Criticism of Marxism and Communism

Marxism and Communism have been subjected to severest criticism from the very day Marx and Engels wrote their world-famous booklet, the Communist Manifesto, and still more furiously when the first Communist State came into power in Soviet Russia under Lenin’s leadership in November, 1917, they are attacked by writers, philosophers, Statesmen, politicians and others. This criticism has become all the more severe after the World War II, when nearly a third of the world population had gone Communist and the world was divided into two Power Blocs, bitterly hostile to each other. Some of the points of criticism against Marxism and Communism are as follows:

Marxist theory of history is hopelessly one-sided. The materialist conception of history lays emphasis on the material or economic conditions which determine historical events and movements. It neglects other causes, such as political, geographical, religious, moral, intellectual, social, psychological, etc. Such sociologists as Giddings and Hobhouse criticise the economic interpretation of history as one-sided view of life and society, for other factors also influence and determine them. According to them, human life and society should be interpreted pluralistically rather than materialistically. Economic factor is undoubtedly important, but others cannot be overlooked in interpreting history.

The Communist theory of class struggle is not supported by history. The critics point out that to regard history as nothing but an endless series of class wars is pessimistic and over-dramatic view. Society is not necessarily organised into hostile classes, in which the poor are exploited by the rich.

 

Marx’s prophecy that social revolution would come in industrially advanced countries has been falsified. Socialist Revolution occurred in Russian in 1917, which was a backward agrarian country, while it did not happen in Germany, England or the U.S.A., which were highly industrialised countries.

The Communist view that the State will wither away is not correct. In communist countries of today the State has not withered away. Instead of that, it has become stronger than ever. Indeed, communist States have become authoritarian and totalitarian, controlling all aspects of human and national life.

Marx’s prediction of the growing impoverishment of the working classes in the capitalist countries has also been proved to be false. The conditions of the working classes in the capitalist countries have become better and happier than it was in Marx’s days. Moreover, instead of the parameterisation of the small capitalist, the common people now share in the profits of capitalist undertakings as shareholders in big, corporate concerns. But the Communists reply that this improvement is accompanied with the growing impoverishment of the subject peoples of the colonies and backward countries of the former empires of the European countries and America. Nevertheless, big and small capitalist countries exist side by side in the capitalist countries.

Lastly, the methods of Communism are revolutionary, violent, and undemocratic. Communism is a philosophy of revolution, and does not appeal to peaceful minds. The violent methods of a revolutionary continue even when the need for them has long ceased to exist. This confirms Lord Acton’s dictum: “All power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely”

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