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We are under attack in West Bengal, says CPI-M resolution!

We are under attack in West Bengal, says CPI-M resolution!

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India has capacity to become global food factory: Official

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Palash Biswas

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"It is unfortunate," Prime Minister Manmohan Singh reportedly told Basudeb Acharya, CPI (M) MP, when the latter informed him on Friday of developments over the Lalgarh rally being held at the initiative of Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee on August 9.

Mr. Acharya called on Dr. Singh in New Delhi to draw his attention to the proposed rally which, according to the former, "will only provide impetus to the Maoists at a time when they are slowly being marginalised" in the region.

"On hearing what I had to say, the Prime Minister said 'it is unfortunate'," Mr. Acharya told The Hindu over phone.


New Media

Proceedings of the Extended Central Committee Meeting of the CPI(M)

Live From Vijayawada...

Live Stream from New Media

http://newsnetwork.in/
Extended CC Meeting
Inaugural Speech
Martyrs Resolution
Condolence Resolution
Draft Political Resolution
Watch Live Webcast
Photos of the Meeting
Latest Updates
Civil Nuclear Liability Bill
Lies: Petrol Price Hike
Food Convention Resolution
Right to Food Security
Maoist Killings In West Bengal
154  Martyred Since 16/05/2009


Booklet on Maoist  Violence TMC-Maoist Nexus
Defeat Politics of Violence
Updates in Hindi

July 2010 P.B. Communique

May 2010 CC Communique

P.B. Communique

February CC Resolution

Dilli Chalo

Maovadi Hinsa Ko Tukravo

International Meeting
Meeting Website
Extended CC Meeting
Inaugural Speech
Martyrs Resolution
Condolence Resolution
Draft Political Resolution
Watch Live Webcast
Photos of the Meeting
Latest Updates
Civil Nuclear Liability Bill
Lies: Petrol Price Hike
Food Convention Resolution
Right to Food Security
Maoist Killings In West Bengal
154  Martyred Since 16/05/2009


Booklet on Maoist  Violence TMC-Maoist Nexus
Defeat Politics of Violence
Updates in Hindi

July 2010 P.B. Communique

May 2010 CC Communique

P.B. Communique

February CC Resolution

Dilli Chalo

Maovadi Hinsa Ko Tukravo

International Meeting
Meeting Website
http://www.cpim.org/content/press
India has capacity to become global food factory: Official

The Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) has admitted that the party is facing 'an unfavourable situation' in the party-ruled states of Kerala and West Bengal after suffering reverses in the Lok Sabha elections.Both the states are likely to go for polls in mid-2011.The CPI (M) has analysed the reasons for the "reverses" it suffered in West Bengal and Kerala in the last Lok Sabha elections and also "identified" the steps needed to be taken for course correction. Party General Secretary Prakash Karat, however, did not publicly elaborate what the reasons (for

the debacle) were and the corrective action they proposed, leaving it to be discussed at the four-day Extended Central Committee meeting that he inaugurated in Vijayawada on Saturday.


Meanwhile, the popular Reality show on Indian COLORS TV Channel Big Boss Season Four has an INMATE as revealed as Thief! The Thieves having Main roles in the Political system and governance Extra Constitutinal have been Represented thus with much Fun and entertainment resultant in Icon making as Strategic marketing in the Free market Democracy. Hence, it may be well understood that the Marxist crisis is far beyond the Ideology as the Social realism is deep rooted in the Neo Liberal Market Dominent Culture!


On the other hand,India, one of the largest producers of food commodities in the world, has the potential to become a global food factory, a top official of the Union Ministry of Food Processing Industry (MFPI) said on Saturday. "We are the largest producer of milk and second largest producer of fruits and

vegetables in the world.Besides we rank among the top five in production of some or the other food items, and considering this India can become a global food factory by concentrating on safe food mechanisms," K Rajeswara Rao, Joint Secretary in the Ministry, said.


"We have to now prepare our system to cater to international food standards and domestic needs also."


He was speaking at an awareness programme on 'Food Safety and Quality', jointly organised by the MFPI and Quality Council of India (QCI) in Hyderabad.

Investment to the tune of over Rs 1-lakh crore is needed for setting up more food processing units across the country. These units would help in bringing down the wastage of foodgrains and other edible items, he said.


The Centre is contributing Rs 10,000 crore towards this, while the remaining Rs 90,000 crore is expected from the private sector, Rao said.


"Food safety is a global concern and in addition to the end product specifications and testing, the regulators world over are insisting on good manufacturing and hygienic practices in the food businesses," he said.




Noting that the CPM suffered "reverses" in both West Bengal and Kerala in the last Lok Sabha elections, Karat said the party has carefully looked into why it happened and also identified the steps to be taken to remedy the situation.

   

   

'The party is under attack in West Bengal where it has suffered electoral reverses,' says the draft political resolution of the CPI-M presented before the four-day extended central committee meeting began here Saturday.


The Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) on Saturday alleged that the Trinamool Congress, led by Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee, and Maoists were working in tandem and over 250 CPI-M activists have been killed by "TMC (Trinamool Congress)-Maoist gangs". Addressing the inaugural session of

four-day meet of the central committee here, CPI-M general secretary Prakash Karat said that such violence "bodes ill for the country".

"The firm stand adopted by the CPI-M and its consistent opposition to the neo-liberal policies and the strategic tie-up with US imperialism have drawn the ire of the ruling classes," Karat said, adding the attacks were concentrated on the CPI-M and the Left Front government of West Bengal.

"More than 250 members and the supporters of the CPI-M have been killed by the TMC-Maoist gangs. The TMC is part of the central government. Such violence and attacks on democratic rights in West Bengal presage an authoritarian trend which bodes ill for the whole country," he said.

The CPI-M leader said "the bloody violence against (the party) and the Left Front in West Bengal is of no concern" to the rightwing forces or "for those who draw their sustenance from imperialism and the corporate media".  

He said the Maoist guerrillas have exposed their "vicious and anti-democratic character through their murderous spree targeting the CPI-M)".

"They do not stop at this but attack innocent people, as seen in the dastardly Gyaneswari Express sabotage. Such actions should dispel the illusion some sections of the intelligentsia have about the Maoists," he said.

   

Describing West Bengal as its strongest base, the draft resolution said 'after the Lok Sabha elections, the Trinamool Congress-led combine has launched an offensive against the party.'

   

'In this, it is being aided and abetted by the Maoists who are targeting party cadres, members and supporters. Since the panchayat elections when there was some erosion of support among certain sections of the rural masses, the Trinamool Congress-led combine has been concentrating its attack in the rural areas,' it said.

   

The CPI-M said the attack on the West Bengal party and movement is being aided by imperialist agencies.    

   

'This multi-pronged attack (in West Bengal) is meant to weaken the entire Left movement in the country,' the draft political resolution said.

   

The CPI-M-led Left Front has been in power in West Bengal for more than three decades.   

   

Seniormost CPI-M leaders including Prakash Karat, Sitaram Yechury and M.K. Pandhe are among the 366 representatives participating in the conference. Senior CPI-M leader and Kerala Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan is not attending the conference as he is undergoing ayurvedic treatment.

   

The resolution said the party has to resist these attacks by mobilizing the people.   

   

Asking the West Bengal government headed by Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee to implement developmental programmes, the resolution said: 'Steps are being taken to remove the organizational shortcomings and to reforge links with the people.'

   

'The entire party fully stands behind the West Bengal unit and will strive to mobilise democratic opinion all over the country against the killings and violence perpetrated on the CPI(M) by the Trinamool Congress-led anti-Communist combine and the Maoists,' the resolution said.

   

In Kerala, the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) is consolidating the 'communal and reactionary forces' behind it, says the resolution

   

'Tripura is the exception where the party has strengthened and consolidated its base,' says the resolution.


"We should do our utmost so that the people of West Bengal and Kerala renew their faith in the party and the Left-led alliances there," he told the 370-odd top party leaders attending the ECC meet.

Underlining the significance of the ECC meeting, the CPI(M) General Secretary said it was to take stock of the political situation in the country and to chalk out a political line which could "help us tackle the current situation and meet the various challenges that we are facing."

"In the present dismal scene in the country, only the CPI(M) and the Left present a real alternative in terms of the path of development and policies," he said.
At the same time, Karat said the priority of the Left should be to get the women's reservation Bill passed in the Lok Sabha and ensure implementation of Ranganath Mishra Commission report on reservation for minorities in education and jobs and stringent steps to end all forms of caste discrimination, particularly untouchability.

The ECC passed a resolution during the inaugural session paying homage to 255 "martyrs" killed by "anti-Left forces" in West Bengal since the last Lok Sabha elections.

"The 255 persons have fallen victim to the depredations of the Maoists, the Trinamool Congress and the Congress," the resolution said.

TODAY - 07 August, 2010

Alto gets a facelift

In the wake of soaring competition and slumping market share, Maruti has launched a more powerful Alto, the K10. Will K spell magic?

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Bigg Boss 4 inmates revealed
Navdeep Kaur Marwah, Hindustan Times
Email Author
New Delhi, August 04, 2010
First Published: 15:49 IST(4/8/2010)
Last Updated: 00:29 IST(5/8/2010)

A thief, a bar dancer and a reality show drama queen as 'inmates', and Bollywood's bad boy as the host—the fourth season of  Bigg Boss, starting in October,  is set to get a lot meaner.

HT City has come to know through sources from the host channel Colors that

related stories


participants on the show include famous thief Davinder Singh alias Bunty, high profile bar dancer Tarannum, Rahul Mahajan's wife Dimpy Ganguly, yesteryear actor Rajesh Khanna, and actress Sara Khan. "They have all signed on the dotted line," says our source.

The host? Actor Salman Khan, who will replace Amitabh Bachchan and is reportedly charging a lot more than Big B. Some are even saying that while Bachchan was paid 1.75 crore per episode, Sallu may pocket a cool 3.5-5 crore per episode.
HT City that his role would be very different from that of other hosts' in the previous seasons. "I will not be able to be a philosopher like Mr Bachchan, vivacious like Shilpa Shetty or humorous like Arshad (Warsi).
I'll bring my own element to the show," he says. Comparisons with Big B are inevitable, but Salman dodges them. "Why would I be compared with Mr Bachchan? His colleagues are Mr Shatrughan Sinha, Mr Vinod Khanna…so, a comparison would stand only if they would be doing the show," he quips.

