Portal:Marxism

Marxism portal

Introduction

Marxism is a scientific worldview and school of thought first developed by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in the mid 1800s.

Marxism as a framework contains three components: the philosophical side (dialectical materialism), the economic theory (labour theory of value), and the political analysis (class struggle). Used together, Marxism becomes a very powerful tool with which to analyze the world and the contradictions inherently present in capitalism that inevitably create the foundations for socialism and then communism.

Marx and Engels themselves did not invent socialism, as several theorists had already coined the term and used it. However, these thinkers lacked a grounded framework with which to advocate for socialism and bring it about in society, and became known as utopian socialists. Marxism instead analyzes the world through its three components and, due to this methodic approach, became known as scientific socialism.

Since the 19th century, Marxism has then developed into several different currents of thought, such as Marxism-Leninism, Maoism or Mao Zedong Thought, Ho Chi Minh Thought and many others.

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Concepts

Lenin wrote the three sources and components of Marxism to be:

Economics

• Labour theory of value
• Value and Exchange value
• Base and superstructure
• Reserve army of labour
• Alienation
• Commodity
  • Commodity fetishism

Philosophy

Start here:

• Contradiction
• Praxis

Then follow up with:

• Dialectical materialism
  • Materialism
    • Historical materialism
    • And its opposite, Idealism
• Dialectics
  • And its opposite, metaphysics

Class struggle

• Class struggle
• Social class
  • Proletariat
  • Bourgeoisie
    • Comprador bourgeoisie
    • National bourgeoisie

And historic events:

• Russian revolution of 1917
• Chinese revolution
• Cuban Revolution

Library works

We recommend works from the most important theorists of communism:

Karl Marx

Karl Marx

(26 works)

Friedrich Engels

Friedrich Engels

(19 works)

Vladimir Lenin

Vladimir Lenin

(31 works)

Joseph Stalin

Joseph Stalin

(18 works)

Mao Zedong

Mao Zedong

(19 works)

Currents

• Marxism-Leninism
• Maoism
• Hoxhaism
• Trotskyism
• Ho Chi Minh Thought

People

Picture of Karl Marx, the founder of scientific socialism

There have been many important people to Marxism. Below, in alphabetical order, are some of them:

• Friedrich Engels
• Joseph Stalin
• Karl Marx
• Kim Il Sung
• Mao Zedong
• Vladimir Lenin

Historical gallery

Parties

Countries

Sorted by date of proclamation:

Former Existing Socialism

• Soviet Union
• Mongolian People's Republic
• Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
• People's Socialist Republic of Albania
• People's Republic of Bulgaria
• Polish People's Republic
• Socialist Republic of Romania
• Czechoslovak Socialist Republic
• [[File:|23px]]German Democratic Republic
• Hungarian People's Republic
• [[File:|23px]]People's Democratic Republic of Yemen
• [[File:|23px]]Republic of Angola
• [[File:|23px]]People's Republic of Mozambique

Currently Existing Socialism

• People's Republic of China
• Republic of Cuba
• Democratic People's Republic of Korea
• Socialist Republic of Vietnam
• Lao People's Democratic Republic