# Marxism

*Not to be [confused](often_confused.md) with [communism](communism.md).*

Marxism comprises of ideas, theories (known as *historical materialism*) and ideologies strongly based in works of [Karl Marx](marx.md) (and also Friedrich Engels), roughly aiming for (and scientifically predicting) a violent [revolution](revolution.md) that should end [capitalism](capitalism.md), replace it with "[socialist](socialism.md)" society and eventually a truly [communist](communism.md) society. Despite the terms Marxism and communism NOT being equal (communism is a general idea with many branches, e.g. [anarcho communism](ancom.md), Christian communism etc.), most common people see them as equivalent, which is unfortunate because communism is a purely [good](good.md) idea while Marxism is mostly a bad way of trying to achieve and sustain their own idea of communism (the relationship between communism and Marxism may be roughly compared to the relationship between Christianity and Catholicism). Marxism comes with aggressive, revolutionary mindset that has caused great tragedies mainly during the 20th century (see especially [USSR](ussr.md)). Many non-Marxist communists even see Marxist "communist" states as capitalist (so called state capitalism). Marxism sees itself as a [scientific](science.md) effort, it is studied by intellectuals and lives mainly in written works of Marxists.

Marx himself wasn't really any angry revolutionary but more of an intellectual, a philosopher who tried to [scientifically](science.md) examine [history](history.md) and came up with so called [historical materialism](historical_materialism.md), a theory that basically states that everything (structure of society, its [law](law.md), [culture](culture.md) etc.) is subdued to economic forces and that society changes solely due to these forces, i.e. things like changes in [technology](technology.md), means of production, economic relationships etc. -- he said individual humans are just slaves to these forces, their will cannot change them. He identified certain classes in society, mainly the proletariat (workers) and bourgeoisie (their overlords) and then reasoned some stuff about their conflict etcetc. until he came to the conclusion that capitalism will be surpassed by socialism and eventually communism -- not as anything ethical or "just", but purely as superior systems in terms of economy. So he basically only predicted the revolution would inevitably happen, however some other people who came after him -- those that we nowadays call Marxists (at least most commonly) -- took this theory and started to use it as a basis to PROMOTE an active revolution.

**We, [LRS](lrs.md), are communists but do NOT embrace Marxism!** Though we do agree with Marxists on many things (mostly identifying issues of [capitalism](capitalism.md)), we can't ever approve of some inherent traits of Marxism, mainly the following. Marxism is **violent**, aggressive and revolutionary, often highly hostile to [anarchism](anarchism.md) and [pacifism](pacifism.md) (which we highly embrace), wanting to FORCE communism. Marxists promote establishment of temporary **dictatorship** of the proletariat as they see it the only way to ending capitalism. **Marxists are NOT [altruists](altruism.md)**, their desire of communism doesn't come from love of life, they simply see it as a more efficient societal system than capitalism that's a natural and inevitable next step in evolution of society, they see a man as servant of society, **they are obsessed with [work](work.md)** (even preferring to call themselves *workers* rather than *people*; [language matters](name_is_important.md)) and see people who don't share their values as undesirable -- these undesirable people are not only capitalists, but also people who don't want to work, religious people or people who refuse to [fight](fight_culture.md) for their society. They say that ends justify the means and will happily utilize means such as [war](war.md), dictatorship, executions, [censorship](censorship.md), cults of personality and propaganda. We cannot ever stand behind this.

## See Also

- [historical materialism](historical_materialism.md)