Here's a list of those who might be seen in the next season of Bigg Boss 4.
Rajesh Khanna
The actor was approached for the last season as well
Tarannum
The bar dancer is known to be the richest in her profession in India
Dimpy Mahajan
She recently accused husband Rahul Mahajan of domestic violence
Sara Khan
The actress was killed off the TV show Bidaai recently
Davinder Singh aka Bunty
The thief inspired the popular film Oye Lucky Lucky Oye
http://www.hindustantimes.com/bigg-boss-4-inmates-revealed/article1-582199.aspx

Inaugural Speech of Prakash Karat


Speech of CPI(M) General Secretary, Prakash Karat

At the Inaugural Session

Of the Extended Meeting of the Central Committee

August 07, 2010

We have gathered here in the city of Vijayawada for the extended meeting of the Central Committee of Communist Party of India (Marxist). Vijayawada has a special place in the history of the Communist movement of our country. The city has hosted two Party Congresses – the 6th Congress in 1961 which was the last Party Congress of the united party and the 11th Congress of the CPI (M) in 1982.

These were in recognition of the city and the region, which became a centre of the Communist movement which had its origin in the late 1930s. Vijayawada was the focal centre of an area which covered the old Krishna, Guntur and Nellore districts of the Madras province which saw the birth of the Communist movement in Andhra Pradesh. Various struggles against zamindari landlordism took place here in the 1936-38 period such as the struggles against the Challapalli, Munagala and Kalipatnam zamindars. `Bezwada', as Vijayawada was known in the pre-independence days, was also saw the fledgling working class movement with railway workers, press workers and others forming trade unions. The earliest agricultural workers organizations were also formed in this region. P. Sundarayya set-up the first Agricultural Workers Association in 1934 in Alaganipadu village in Nellore district.

During the Telangana struggle and the repression launched on the Communist Party in the 1948-50 period, scores of Communist leaders and cadres were shot down by the police in this region. Some of the topmost national leaders of the Communist movement and the CPI(M) hailed from this region – P. Sundarayya, M. Basavapunnaiah, C. Rajeswara Rao, N. Prasada Rao, M. Hanumantha Rao, L. B. Gangadhara Rao, Koratala Satyanarayana and many others.

The Central Committee of the CPI(M) has convened this extended meeting to take stock of the political situation in the country and to chalk out a political line which can help us to tackle the current situation and meet the various challenges that we are facing.

Ever rising prices of food and essential commodities burden the people; millions of people go hungry everyday. The inequalities in income and wealth grow sharper and India has the dubious distinction of having some of richest people in the world along with a substantial number of the poorest people in the world.

The Congress-led UPA government boasts about the high growth rate achieved. The GDP growth rate is taken as the reliable index of progress and development for the people. But this is not true. What the neo-liberal policies have led to is the primitive accumulation of capital, the enormous growth of the capital and assets in the hands of a narrow strata. The number of dollar billionaires in India has grown from 9 in 2004 to 49 this year. There has been growth, certainly – for the super-rich.

The government's policies are designed to help big business make super profits and to enable the transfer of resources to the rich and powerful. The fiscal and taxation policies of the Congress-led government illustrate this fact starkly.

The UPA-II government in the past one and a quarter years since coming to office is pushing for more neo-liberal policies. The government wants to disinvest shares in all profitable public sector units. Earlier, the Left parties had ensured that shares would not be sold of the `navaratna' companies. Now everything is up for sale.

Agriculture, which employs half the workforce in the country, is in crisis. Agriculture grew by only 0.2 per cent in 2009-10. Foodgrains' production fell by 7.5 per cent the same year. Suicides by farmers have not abated. Land reforms are being reversed. In agriculture, corporatisation is being promoted alongside the withdrawal of State support for the peasantry.

The government proposes to bring in multinational companies into retail trade.   The government seeks to push through legislation to FDI in banking and insurance sectors. The working class is under increased attack with labour laws not being implemented and more and more sections being pushed into contract, casual work and into jobs in the informal sector.

The agenda for all these anti-people policies is being propelled by the Indo-US CEO Forum. What the chieftains of big business in US and India proposes, the Manmohan Singh government accepts and implements.

How the government policy is injurious for the people's interests is glaringly illustrated by the relentless price rise of food and other essential commodities.   Government policies are directly responsible for the ever-rising prices.   Repeated increases in the prices of petroleum products is one major reason.   Forward trading in foodgrains and other essential commodities is another major factor. The government has weakened and curtailed the Public Distribution System through a targeted system which excludes much of the poor. Yet, the government callously and arrogantly refuses to take responsibility.

The Congress leadership and the government speak hypocritically about "inclusive growth" when the policies they pursue are designed to exclude the vast majority of the people from access to food, education, jobs and social security. India presents the shameful spectatcle of having the world's largest number of hungry and malnutritioned people.   The FCI godowns have 60 million tonnes of foodgrains. Stocks are overflowing and allowed to rot.    This government no more talks about provision of 6 per cent of the GDP for education and 3 per cent for health. This goal cited in the erstwhile Common Minimum Programme seems more distant than ever.

The forces of majority communalism work on the basis of the Hindutva ideology and outlook which is injurious for the country and people's unity. The BJP-run state governments – whether it be in Gujarat, Karnataka or Madhya Pradesh – are targeting the minorities, both Muslims and Christians, and seek to deprive them of their rights as citizens. The recent exposures of how the police and State machinery in Gujarat have been used to cover-up the pogroms and stage encounter killings are a chilling reminder of what is in store for the country if such forces come to power.

We are meeting at a time when some parts of the country are in great turmoil. For the past two months, the Kashmir valley has been convulsed by protests and violence. Distressingly, scores of young men and women have died due to police firing and actions. This has brought out the intensity of alienation among the young people against the Indian State in the valley. There has to be a stop to this endless cycle of confrontations and killings. The Central government has to immediately initiate the process of dialogue with all sections in the valley. A solution can be found only if there is recognition that the problem of Kashmir cannot be resolved through conventional means. The people of Kashmir have to be assured that their identity and special status is expressed through a new political framework in which maximum autonomy is the bedrock.

At the other end of the country, in the North East, we have seen the ill-effects of the continuous blockade of the highways to Manipur. Even now essential drugs and commodities are not available for the people who are suffering great hardships. The problems of national unity cannot be solved by the overcentralised approach of the ruling class parties. What is required is the creation of a federal system which accommodates the diverse aspirations of the people of the various regions and nationalities.

The neo-liberal policies are not only affecting the economic sphere. This is an outlook and philosophy which worships the market and promotes greed and rapacity. Every institution of the State and every pore of our society is getting polluted and corrupted.   The nexus between big business and politics is now out in the open. Public policy making is suborned to serve the interests of a rich and powerful strata. The mining mafia of the Bellary brothers dictates politics in the BJP-ruled Karnataka and also commands influence in the politics of our host state, Andhra Pradesh. Whether it is the IPL or the telecom scam, there is no line demarcating public policy and personal enrichment.   Corruption, through the siphoning off of the public funds, preys on the common people who find their rations and other entitlements vanishing into the pockets of a corrupt and greedy nexus of bureaucrats-politicians-contractors. The corporate media has become the cheer leader for neo-liberal policies.  

Such an atmosphere has begun to corrode the parliamentary democratic system itself. The people's right to assemble, to organize and to protest is being severely restricted by administrative and judicial actions. Trade unions are not allowed to function in Special Economic Zones and many other enterprises; peasants face police repression if they protests against the lands being taken away; and student unions and organizations are banned in many educational institutions.

This is the path the ruling classes have adopted which is in alignment with their alliance with the United States of America. For the Manmohan Singh government (and earlier, the BJP-led government too), there are two essential friends for India – the USA and Israel. There are no second thoughts on compromising national sovereignty and even the lives and safety of the people in order to fructify this alliance. As part of the commitment made in the Indo-US nuclear deal, the government has brought a legislation in Parliament which embodies this subservience. After the worst industrial accident in the history of the world in Bhopal, in which the victims got no justice and the perpetrator of the crime – the American multinational – was let off, the government now proposes a law which will make any American company which supplies nuclear reactors to India not liable for even one rupee if there is a nuclear accident.

The firm stand adopted by the CPI(M) and its consistent opposition to the neo-liberal policies and the strategic tie-up with US imperialism have drawn the ire of the ruling classes and imperialism. That attack is concentrated on the CPI(M) and the Left Front government of West Bengal.   For the rightwing forces, for those who draw their sustenance from imperialism and for the corporate media, the bloody violence against the CPI(M) and the Left Front in West Bengal is of no concern.   More than 250 members and the supporters of the CPI(M) have been killed by the TMC-Maoist gangs. The TMC is part of the Central government. Such violence and attacks on democratic rights in West Bengal presage an authoritarian trend which bodes ill for the whole country.

The Maoists have exposed their vicious and anti-democratic character through their murderous spree targeting the CPI(M). They do not stop at this but attack innocent people, as seen in the dastardly Gnaneswari Express sabotage. Such actions should dispel the illusion some sections of the intelligentsia have about the Maoists.

The three Left-led governments of West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura have always striven to put in place pro-people policies.   It is these three governments which have implemented land reform to the maximum in the country. It is these three governments which have sought to expand the areas of relief and welfare for the unemployed and the poor. All three governments have introduced urban employment guarantee schemes within the constraints of resources.   It is these three governments which have adhered firmly to the secular principle and given no quarter to the communal forces. The defence of the Left-led governments is an important task for all the Left and democratic forces in the country.  

In the last Lok Sabha elections, the CPI(M) suffered reverses in both West Bengal and Kerala. Our Party has carefully looked into why this has happened and identified the steps to be taken to remedy the situation. We should do our utmost so that the people of West Bengal and Kerala renew their faith in the Party and the Left-led alliances there.

