Marx, Lenin, and Mao – A Quick Primer
Karl Marx (1818-1883)
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German writer, thinker, who was trying to develop an alternative to what he saw as
capitalist exploitation, in places like Germany and England.
His most famous work: The Communist Manifesto (1848). Slogan: “Let the ruling
classes tremble at a Communist revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but
their chains. They have a world to win. Working men of all countries, unite!”
Marx believed the world had to go through a capitalist phase, in order to increase the
world’s technological capacity and wealth. However, capitalism over time would
result in increasing economic inequality and exploitation of the masses. Eventually,
all economic life would become controlled by one small monopoly at the top, while
everybody else would be mired in the “proletariat”, the industrial working class.
Once the world reached this state, then the proletariat would be able to overthrow the
capitalist class. They would then be able to live in a society where all the industrial
goods could be shared equally.
Key points:
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The revolution would only occur in countries that had the most advanced capitalist
societies.
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Once the revolution took place, private property could be abolished, and everything
would be owned and run in common.
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Since everything would be owned in common, there would be no need for
government, which Marx believed only existed to protect the interests of the
economic elite. Thus after the revolution, the state could “wither away’.
Lenin (1870-1924)
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Russian Revolutionary, sought to create a Marxist society in Russia. PROBLEM:
Russia was not very advanced economically, some 90 percent of the Russian people
were peasants on the farms. But Lenin did not want to wait decades for Russia to
develop a large industrial working class.
LENIN’S IDEA: Form a small political party, which would consist of the proletariat
and intellectuals, who would work in secret as a “revolutionary vanguard” to
overthrow the government in power.
ONCE IN POWER: this small, Communist, party, would take over the reigns of
government, and use the power of the state to create a socialist, technologically
advanced economy in the name of the people.
Key point: In a Communist (i.e. Marxist / Leninist) society: the government is run
exclusively by the Communist Party. According to Lenin, it was not necessary for the people
to have a say through elections, because the Party knew best how to create an ideal socialist
state for them. Left to their own devices, the people would only take half-way measures for
their short-term benefit (e.g. form trade unions, enact social welfare legislation), which
would actually hinder progress to a revolutionary society based on total equality.
Mao Zedong (1893-1976)
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Chinese revolutionary, sought to create a Marxist / Leninist society in China.
PROBLEM: China had virtually no modern industry, not nearly enough of a working
class to create even a small revolutionary party. When the Chinese Communist Party
tried to form a revolutionary movement under Russian tutelage during the 1920’s, it
was nearly destroyed by Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist government.
What Mao did: he modified Lenin (who modified Marx) in turn, to say that, in
China, the revolution could in fact be led by the peasantry. Mao argued that anyone,
even peasants, could adopt a “proletarian consciousness” (i.e. could learn to think like
an industrial worker).
After Mao’s revolution succeeded in 1949, communist revolutionaries all over Asia
saw Mao’s vision as the one most applicable to their societies.
Key point: Mao sought peasant support for the revolution, and told the peasants that he
would break up the large estates in order to win their support. He did NOT tell them – or
at least not very much – that he sought a society where no one would control their own
plots of land, and that many peasants would be expected to leave the countryside forever,
to work in the industrial cities.
FINALLY, PLEASE NOTE: Marx, Lenin and Mao shared the same goal. They all sought to
create a super-industrialized, communist society, in which all people would be selfless and all
property would be created in common. Lenin and then Mao just devised different means to carry
out the revolution, given their own national contexts.