovery of truth. That its
normative goals may in some sense be based upon
descriptive truths, i.e., not incompatible with them,
may justify using the term “scientific” at best to differ-
entiate these goals from those that are arbitrary or
impossible of achievement.
Marxism has often been compared with, and some-
times characterized as, a religion with its sacred books,
prophets, authoritative spokesmen, etc. But this is not
very illuminating until there is agreement about the
nature of religion, a theme which is even more ambig-
uous and controversial than that of Marxism. Nonethe-
less there are some important features which Marxism
shares with some traditional religions that explain at
least in part its recurrent appeal despite its theoretical
shortcomings.
Marxism is a monistic theory that offers an explana-
tory key to everything important that occurs in history
and society. This key is the mode of economic produc-
tion, its functioning, the class divisions and conflicts
it generates, its limiting and, in the end, its determining
effect upon the outcome of events. It provides a never
failing answer to the hunger for explanation among
those adversely affected by the social process. That the
explanations are mostly ad hoc, that predictions are
not fulfilled, like the increasing pauperization of the
working class, that important events occur that were
not predicted like the rise of Fascism, the emergence
of a new service-industry oriented middle class, the
discovery of nuclear technology—are not experienced
as fatal, or even embarrassing, difficulties. Just as belief
that everything happens by the will of God is compati-
ble with whatever occurs, so belief in the explanatory
primacy of the mode of economic production and its
changes is compatible with any social or political oc-
currence if sufficient subsidiary hypotheses are intro-
duced. That is why although Marxism as a social and
political movement may be affected by the events and
conditions it failed to explain (like the latter-day afflu-
ence of capitalist society), as a set of vague beliefs it
is beyond refutation. In the course of its history, now
more than a century old, few, if any, Marxists have
been prepared to indicate under what empirical or
evidential conditions they were prepared to abandon
their doctrines as invalid.
A second reason for the recurrence of Marxism in
various guises—there are today existentialist Marxisms
and even Catholic Marxisms—is that its theories are an
expression of hope. Marxisms of whatever kind all hold
out the promise, if not the certainty, of social salva-
tion, or at the very least, relief from the malaise and
acute crises of the time. Whether the future is con-
ceived in apocalyptic terms or less dramatically, it is
one with a prospect of victory through struggle, a vic-
tory that will insure peace, freedom, prosperity, and sur-
cease from whatever evils flow from an improperly
organized and unplanned society, dominated by the
commodity producing quest for ever renewed profit.
The third reason for the recurrence of Marxism is
a whole series of semantic ambiguities that permit
Marxists to appeal to individuals and groups of demo-
cratic sentiment despite the fact that Marxists often
direct savage and unfair criticisms against nonsocialist
democracies. The growth of democratic sentiment and
the allegiance to the principle of self-determination
in all areas of personal and social life are universal
phenomena. They are marked by the fact that almost
every totalitarian regime seeks to pass itself off as one
or another form of democracy. Marxists, for reasons
that will be made clearer below, are the most adept
and successful in presenting Marxism as a philosophy
of the democratic left, despite the existence of ruthless
despotisms in the USSR and Red China, and other
countries that profess to be both socialist and Marxist.
Although the existence of these two dictatorial regimes
and of other avowedly Marxist regimes in Eastern
Europe creates some embarrassment for those who
identify the Marxist movement with the movement
towards democracy, the terrorist practices of these
regimes are glossed over and explained away. They are
represented either as excesses of regimes unfaithful to
their own socialist ideals or as temporary measures of
defense against enemies of democracy within or with-
out.
Finally there are certain elements of truth in Marx-
ism that, however vague, explain some events and some
facets of the social scene that involve the growth of
industrial society and its universal spread, the impact
of scientific technology, the pressure of conflicting
economic class interests and their resolution. Although
not exclusively Marxist, these insights and outlooks
have been embodied in the Marxist traditions. They
function to sustain by association, so to speak, the more
specific Marxist doctrines in the belief system of their
advocates. Although they are generalized beyond the
available evidence, they bestow a certain plausibility
on Marxist thought when other conditions further their
acceptance.
This brings us to the important and disputed question
of what constitutes the nature of Marxism. What are
the characteristic doctrines associated with the Marxist
outlook upon the world? For present purposes we are
distinguishing Marxism and its variants from the ques-
tion of what Marx and Engels really meant. Histori-
cally, this question is by far not as significant as what
they have been taken to mean. Marx like Christ might
have disowned all of his disciples: it would not affect
how their meaning has been historically interpreted
and what was done in the light of that interpretation.
It may be that in the future there will be other inter-
pretations of what Marx really meant and that even
today there are several esoteric views of his thought
different from those to be considered but they obvi-
ously cannot be considered as part of intellectual his-
tory.
There are three main versions of Marxism identifi-
able in the history of ideas that have received wide
support. The first, oldest, and closest to the lives of
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in point of time is the
Social-Democratic version. The second version which
acquired widespread influence after the October 1917
Russian Revolution is the Communist version, some-
times called the Bolshevik-Leninist view. The third
version, which emerged after the Second World War,
may be called “existentialist.” Marxism is regarded
from an existentialist view as primarily a theory of
human alienation, and of how to overcome it. It is
based primarily on Marx's unpublished Paris economic-
philosophical manuscripts first made available in 1932.
Although these three interpretations of Marxism are
not compartmentalized in that they share some com-
mon attitudes, values, and beliefs, some of their basic
theories are incompatible with each other. It would
not be too much to say that if the basic theories of
one of these three interpretations are taken to be true
they entail the falsity of the corresponding basic the-
ories of the other two.