In the present dismal scene in the country, only the CPI(M) and the Left present a real alternative – an alternative in terms of the path of development and in terms of policies.

On the economic front, the first and foremost task is to tackle the agrarian crisis.   Instead of moving towards corporatisation of agriculture, the farmers are to be assured of inputs at reasonable prices, so that agriculture can be sustainable. The goal of ensuring food security requires that farmers be given sufficient incentives to produce more.

There has to be a universal Public Distribution System with adequate procurement to ensure that hunger and malnutrition are eliminated. The public sector should play a key role in the strategic sectors of the economy including the financial sector.   Labour intensive industries should be encouraged, so that more employment is created.

Speculative capital flows must be regulated and profits from such foreign institutional investment taxed. Steps should be taken to recover the illegal money kept in tax havens and secret bank accounts. The corporates and the affluent should pay more taxes.

It is with the increased tax revenues that there can be increased public expenditure on education, health and social welfare.   

The Left stands for firm adherence to secularism. This requires that the governments, both at the Central and state level, make no concessions to the communal forces. Terrorist violence emanating from whichever source should be put down firmly.

The Left stands for an end to caste and gender oppression. At present, the priority should be for the passing of the Bill for women's reservation in the Lok Sabha; the implementation of the Ranganath Mishra Commission report for reservation for the minorities in education and jobs and stringent steps to end all forms of caste discrimination particularly untouchability.   The rights of the tribal people over their own lands must be ensured by the implementation of the Forest Rights Act and protection of their rights by stopping large-scale, indiscriminate and illegal mining. The scourge of corruption in public life and in State institutions must be tackled by starting at the top.

India, as a major developing country, has to play an important role in countering hegemonic designs and promoting multipolarity in the world. This would be possible only if there is a genuinely independent foreign policy.   India should not have military alliances with powers which are responsible for aggression and occupation around the world.   On global warming and the steps to protect the world environment, India has to take a firm stand to ensure that the advanced countries discharge their responsibilities to cut emissions and to help the developing countries adopt environmental friendly technologies.

This is the charter for political and social change in India which the CPI(M) and the Left advocates. The extended meeting of the Central Committee being held in Vijayawada will discuss how to carry forward such a programme by strengthening Left unity and widening the support for the Left and democratic alternative.
http://www.cpim.org/content/inaugural-speech-prakash-karat

(Weekly Organ of the Communist Party of India (Marxist)

Vol. XXXIV
No. 32
August 08,  2010

This Week

Every Week Earlier  Weeks
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Yechury's Speech on Price Rise
CITU
AIKS
Science and Development Issues
AIDWA
Obituary
West Bengal
Kerala
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Karnataka
Rajasthan
Jharkhand
Int'l




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  27. PM's all-party meeting on J&K late but welcome: CPI(M)‎ - Daily News & Analysis - 122 related articles »


  28. People's Democracy

  29. Vijayawada Get Ready to Host Crucial CPI(M) Meeting · On Corruption in Commonwealth Game's ... CPI(M), CPI Protest Illegal Mining, Demand CBI Probe ...

  30. pd.cpim.org/ - Cached - Similar

  31. CPI(M) questions 'huge' spending on renovation of Commonwealth ...

  32. 3 Aug 2010 ... The CPI(M) also sought a statement from the government on this issue as well as whether funds were diverted from the SC/ST sub-plan.

  33. www.dnaindia.com/.../report_cpim-questions-huge-spending-on-renovation-of-commonwealth-games-stadia_1418356 - Cached

  34. Communist Party of India (Marxist), CPIM Manifesto, India

  35. Communist Party of India (Marxist), CPIM Manifesto, India - Live coverage of Indian elections 2009, all indian constituencies, general elections, ...

  36. www.indian-elections.com Party Manifestos - Cached - Similar

  37. CPI-M asks government to own up phone tapping - Hindustan Times

  38. The Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) today asked the government to admit tapping the telephones of four top political leaders and sought action ...

  39. www.hindustantimes.com/CPI-M-asks...to.../Article1-535181.aspx - Cached

  40. Leadership | Communist Party of India (Marxist)

  41. The 19th Congress of the CPI(M) held between March 29 and April 03, 2008 at Coimbatore elected a 87 member Central Committee, with one vacancy. ...

  42. cpim.org/content/leadership - Cached

  43. CPIM KERALA

  44. CPI(M) Welcomes You...Kerala has been recognised the world over for its stellar achievements in various spheres and levels like Mass Literacy, ...

  45. www.cpimkerala.org/ - Cached - Similar

  46. KnoWerX Education (India) Pvt Ltd

  47. CPIM & CSCP are complimentary courses which together give in-depth knowledge regarding capabilities and add high value to one's knowledge Sarvajit Vig, CPIM ...

  48. www.imrmi.com/ - Cached - Similar

  49. Blog posts about cpim

  50. Trinamool-Maoist gangs killed 250 CPI-M activists: Karat | Politics - India Talkies - 11 hours ago

  51. Trinamool-Maoist gangs killed 250 CPI-M activists: Karat - Daily News Headlines | Today's National ... - 11 hours ago

  52. CPI-M supports 'maximum autonomy' for Kashmir - Daily Indo Pak News - 11 hours ago

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CPI-M supports 'maximum autonomy' for Kashmir

VIJAYWADA: The Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) on Saturday said the Central government had failed to solve the Kashmir issue and supported "maximum autonomy" for the troubled state as its problems "can't be resolved through conventional means".


In his inaugural speech at the CPI-M's four-day central committee meeting in this Andhra Pradesh city, party general secretary Prakash Karat made a specific reference to Kashmir and said the Central government has failed to solve the issue and tide over the alienation of Kashmiri youth.


"A solution can be found only if there is recognition that the problem of Kashmir cannot be resolved through conventional means. The people of Kashmir have to be assured that their identity and special status is expressed through a new political framework in which maximum autonomy is the bedrock," Karat said.


Referring to unending protests and violence in the Kashmir Valley for the past nearly two months, the CPI-M general secretary said: "Distressingly, scores of young men and women have died due to police firing and actions."


He stated that the civilian killings - nearly 50 in three weeks - "have brought out the intensity of alienation among the young people against the Indian state in the valley. There has to be a stop to this endless cycle of confrontations and killings.


The Central government, he said, has to immediately initiate the process of dialogue with all sections in the valley.



Army should have handled CWG preparations: Milkha Singh

With scams marring the build up to the Commonwealth Games, an agitated sprint legend Milkha Singh said it would have been better for the country had Army handled all the preparations for the mega event.

Singh, who flew to London for the launch of the Queen Baton Relay, trained guns at Suresh Kalmadi and held the OC chairman responsible for all the mess.

"India's reputation is getting tainted. The proceedings in Parliament is also getting interrupted due to all this and the Organising Committee is responsible for that.

"I told Kalmadi eight years ago that we should start helping the athletes in their preparation for the Delhi Games but he ignored the advice. It would have been better had Army handled the overall preparation. The players also would have learned discipline," Singh said.

The way things have panned out, a livid Singh said India should not even think of hosting big events.

"They brought me to London and also Melbourne before that. But I am sorry to say that Kalmadi and Bhanot dictate the terms on all matters and they don't listen to anyone else.

"India should not even think about hosting Asian Games or the Olympics until the whole system changes."

Singh, known as flying sikh in his hey days, said Kalmadi should quit in the wake of all the allegations.

"India's reputation is at stake but still the members of the Organising Committee are doing politics. If the whole process is really transparent, Kalmadi should resign and conduct a probe.

"Kalmadi and Lalit Bhanot are doing whatever they feeling like. Not only the country but the whole world today knows about the irregularities in preparation of the Games. Everyone, including the Indian Olympic Association, wants Kalmadi to quit.

"I often go to abroad with my golfer son (Jeev) and there people respect India. But these people are spoiling that reputation," he said.

Singh also said the delay in the completion of the venues will hurt India's medal prospects.

"London will host the Olympics in 2012 but they have already made the cycling tracks available to their athletes for practice. Here we have the Games just two months away and till now most of the stadiums are not available to the players.

"I think, it would be more humiliating for the country when our athletes would return empty handed at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium because they are not being allowed to get used to with the facilities there," he said. PTI DP AT AT 08071452 NNNN Market
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Targeting seniors, Obama touts Medicare report
7 Aug 2010, 1537 hrs IST,REUTERS
WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama reached out on Saturday to retired Americans, an important group of voters, touting a report that showed healthcare reform had brightened prospects for the Medicare hospital trust fund.

Medicare is the government-administered program that funds healthcare for people aged 65 or older.

A government report released on Thursday showed the program's trust fund was not projected to exhaust its funds until 2029, 12 years later than forecast last year, as a result of cost cuts stemming from Obama's healthcare reform law.

"The steps we took this year to reform the healthcare system have put Medicare on a sounder financial footing," Obama said in his weekly radio and Internet address.

"Reform has actually added at least a dozen years to the solvency of Medicare -- the single longest extension in history -- while helping to preserve Medicare for generations to come."

The same report, however, showed the deep recession ate into receipts for another major program for retired Americans, Social Security, helping push it into deficit for the first time in 27 years.

Obama did not mention that aspect of the report in his address.

The president, a Democrat, is working hard to highlight his administration's successes ahead of November congressional elections that are expected to see big Republican gains, potentially changing the balance of power in Congress.

Healthcare reform, his biggest legislative achievement, was opposed by Republicans and remains controversial among many Americans.

In his address Obama said reform was already improving senior citizens' benefits.

"Beginning next year, preventive care -- including annual physicals, wellness exams, and tests like mammograms -- will be free for seniors as well," he said. "That will make it easier for folks to stay healthy."

Republicans charge that the healthcare bill vastly expanded the reach of government and was too costly.

Both parties want the support of older Americans, who are traditionally more likely to show up at the polls on voting day, making them an especially important constituent group.

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http://www.hindu.com/2010/08/07/stories/2010080758320100.htm

About 449 results (0.11 seconds) 

Search Results

  1. We are under attack in West Bengal, says CPI-M resolution


    Sify - 6 hours ago
    Pradesh), Aug 7 (IANS) The Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) has admitted that the party is facing 'an unfavourable situation' in the party-ruled ...
    CPI (M) analyses reasons for reverses in LS polls- Hindustan Times
    Trinamool-Maoist gangs killed 250 CPI-M activists: Karat- Hindustan Times
    CPI-M supports 'maximum autonomy' for Kashmir- Economic Times
    indiablooms - Business Standard
    all 130 news articles »

    The Hindu
  2. CPI(M) takes Lalgarh rally to PM


    The Hindu - 20 hours ago
    KOLKATA: "It is unfortunate," Prime Minister Manmohan Singh reportedly told Basudeb Acharya, CPI (M) MP, when the latter informed him on Friday of ...
    CPI (M) conveys to PM concerns over Mamata's rally in Lalgarh- Hindustan Times
    Buddha fumes at Mamata for PCPA support to rally- Asian Age
    Samachar Today (blog) - Outlook
    all 83 news articles »

    NDTV.com
  3. PM's all-party meeting on J&K late but welcome: CPI(M)


    Daily News & Analysis - 1 day ago
    Place: Srinagar | Agency: PTI The CPI(M) in Jammu and Kashmir today welcomed the all-party meeting convened by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to discuss the ...
    PM Calls Meeting of J&K Parties on August 10- Outlook
    all 123 news articles »

    Oneindia
  4. CPI(M) meet to deliberate on road map for future


    The Hindu - Kv Prasad - 23 hours ago
    Elements of the views are found in the draft political resolution, which states that the CPI(M) should oppose both the Congress, which it sees as the prime ...
  5. CPI(M) organises rally, folk art fest


    The Hindu - 1 day ago
    THE HINDU BIG SHOW: CPI (M) volunteers taking out a rally at Tummalapallivari Kshetrayya Kalakshetram in Vijayawada on Thursday. Photo: CH Vijaya Bhaskar ...

    The Hindu
  6. India should have zero tolerance to Hindutva terror too: CPI(M)


    Daily News & Analysis - 2 days ago
    Place: New Delhi | Agency: PTI Demanding a thorough investigation into terror-related cases, CPI(M) has said that the country should display "zero ...
  7. DMK resorting to violence in TN: CPI(M)


    Hindustan Times - 2 days ago
    PTI Charging the ruling DMK with 'unable to stand criticism', CPI(M) today alleged that the former was resorting to violence against the Left party. ...
    Send delegation to Lanka: CPM- Deccan Chronicle
    Intolerant DMK is intimidating us in TN: CPM- Indian Express
    all 9 news articles »
  8. CPI(M) for sending all-party delegation to Kashmir


    The Hindu - 2 days ago
    He said all CPI(M) MPs have sent a signed letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to this effect and stressed that "in order to restore peace and normalcy, ...
  9. CPIM favours all-party MPs delegation to Sri Lanka


    IBNLive.com - 2 days ago
    PTI Chennai, Aug 5 (PTI) Tamil Nadu unit of CPI (M) today favoured an all-party MPs delegation to visit Sri Lanka for assessing the progress of ...
    Centre urged to send MPs' team to Sri Lanka- The Hindu
    all 111 news articles »

    Indian Express
  10. Veerendra Kumar launches party


    The Hindu - 55 minutes ago
    Mr. Veerendrakumar alleged that the CPI(M) was dividing Hindus and Muslims with an ... "The policies of the CPI(M) do not protect the rights of the people, ...

    The Hindu

  1. "On May 30 Kolkata civic polls took place and on 28 Gyaneshwari Express mishap took place. I went to the spot to know who was behind it and now Central Bureau of Investigation is probing it,"
    22 Jul 2010 Oneindia (Occurrences: 9)
  2. Maoists to Mamata: Why don't you oppose Operation Green Hunt?


    NDTV.com - 5 hours ago
    Kolkata: Days after Kishenji supported Trinamool Congress chief and Union Railways Minister Mamata Banerjee's Lalgarh rally on August 9, the Maoists have ...
    Centre permits deployment of CRPF at Mamata Banerjee's Lalgarh rally- Daily News & Analysis
    CRPF to be deployed at rally- Indian Express
    Expressindia.com - Times of India
    all 83 news articles »

    NDTV.com
  3. CPI(M) ridicules Mamata Banerjee's allegation of plot to kill her


    Daily News & Analysis - 5 days ago
    Place: Kolkata | Agency: PTI Rubbishing Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee's allegation that there was a conspiracy to eliminate her, the CPI(M) today ...
    Mamata will not accept conditions on Lalgarh trip- Times of India
    Trinamool Congress not to accept conditions for Lalgarh rally- Hindustan Times
    Bengal govt gives nod to Mamata's Lalgarh rally- Indian Express
    IBNLive.com - Calcutta Telegraph
    all 182 news articles »

    Bharat Chronicle
  4. 'Trinamool-Maoist gang killing CPI-M'


    indiablooms - 8 hours ago
    Vijayawada, Aug 7 (IBNS) Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI-M) General Secretary Prakash Karat on Saturday attacked Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool ...
    Team Bengal toys with rift ploy- Calcutta Telegraph
    CPM's crucial Vijaywada meet starts today- Indian Express
    Trinamool-Maoist gangs killed 250 CPI-M activists: Karat- Hindustan Times
    Economic Times - Business Standard
    all 130 news articles »

    The Hindu
  5. Pranab fails to push big-ticket projects in Bengal


    Business Standard - Namrata Acharya - 21 minutes ago
    It is well known that Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee's weekends are reserved for flagging off new trains in West Bengal, but Finance Minister Pranab ...

    Business Standard
  6. Mamata's Darjeeling trip plan brings cheer to govt, Hill groups


    Indian Express - 1 day ago
    Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee's announcement — that she would visit Darjeeling after the monsoon session of Parliament — has been welcomed both ...
  7. Mamata 'hosts' Urdu soiree in Lok Sabha


    India Today - Poornima Joshi - 1 day ago
    Emperor and poet Bahadur Shah Zafar would have turned in his grave, albeit with pleasure, as railway minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday invoked his famous ...
    Mamata sprints for Urdu- Calcutta Telegraph
    In LS, members clamour to show support for Urdu- Hindustan Times
    LS members close ranks over Urdu's fate- Times of India
    Outlook
    all 16 news articles »

    Calcutta Telegraph
  8. Mamata Banerjee accuses Left Front of spreading misinformation


    Oneindia - 22 Jul 2010
    Kolkata, July 22 (ANI): Railway Minister and Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee has alleged that the ruling Left Front Government in West Bengal is ...
    Opposition bays for railway minister Mamata Banerjee's blood- Daily News & Analysis
    Congress stands behind Mamata Banerjee- Hindustan Times
    Express Buzz - Hindustan Times
    all 645 news articles »
  9. On rally day, a Cong 'counter'


    Calcutta Telegraph - Barun Ghosh - 20 hours ago
    Calcutta, Aug 6: On the day Mamata Banerjee has lined up her rally in West Midnapore's Lalgarh, the state Congress is set to organise a similar one in ...

    Calcutta Telegraph
  10. Mamata Banerjee: The wail mantri


    Times of India - Arati R Jerath - 23 Jul 2010
    How do you solve a problem like Mamata Banerjee? As her star rises in West Bengal, the enfant terrible of UPA II couldn't care less about Delhi and its ...
    Mamata has no time for crucial Naxal meet- Times of India
    Mamata ready with defence for House trial- Times of India
    Sify - Zee News
    all 37 news articles »

    Zee News
  11. Lalgarh meet on schedule: Mamata


    Indian Express - 25 Jul 2010
    Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee has made it clear that she will hold a meeting in Lalgarh next month despite Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee ...
    PCPA will protest against Mamata's rally at Jhargram- Times of India
    Is Didi the only villain? Think again- Daily News & Analysis
    West Bengal has Rs 192000 crore loan liability: Mamata- Sify
    Calcutta Telegraph
    all 33 news articles »

    ekmulakatnews

Stay up to date on these results:

About 3,800 results (0.17 seconds) 

Search Results

  1. Santosh Trophy Preview: Bengal - Punjab


    Goal.com India - Rahul Sengupta - 22 minutes ago
    Bengal has by far been the most successful team in Santosh Trophy history having won the coveted title 29 times. ...
    Bengal desperate to end 11-year Santosh Trophy drought- Times of India
    Capital gains: Robin on the mark as Bengal enter final- Indian Express
    Bengal win thriller, to meet Punjab in final- Hindustan Times
    indiablooms - Calcutta Telegraph
    all 130 news articles »

    Calcutta Telegraph
  2. We are under attack in West Bengal, says CPI-M resolution


    Sify - 6 hours ago
    'The party is under attack in West Bengal where it has suffered electoral reverses,' says the draft political resolution of the CPI-M presented before the ...
    Karat extends olive branch to Buddha- Business Standard
    CPI (M) analyses reasons for reverses in LS polls- Hindustan Times
    Team Bengal toys with rift ploy- Calcutta Telegraph
    Economic Times - NDTV.com
    all 130 news articles »

    The Hindu
  3. Bengal's decision on CBI probe in Sainthia train crash soon


    Hindustan Times - 38 minutes ago
    The West Bengal government will inform the central government within a week about its opinion on a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into last ...
  4. Four new swine flu cases in West Bengal


    Hindustan Times - 5 hours ago
    Four more people tested positive for swine flu in West Bengal on Saturday, taking the number of confirmed cases of the contagious disease to 118 in the ...
    One more dies of swine flu in Bengal, toll three- Calcutta Tube (blog)
    Swine flu deaths mount- IBNLive.com
    all 74 news articles »

    The Hindu
  5. Bengal minister asks transporters to defer strike


    Hindustan Times - 5 hours ago
    West Bengal Transport Minister Ranjit Kundu has asked transport operators to defer by 10 days their proposed strike seeking higher sops to offset the fuel ...
    Bengal Govt asks transport unions to call off strike- Hindu Business Line
    all 6 news articles »

    India Talkies
  6. Ushanath elected Bengal badminton association chief


    IBNLive.com - 2 hours ago
    PTI Kolkata, Aug 7 (PTI) Ushanath Banerjee was today elected West Bengal Badminton Association (WBBA) chief for a second term in its annual general meeting ...
  7. CRPF to be deployed at rally


    Indian Express - 16 hours ago
    The Centre has permitted West Bengal government to deploy CRPF personnel during the August 9 rally of Mamata Banerjee at Lalgarh. The state government had ...
    PCPA may contest Bengal polls- Economic Times
    Centre permits deployment of CRPF at Mamata Banerjee's Lalgarh rally- Daily News & Analysis
    Hindustan Times - Times of India
    all 83 news articles »

    NDTV.com
  8. Suspected Maoist Fatik Soren arrested in West Bengal


    Sify - 7 hours ago
    Acting on a tip-off, the security personnel arrested a suspected Maoist radical from West Bengal's West Midnapore District on Friday. ...
  9. Maoists damage hydel project's high tension pillar in West Bengal


    Daily News & Analysis - 9 hours ago
    Place: Purulia (WB) | Agency: PTI Maoists threw a grenade and damaged a high tension pillar of Purulia pump storage project at Bagmundi today, police said. ...
    Armed men raid railway station in West Bengal- Daily News & Analysis
    all 5 news articles »
  10. Landslide disrupts toy train services in Darjeeling


    Oneindia - 30 minutes ago
    Gayabari (West Bengal), Aug 7 (ANI): Landslide in West Bengal's Darjeeling district caused the roads to cave in, which in turn severely damaged the narrow ...
About 3,800 results (0.17 seconds) 

Search Results

  1. Santosh Trophy Preview: Bengal - Punjab


    Goal.com India - Rahul Sengupta - 22 minutes ago
    Bengal has by far been the most successful team in Santosh Trophy history having won the coveted title 29 times. ...
    Bengal desperate to end 11-year Santosh Trophy drought- Times of India
    Capital gains: Robin on the mark as Bengal enter final- Indian Express
    Bengal win thriller, to meet Punjab in final- Hindustan Times
    indiablooms - Calcutta Telegraph
    all 130 news articles »

    Calcutta Telegraph
  2. We are under attack in West Bengal, says CPI-M resolution


    Sify - 6 hours ago
    'The party is under attack in West Bengal where it has suffered electoral reverses,' says the draft political resolution of the CPI-M presented before the ...
    Karat extends olive branch to Buddha- Business Standard
    CPI (M) analyses reasons for reverses in LS polls- Hindustan Times
    Team Bengal toys with rift ploy- Calcutta Telegraph
    Economic Times - NDTV.com
    all 130 news articles »

    The Hindu
  3. Bengal's decision on CBI probe in Sainthia train crash soon


    Hindustan Times - 38 minutes ago
    The West Bengal government will inform the central government within a week about its opinion on a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into last ...
  4. Four new swine flu cases in West Bengal


    Hindustan Times - 5 hours ago
    Four more people tested positive for swine flu in West Bengal on Saturday, taking the number of confirmed cases of the contagious disease to 118 in the ...
    One more dies of swine flu in Bengal, toll three- Calcutta Tube (blog)
    Swine flu deaths mount- IBNLive.com
    all 74 news articles »

    The Hindu
  5. Bengal minister asks transporters to defer strike


    Hindustan Times - 5 hours ago
    West Bengal Transport Minister Ranjit Kundu has asked transport operators to defer by 10 days their proposed strike seeking higher sops to offset the fuel ...
    Bengal Govt asks transport unions to call off strike- Hindu Business Line
    all 6 news articles »

    India Talkies
  6. Ushanath elected Bengal badminton association chief


    IBNLive.com - 2 hours ago
    PTI Kolkata, Aug 7 (PTI) Ushanath Banerjee was today elected West Bengal Badminton Association (WBBA) chief for a second term in its annual general meeting ...
  7. CRPF to be deployed at rally


    Indian Express - 16 hours ago
    The Centre has permitted West Bengal government to deploy CRPF personnel during the August 9 rally of Mamata Banerjee at Lalgarh. The state government had ...
    PCPA may contest Bengal polls- Economic Times
    Centre permits deployment of CRPF at Mamata Banerjee's Lalgarh rally- Daily News & Analysis
    Hindustan Times - Times of India
    all 83 news articles »

    NDTV.com
  8. Suspected Maoist Fatik Soren arrested in West Bengal


    Sify - 7 hours ago
    Acting on a tip-off, the security personnel arrested a suspected Maoist radical from West Bengal's West Midnapore District on Friday. ...
  9. Maoists damage hydel project's high tension pillar in West Bengal


    Daily News & Analysis - 9 hours ago
    Place: Purulia (WB) | Agency: PTI Maoists threw a grenade and damaged a high tension pillar of Purulia pump storage project at Bagmundi today, police said. ...
    Armed men raid railway station in West Bengal- Daily News & Analysis
    all 5 news articles »
  10. Landslide disrupts toy train services in Darjeeling


    Oneindia - 30 minutes ago
    Gayabari (West Bengal), Aug 7 (ANI): Landslide in West Bengal's Darjeeling district caused the roads
    1. Captured Maoist sings, says he has girlfriend in UK


      Times of India - Manohar Lal - 2 hours ago
      RANCHI: In a revelation that has Jharkhand cops looking afresh at the foreign links of outlawed Maoists, top CPI (Maoist) leader Rajesh Kumar Sinha alias ...
      Security beefed up for Maoist shutdown- Hindustan Times
      Top Maoist leader among four arrested in Jharkhand- Calcutta Tube (blog)
      all 7 news articles »
    2. Insurance for forest officials in Maoist areas


      Hindustan Times - 3 hours ago
      The central government on Saturday said that all forest officials working in Maoist affected areas will be brought under insurance cover and will also be ...
      Forest officials attending meetings held by Naxals: Pillai- The Hindu
      In the shadow of Naxals: Govt announces incentives for forest staff- Indian Express
      all 11 news articles »

      The Hindu
    3. In rally run-up, Maoist-Mamata line gets very blurred in Lalgarh


      Expressindia.com - Madhuparna Das - 14 hours ago
      Facts on the ground not only contradict this claim but also reinforce how blurred the line is between the Maoists, the Union Minister and her party. ...
      Political riddle over Mamata's Lalgarh rally- Times of India
      CPI (M) conveys to PM concerns over Mamata's rally in Lalgarh- Hindustan Times
      BreakingNewsOnline. - Sify
      all 83 news articles »

      NDTV.com
    4. Integrated Action Plan for 25 more Maoist-affected districts


      The Hindu - Smita Gupta - 1 hour ago
      PTI Debris of a truck, burned by Maoists in Latehar near Ranchi. Home Minister P. Chidambaram felt abject poverty was a breeding ground for extremism. ...

      The Hindu
    5. Indian Embassy comes under Nepal Maoist fire


      Times of India - 6 hours ago
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Marxism

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Marxism is a particular political philosophy, economic and sociological worldview based upon a materialist interpretation of history, a Marxist analysis of capitalism, a theory of social change, and a view of human liberation derived from the work of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. The three primary aspects of Marxism are:

  1. The dialectical and materialist concept of history — Humankind's history fundamentally is a struggle between social classes. The productive capacity of society is the foundation of society, and as this capacity increases over time the social relations of production, class relations, evolve through this struggle of the classes and pass through definite stages (primitive communism, slavery, feudalism, capitalism). The legal, political, ideological and other aspects (e.g. art) of society are derived from these production relations as is the consciousness of the individuals of which the society is composed.
  2. The critique of capitalism — Marx argues that in capitalist society, an economic minority (the bourgeoisie) dominate and exploit an economic majority (the proletariat). Marx argues that capitalism is exploitative, specifically the way in which unpaid labor (surplus value) is extracted from the working class (the labor theory of value), extending and critiquing the work of earlier political economists on value. Such commodification of human labor according to Marx, creates an arrangement of transitory serfdom. He argued that while the production process is socialized, ownership remains in the hands of the bourgeoisie. This forms the fundamental contradiction of capitalist society. Without the elimination of the fetter of the private ownership of the means of production, human society is unable to achieve further development.
  3. Advocacy of proletarian revolution — In order to overcome the fetters of private property the working class must seize political power internationally through a social revolution and expropriate the capitalist classes around the world and place the productive capacities of society into collective ownership. Upon this, material foundation classes would be abolished and the material basis for all forms of inequality between humankind would dissolve.

Contemporarily, Karl Marx's innovative analytical methods — materialist dialectics, the labour theory of value, et cetera — are applied in archaeology, anthropology,[1] media studies,[2] political science, theater, history, sociological theory, cultural studies, education, economics, geography, literary criticism, aesthetics, critical psychology, and philosophy.[3]

[edit] Classical Marxism

The term Classical Marxism denotes the theory propounded by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.[citation needed] As such, Classical Marxism distinguishes between "Marxism" as broadly perceived, and "what Marx believed"; thus, in 1883, Marx wrote to the French labour leader Jules Guesde and to Paul Lafargue (Marx's son-in-law) — both of whom claimed to represent Marxist principles — accusing them of "revolutionary phrase-mongering" and of denying the value of reformist struggle; from which derives the paraphrase: "If that is Marxism, then I am not a Marxist".[4] To wit, the US Marx scholar Hal Draper remarked, "there are few thinkers in modern history whose thought has been so badly misrepresented, by Marxists and anti-Marxists alike".[5]

[edit] Marx and Engels

Karl Marx - Founder of Marxism.

Karl Heinrich Marx (5 May 1818—14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, political economist, and socialist revolutionary, who addressed the matters of alienation and exploitation of the working class, the capitalist mode of production, and historical materialism. He is famous for analysing history in terms of class struggle, summarised in the initial line introducing the Communist Manifesto (1848): "The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles". His ideas were influential in his time, and it was greatly expanded by the successful Bolshevik October Revolution of 1917 in Imperial Russia.

Friedrich Engels, co-founder of Marxism.

Friedrich Engels (28 November 1820–5 August 1895) was a nineteenth century German political philosopher and Karl Marx's co-developer of communist theory. Marx and Engels met in September 1844; discovering that they shared like views of philosophy and socialism, they collaborated and wrote works such as Die heilige Familie (The Holy Family). After the French deported Marx from France in January 1845, Engels and Marx moved to Belgium, which then permitted greater freedom of expression than other European countries; later, in January 1846, they returned to Brussels to establish the Communist Correspondence Committee.

In 1847, they began writing The Communist Manifesto (1848), based upon Engels' The Principles of Communism; six weeks later, they published the 12,000-word pamphlet in February 1848. In March, Belgium expelled them, and they moved to Cologne, where they published the Neue Rheinische Zeitung, a politically radical newspaper. Again, by 1849, they had to leave Cologne for London. The Prussian authorities pressured the British government to expel Marx and Engels, but Prime Minister Lord John Russell refused.

After Karl Marx's death in 1883, Friedrich Engels became the editor and translator of Marx's writings. With his Origins of the Family, Private Property, and the State (1884) — analysing monogamous marriage as guaranteeing male social domination of women, a concept analogous, in communist theory, to the capitalist class's economic domination of the working class — Engels made intellectually significant contributions to feminist theory and Marxist feminism.

[edit] Early intellectual influences

Different types of thinkers influenced the development of Classical Marxism; the primary influences derive from:

and secondary influences derive from:

[edit] Principal ideas

These are the principal concepts of Marxism:

[edit] Exploitation

A person is exploited if he or she performs more labour than necessary to produce the goods that he consumes; likewise, a person is an exploiter if he or she performs less labour than is necessary to produce the goods that he consumes.[6] Exploitation is a matter of surplus labour — the amount of labour one performs beyond what one receives in goods. Exploitation has been a socio-economic feature of every class society, and is one of the principal features distinguishing the social classes. The power of one social class to control the means of production enables its exploitation of the other classes.

In capitalism, the labour theory of value is the operative concern; the value of a commodity equals the total labour time required to produce it. Under that condition, surplus value (the difference between the value produced and the value received by a labourer) is synonymous with the term "surplus labour"; thus, capitalist exploitation is realised as deriving surplus value from the worker.

In pre-capitalist economies, exploitation of the worker was achieved via physical coercion. In the capitalist mode of production, that result is more subtly achieved; because the worker does not own the means of production, he or she must voluntarily enter into an exploitive work relationship with a capitalist in order to earn the necessities of life. The worker's entry into such employment is voluntary in that he or she chooses which capitalist to work for. However, the worker must work or starve. Thus, exploitation is inevitable, and that the "voluntary" nature of a worker participating in a capitalist society is illusory.

[edit] Alienation

Alienation denotes the estrangement of people from their humanity (German: Gattungswesen, "species-essence", "species-being"), which is a systematic result of capitalism. Under capitalism, the fruits of production belong to the employers, who expropriate the surplus created by others, and so generate alienated labourers.[7] Alienation objectively describes the worker's situation in capitalism — his or her self-awareness of this condition is unnecessary.

[edit] Historical Materialism

The historical materialist theory of history, also synonymous to "the economic interpretation of history" (a coinage by Eduard Bernstein),[8] looks for the causes of societal development and change in the collective ways humans use to make the means for living. The social features of a society (social classes, political structures, ideologies) derive from economic activity; "base and superstructure" is the metaphoric common term describing this historic condition.

[edit] Base and superstructure

The base and superstructure metaphor explains that the totality of social relations regarding "the social production of their existence" i.e. civil society forms a society's economic base, from which rises a superstructure of political and legal institutions i.e. political society. The base corresponds to the social consciousness (politics, religion, philosophy, etc.), and it conditions the superstructure and the social consciousness. A conflict between the development of material productive forces and the relations of production provokes social revolutions, thus, the resultant changes to the economic base will lead to the transformation of the superstructure.[9] This relationship is reflexive; the base determines the superstructure, in the first instance, and remains the foundation of a form of social organization which then can act again upon both parts of the base and superstructure, whose relationship is dialectical, not literal.[citation needed][clarification needed]

[edit] Historical periodisation

Marx considered that these socio-economic conflicts have historically manifested themselves as distinct stages (one transitional) of development in Western Europe.[10]

  1. Primitive Communism: as in co-operative tribal societies.
  2. Slave Society: a development of tribal progression to city-state; Aristocracy is born.
  3. Feudalism: aristocrats are the ruling class; merchants evolve into capitalists.
  4. Capitalism: capitalists are the ruling class, who create and employ the proletariat.
  5. Socialism: workers gain class consciousness, and via proletarian revolution depose the capitalist dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, replacing it in turn with dictatorship of the proletariat through which the socialization of the means of production can be realized.
  6. Communism: a classless and stateless society.

[edit] Class

The identity of a social class derives from its relationship to the means of production; Marx describes the social classes in capitalist societies:

  • Proletariat: "those individuals who sell their labour power, and who, in the capitalist mode of production, do not own the means of production".[citation needed] The capitalist mode of production establishes the conditions enabling the bourgeoisie to exploit the proletariat because the workers' labour generates a surplus value greater than the workers' wages.
  • Bourgeoisie: those who "own the means of production" and buy labour power from the proletariat, thus exploiting the proletariat; they subdivide as bourgeoisie and the petit bourgeoisie.
    • Petit bourgeoisie are those who employ labourers, but who also work, i.e. small business owners, peasant landlords, trade workers et al. Marxism predicts that the continual reinvention of the means of production eventually would destroy the petit bourgeoisie, degrading them from the middle class to the proletariat.
  • Lumpenproletariat: criminals, vagabonds, beggars, et al., who have no stake in the economy, and so sell their labour to the highest bidder.
  • Landlords: an historically important social class who retain some wealth and power.
  • Peasantry and farmers: a disorganised class incapable of effecting socio-economic change, most of whom would enter the proletariat, and some become landlords.
[edit] Class consciousness

Class consciousness denotes the awareness — of itself and the social world — that a social class possesses, and its capacity to rationally act in their best interests; hence, class consciousness is required before they can effect a successful revolution.

[edit] Ideology

Without defining ideology,[11] Marx used the term to denote the production of images of social reality; according to Engels, "ideology is a process accomplished by the so-called thinker consciously, it is true, but with a false consciousness. The real motive forces impelling him remain unknown to him; otherwise it simply would not be an ideological process. Hence he imagines false or seeming motive forces".[12] Because the ruling class controls the society's means of production, the superstructure of society, the ruling social ideas are determined by the best interests of said ruling class. In The German Ideology, "the ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society, is, at the same time, its ruling intellectual force".[13] Therefore, the ideology of a society is of most importance, because it confuses the alienated classes and so might create a false consciousness, such as commodity fetishism.[citation needed]

[edit] Political economy

The term political economy originally denoted the study of the conditions under which economic production was organised in the capitalist system. In Marxism, political economy studies the means of production, specifically of capital, and how that is manifest as economic activity.

[edit] Marxist schools of thought

[edit] Marxism-Leninism

Note: this is a discussion of Marxism-Leninism as a school of thought. For a discussion of its political practice, see subsection Marxism#Marxism as a political practice below.

At least in terms of adherents and the impact on the world stage, Marxism-Leninism, also known colloquially as Bolshevism or simply communism is the biggest trend within Marxism, easily dwarfing all of the other schools of thought combined.[14] Marxism-Leninism is a term originally coined by the CPSU in order to denote the ideology that Vladimir Lenin had built upon the thought of Karl Marx. There are two broad areas that have set apart Marxism-Leninism as a school of thought.

First, Lenin's followers generally view his additions to the body of Marxism as the practical corollary to Marx's original theoretical contributions of the 19th century; insofar as they apply under the conditions of advanced capitalism that they found themselves working in. Lenin called this time-frame the era of Imperialism. For example, Joseph Stalin wrote that

" Leninism grew up and took shape under the conditions of imperialism, when the contradictions of capitalism had reached an extreme point, when the proletarian revolution had become an immediate practical question, when the old period of preparation of the working class for revolution had arrived at and passed into a new period, that of direct assault on capitalism.[15] "

The most important consequence of a Leninist-style theory of Imperialism is the strategic need for workers in the industrialized countries to bloc or ally with the oppressed nations contained within their respective countries' colonies abroad in order to overthrow capitalism. This is the source of the slogan

" Workers and Oppressed Peoples of the World, Unite![16] "

which is Lenin's twist on the traditional socialist slogan.

Second, the other distinguishing characteristic of Marxism-Leninism is how it approaches the question of organization. Lenin believed that the traditional model of the Social Democratic parties of the time, which was a loose, multitendency organization was inadequate for overthrowing the Tsarist regime in Russia. He proposed a hardened cadre organization that disciplined itself under the model of Democratic Centralism.

Marxism-Leninism was closely associated with the figure of Joseph Stalin until his death. Eventually after the death of Stalin, Nikita Khrushchev became the leader of the Soviet Union, an act which ultimately lead to the splintering of the Marxist-Leninism into several competing schools of thought.

[edit] Post-Stalin Moscow-aligned communism

At the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Khrushchev made several ideological ruptures with his predecessor, Joseph Stalin. First, Khrushchev denounced the so-called Cult of Personality that had developed around Stalin, which ironically enough Khrushchev had had a pivotal role in fostering decades earlier. More importantly, however, Khrushchev rejected the heretofore orthodox Marxist-Leninist tenet that class struggle continues even under socialism. Rather, the State ought to rule in the name of all classes. A related principle that flowed from the former was the notion of peaceful co-existence, or that the newly emergent socialist bloc could peacefully compete with the capitalist world, solely by developing the productive forces of society.

[edit] Eurocommunism

Beginning around the 1970s, various communist parties in Western Europe, such as the Partito Comunista Italiano in Italy and the Partido Comunista de España under Santiago Carillo tried to hew to a more independent line from Moscow. Particularly in Italy, they leaned on the theories of Antonio Gramsci, despite the fact that Gramsci happened to consider himself an orthodox Marxist-Leninist. This trend went by the name Eurocommunism.

[edit] Anti-revisionism

There are many proponents of Marxist-Leninism who rejected the theses of Khrushchev, particularly Marxists of the Third World.[citation needed] They believed that Khrushchev was unacceptably altering or "revising" the fundamental tenets of Marxism-Leninism, a stance from which the label "anti-revisionist" is derived. Typically, anti-revisionists refer to themselves simply as Marxist-Leninists, although they may be referred to externally by the following epithets.

[edit] Maoism

Maoism takes its name from Mao Zedong, the erstwhile leader of the Peoples Republic of China; it is the variety of anti-revisionism that took inspiration, and in some cases received material support, from China, especially during the Mao period. There are several key concepts that were developed by Mao. First, Mao concurred with Stalin that not only does class struggle continue under the dictatorship of the proletariat, it actually accelerates as long as gains are being made by the proletariat at the expense of the disenfranchised bourgeoisie. Second, Mao developed a strategy for revolution called Prolonged People's War in what he termed the semi-feudal countries of the Third World. Prolonged People's War relied heavily on the peasantry. Third, Mao wrote many theoretical articles on epistemology and dialectics, which he called contradictions.

[edit] Hoxhaism

Hoxhaism, so named because of the central contribution of Albanian statesman Enver Hoxha, was closely aligned with China for a number of years, but grew critical of Maoism because of the so-called Three Worlds Theory put forth by elements within the Communist Party of China and because it viewed the actions of Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping unfavorably. Ultimately, however, Hoxhaism as a trend came to the understanding that Socialism had never existed in China at all.

[edit] Marxism-Deleonism

Marxism-Deleonism, is a form of syndicalist Marxism developed by Daniel De Leon. De Leon was an early leader of the first US socialist political party, the Socialist Labor Party. This party exists to the present day. De Leonism lies outside the Leninist tradition of communism. The highly decentralized and democratic nature of the proposed De Leonist government is in contrast to the democratic centralism of Marxism-Leninism and what they see as the dictatorial nature of the Soviet Union. The success of the De Leonist plan depends on achieving majority support among the people both in the workplaces and at the polls, in contrast to the Leninist notion that a small vanguard party should lead the working class to carry out the revolution. Daniel De Leon and other De Leonist writers have issued frequent polemics against 'democratic socialist' movements, especially the Socialist Party of America, and consider them to be "reformist" or "bourgeois socialist". De Leonists have traditionally refrained from any activity or alliances viewed by them as trying to reform capitalism, though the Socialist Labor Party in De Leon's time was active during strikes and such, such as social justice movements.

[edit] Trotskyism

Trotskyism is the usual term for followers of the ideas of Russian Marxist Leon Trotsky. Trotsky was a contemporary of Lenin from the early years of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, where he led a small trend in competition with both Lenin's Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks; nevertheless Trotsky's followers claim to be the heirs of Lenin in the same way that mainstream Marxist-Leninists do, hence the preferred self-designation amongst Trotskyists of Bolshevik-Leninists. There are several distinguishing characteristics of this school of thought; foremost is the theory of Permanent Revolution. This stated that in less-developed countries the bourgeoisie were too weak to lead their own 'bourgeois-democratic' revolutions. Due to this weakness, it fell to the proletariat to carry out the bourgeois revolution. However, with power in its hands the proletariat would then continue this revolution (permanently), thus transforming it from a bourgeois to a socialist revolution, and from a national to an international revolution.

Another shared characteristic between Trotskyists is a variety of theoretical justifications for their negative appraisal of the post-Lenin Soviet Union; that is to say, after Trotsky was expelled by a majority vote from the CPSU[17] and subsequently from the Soviet Union. As a consequence, Trotsky defined the Soviet Union under Stalin, as a planned economy ruled over by a bureaucratic caste. Trotsky advocated overthrowing the government of the Soviet Union after he was expelled from it.[18]

[edit] Left Communism

Left communism is the range of communist viewpoints held by the communist left, which criticizes the political ideas of the Bolsheviks from a position that is asserted to be more authentically Marxist and proletarian than the views of Leninism held by the Communist International after its first two congresses.

Although she lived before left communism became a distinct tendency, Rosa Luxemburg has been heavily influential for most left communists, both politically and theoretically. Proponents of left communism have included Herman Gorter, Anton Pannekoek, Otto Rühle, Karl Korsch, Amadeo Bordiga, and Paul Mattick.

Prominent left communist groups existing today include the International Communist Current and the International Bureau for the Revolutionary Party. Also, different factions from the old Bordigist International Communist Party are considered left communist organizations.

[edit] Western Marxism

Western Marxism is a term used to describe a wide variety of Marxist theoreticians based in Western and Central Europe (and more recently North America ), in contrast with philosophy in the Soviet Union, the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia or the People's Republic of China.

[edit] Structural Marxism

Structural Marxism is an approach to Marxism based on structuralism, primarily associated with the work of the French theorist Louis Althusser and his students. It was influential in France during the late 1960s and 1970s, and also came to influence philosophers, political theorists and sociologists outside of France during the 1970s.

[edit] Neo-Marxism

Neo-Marxism is a school of Marxism that began in the 20th century and hearkened back to the early writings of Marx, before the influence of Engels, which focused on dialectical idealism rather than dialectical materialism. It thus rejected economic determinism being instead far more libertarian. Neo-Marxism adds Max Weber's broader understanding of social inequality, such as status and power, to orthodox Marxist thought.

[edit] The Frankfurt School

The Frankfurt School is a school of neo-Marxist social theory, social research, and philosophy. The grouping emerged at the Institute for Social Research (Institut für Sozialforschung) of the University of Frankfurt am Main in Germany. The term "Frankfurt School" is an informal term used to designate the thinkers affiliated with the Institute for Social Research or influenced by them: it is not the title of any institution, and the main thinkers of the Frankfurt School did not use the term to describe themselves.

The Frankfurt School gathered together dissident Marxists, severe critics of capitalism who believed that some of Marx's alleged followers had come to parrot a narrow selection of Marx's ideas, usually in defense of orthodox communist or social democratic parties. Influenced especially by the failure of working-class revolutions in Western Europe after World War I and by the rise of Nazism in an economically, technologically, and culturally advanced nation (Germany), they took up the task of choosing what parts of Marx's thought might serve to clarify social conditions which Marx himself had never seen. They drew on other schools of thought to fill in Marx's perceived omissions.

Max Weber exerted a major influence, as did Sigmund Freud (as in Herbert Marcuse's Freudo-Marxist synthesis in the 1954 work Eros and Civilization). Their emphasis on the "critical" component of theory was derived significantly from their attempt to overcome the limits of positivism, crude materialism, and phenomenology by returning to Kant's critical philosophy and its successors in German idealism, principally Hegel's philosophy, with its emphasis on negation and contradiction as inherent properties of reality.

[edit] Cultural Marxism

Cultural Marxism is a form of Marxism that adds a critical theory based Marxist analysis of the role of the media, art, theatre, film and other cultural institutions in a society, often with an added emphasis on race and gender in addition to class. As a form of political analysis, Cultural Marxism gained strength in the 1920s, and was the model used by the Frankfurt School at Columbia University; and later by another group of intellectuals at the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies at the University of Birmingham, England.

[edit] Autonomist Marxism

Autonomism is a term applied to a variety of social movements around the world, which emphasizes the ability to organize in autonomous and horizontal networks, as opposed to hierarchical structures such as unions or parties. Autonomist Marxists, including Harry Cleaver, broaden the definition of the working-class to include salaried and unpaid labour, such as skilled professions and housework; it focuses on the working class in advanced capitalist states as the primary force of change in the construct of capital. Modern autonomist theorists such as Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt argue that network power constructs are the most effective methods of organization against the neoliberal regime of accumulation, and predict a massive shift in the dynamics of capital into a 21st Century Empire.

[edit] Analytical Marxism

Analytical Marxism refers to a style of thinking about Marxism that was prominent amongst a half-dozen analytically trained English-speaking philosophers and social scientists during the 1980s. It was mainly associated with the September Group of academics, so called because they have biennial meetings in varying locations every other September to discuss common interests. The group also dubbed itself "Non-Bullshit Marxism" (Cohen 2000a). It was characterized, in the words of David Miller, by "clear and rigorous thinking about questions that are usually blanketed by ideological fog". (Miller 1994)

[edit] Marxist humanism

Marxist humanism is a branch of Marxism that primarily focuses on Marx's earlier writings, especially the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844 in which Marx develops his theory of alienation, as opposed to his later works, which are considered to be concerned more with his structural conception of capitalist society. It was opposed by Louis Althusser's "antihumanism", who qualified it as a revisionist movement.

Marxist humanists contend that 'Marxism' developed lopsided because Marx's early works were unknown until after the orthodox ideas were in vogue – the Manuscripts of 1844 were published only in 1932 – and it is necessary to understand Marx's philosophical foundations to understand his latter works properly.

[edit] Marxist theology

Although Marx was intensely critical of institutionalized religion including Christianity, some Christians have "accepted the basic premises of Marxism and attempted to reinterpret Christian faith from this perspective."[19] Some of the resulting examples are some forms of liberation theology and black liberation theology. Pope Benedict XVI strongly opposed radical liberation theology while he was still a cardinal, with the Vatican condemning acceptance of Marxism. Black liberation theologian James Cone wrote in his book For My People that "for analyzing the structure of capitalism. Marxism as a tool of social analysis can disclose the gap between appearance and reality, and thereby help Christians to see how things really are."[20]

[edit] Key Western Marxists

[edit] Georg Lukács

Georg Lukács (April 13, 1885 – June 4, 1971) was a Hungarian Marxist philosopher and literary critic in the tradition of Western Marxism. His main work History and Class Consciousness (written between 1919 and 1922 and first published in 1923), initiated the current of thought that came to be known as Western Marxism. The book is notable for contributing to debates concerning Marxism and its relation to sociology, politics and philosophy, and for reconstructing Marx's theory of alienation before many of the works of the Young Marx had been published. Lukács's work elaborates and expands upon Marxist theories such as ideology, false consciousness, reification and class consciousness.

[edit] Karl Korsch

Karl Korsch (August 15, 1886 - October 21, 1961) was born in Tostedt, near Hamburg, to the family of a middle-ranking bank official.

In his later work, he rejected orthodox (classical) Marxism as historically outmoded, wanting to adapt Marxism to a new historical situation. He wrote in his Ten Theses (1950) that "the first step in re-establishing a revolutionary theory and practice consists in breaking with that Marxism which claims to monopolize revolutionary initiative as well as theoretical and practical direction" and that "today, all attempts to re-establish the Marxist doctrine as a whole in its original function as a theory of the working classes social revolution are reactionary utopias."[21]

Korsch was especially concerned that Marxist theory was losing its precision and validity - in the words of the day, becoming "vulgarized" - within the upper echelons of the various socialist organizations. His masterwork, Marxism and Philosophy is an attempt to re-establish the historic character of Marxism as the heir to Hegel.

[edit] Antonio Gramsci

Antonio Gramsci (January 22, 1891 – April 27, 1937) was an Italian writer, politician and political theorist. He was a founding member and onetime leader of the Communist Party of Italy. Gramsci can be seen as one of the most important Marxist thinkers of the twentieth century, and in particular a key thinker in the development of Western Marxism. He wrote more than 30 notebooks and 3000 pages of history and analysis during his imprisonment. These writings, known as the Prison Notebooks, contain Gramsci's tracing of Italian history and nationalism, as well as some ideas in Marxist theory, critical theory and educational theory associated with his name, such as:

[edit] Herbert Marcuse

Herbert Marcuse (July 19, 1898 – July 29, 1979) was a prominent German-American philosopher and sociologist of Jewish descent, and a member of the Frankfurt School.

Marcuse's critiques of capitalist society (especially his 1955 synthesis of Marx and Freud, Eros and Civilization, and his 1964 book One-Dimensional Man) resonated with the concerns of the leftist student movement in the 1960s. Because of his willingness to speak at student protests, Marcuse soon became known as "the father of the New Left," a term he disliked and rejected.

[edit] Jean-Paul Sartre

Jean-Paul Sartre (June 21, 1905 – April 15, 1980) was already a key and influential philosopher and playwright for his early writings on individualistic existentialism. In his later career, he attempted to reconcile the existential philosophy of Søren Kierkegaard with Marxist philosophy and Hegelian dialectics in his work Critique of Dialectical Reason.[22]

Sartre was also involved in Marxist politics and was impressed upon visiting Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara, calling him "not only an intellectual but also the most complete human being of our age".[23]

[edit] Louis Althusser

Louis Althusser (October 16, 1918 – October 22, 1990) was a Marxist philosopher. He was a lifelong member and sometimes strong critic of the French Communist Party. His arguments and theses were set against the threats that he saw attacking the theoretical foundations of Marxism. These included both the influence of empiricism on Marxist theory, and humanist and reformist socialist orientations which manifested as divisions in the European Communist Parties, as well as the problem of the 'cult of personality' and of ideology itself. Althusser is commonly referred to as a Structural Marxist, although his relationship to other schools of French structuralism is not a simple affiliation and he is critical of many aspects of structuralism.

His essay Marxism and Humanism is a strong statement of anti-humanism in Marxist theory, condemning ideas like "human potential" and "species-being", which are often put forth by Marxists, as outgrowths of a bourgeois ideology of "humanity". His essay Contradiction and Overdetermination borrows the concept of overdetermination from psychoanalysis, in order to replace the idea of "contradiction" with a more complex model of multiple causality in political situations (an idea closely related to Antonio Gramsci's concept of hegemony).

Althusser is also widely known as a theorist of ideology, and his best-known essay is Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses: Notes Toward an Investigation.[24] The essay establishes the concept of ideology, also based on Gramsci's theory of hegemony. Whereas hegemony is ultimately determined entirely by political forces, ideology draws on Freud's and Lacan's concepts of the unconscious and mirror-phase respectively, and describes the structures and systems that allow us to meaningfully have a concept of the self.

[edit] Hill, Hobsbawm, and Thompson

British Marxism deviated sharply from French (especially Althusserian) Marxism and, like the Frankfurt School, developed an attention to cultural experience and an emphasis on human agency while growing increasingly distant from determinist views of materialism. A circle of historians inside the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) formed the Communist Party Historians Group in 1946. They shared a common interest in 'history from below' and class structure in early capitalist society. Important members of the group included E.P. Thompson, Eric Hobsbawm, Christopher Hill and Raphael Samuel.

While some members of the group (most notably E.P. Thompson) left the CPGB after the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, the common points of British Marxist historiography continued in their works. They placed a great emphasis on the subjective determination of history. E. P. Thompson famously engaged Althusser in The Poverty of Theory,[25] arguing that Althusser's theory overdetermined history, and left no space for historical revolt by the oppressed.

[edit] Post-Marxism

Post-Marxism represents the theoretical work of philosophers and social theorists who have built their theories upon those of Marx and Marxists but exceeded the limits of those theories in ways that puts them outside of Marxism. It begins with the basic tenets of Marxism but moves away from the Mode of Production as the starting point for analysis and includes factors other than class, such as gender, ethnicity etc., and a reflexive relationship between the base and superstructure.

Marxism remains a powerful theory in some unexpected and relatively obscure places, and is not always properly labeled as "Marxism". For example, many Mexican and some American archaeologists still employ a Marxist model to explain the Classic Maya Collapse[citation needed] (c. 900 A.D.) - without mentioning Marxism by name.

[edit] Marxist Feminism

Marxist feminism is a sub-type of feminist theory which focuses on the dismantling of capitalism as a way to liberate women. Marxist feminism states that private property, which gives rise to economic inequality, dependence, political confusion and ultimately unhealthy social relations between men and women, is the root of women's oppression.

According to Marxist theory, in capitalist societies the individual is shaped by class relations; that is, people's capacities, needs and interests are seen to be determined by the mode of production that characterises the society they inhabit. Marxist feminists see gender inequality as determined ultimately by the capitalist mode of production. Gender oppression is class oppression and women's subordination is seen as a form of class oppression which is maintained (like racism) because it serves the interests of capital and the ruling class. Marxist feminists have extended traditional Marxist analysis by looking at domestic labour as well as wage work in order to support their position.

[edit] Marxism as a political practice

Since Marx's death in 1883, various groups around the world have appealed to Marxism as the theoretical basis for their politics and policies, which have often proved to be dramatically different and conflicting. One of the first major political splits occurred between the advocates of 'reformism', who argued that the transition to socialism could occur within existing bourgeois parliamentarian frameworks, and communists, who argued that the transition to a socialist society required a revolution and the dissolution of the capitalist state. The 'reformist' tendency, later known as social democracy, came to be dominant in most of the parties affiliated to the Second International and these parties supported their own governments in the First World War. This issue caused the communists to break away, forming their own parties which became members of the Third International.

The following countries had governments at some point in the twentieth century who at least nominally adhered to Marxism: Albania, Afghanistan, Angola, Benin, Bulgaria, Chile, China, Republic of Congo, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Ethiopia, Grenada, Hungary, Laos, Moldova, Mongolia, Mozambique, Nepal, Nicaragua, North Korea, Poland, Romania, Russia, the USSR and its republics, South Yemen, Yugoslavia, Venezuela, Vietnam. In addition, the Indian states of Kerala, Tripura and West Bengal have had Marxist governments. Some of these governments such as in Venezuela, Nicaragua, Chile, Moldova and parts of India have been democratic in nature and maintained regular multiparty elections, while most governments claiming to be Marxist in nature have established authoritarian governments.

Marxist political parties and movements have significantly declined since the fall of the Soviet Union, with some exceptions, perhaps most notably Nepal.

[edit] History

The 1917 October Revolution, led by Vladimir Lenin, was the first large scale attempt to put Marxist ideas about a workers' state into practice. The new government faced counter-revolution, civil war and foreign intervention. Many, both inside and outside the revolution, worried that the revolution came too early in Russia's economic development. Consequently, the major Socialist Party in the UK decried the revolution as anti-Marxist within twenty-four hours, according to Jonathan Wolff.[citation needed] Lenin consistently explained "this elementary truth of Marxism, that the victory of socialism requires the joint efforts of workers in a number of advanced countries" (Lenin, Sochineniya (Works), 5th ed Vol XLIV p418.) It could not be developed in Russia in isolation, he argued, but needed to be spread internationally.

The 1917 October Revolution did help inspire a revolutionary wave over the years that followed, with the development of Communist Parties worldwide, but without success in the vital advanced capitalist countries of Western Europe. Socialist revolution in Germany and other western countries failed, leaving the Soviet Union on its own. An intense period of debate and stopgap solutions ensued, war communism and the New Economic Policy (NEP). Lenin died and Joseph Stalin gradually assumed control, eliminating rivals and consolidating power as the Soviet Union faced the events of the 1930s and its global crisis-tendencies. Amidst the geopolitical threats which defined the period and included the probability of invasion, he instituted a ruthless program of industrialization which, while successful, was executed at great cost in human suffering, including millions of deaths, along with long-term environmental devastation.

Modern followers of Leon Trotsky maintain that as predicted by Lenin, Trotsky, and others already in the 1920s, Stalin's "socialism in one country" was unable to maintain itself, and according to some Marxist critics, the USSR ceased to show the characteristics of a socialist state long before its formal dissolution.

In the 1920s the economic calculation debate between Austrian Economists and Marxist economists took place. The Austrians claimed that Marxism is flawed because prices could not be set to recognize opportunity costs of factors of production, and so socialism could not make rational decisions.

Following World War II, Marxist ideology, often with Soviet military backing, spawned a rise in revolutionary communist parties all over the world. Some of these parties were eventually able to gain power, and establish their own version of a Marxist state. Such nations included the People's Republic of China, Vietnam, Romania, East Germany, Albania, Cambodia, Ethiopia, South Yemen, Yugoslavia, Cuba, and others. In some cases, these nations did not get along. The most notable examples were rifts that occurred between the Soviet Union and China, as well as Soviet Union and Yugoslavia (in 1948), whose leaders disagreed on certain elements of Marxism and how it should be implemented into society.

Many of these self-proclaimed Marxist nations (often styled People's Republics) eventually became authoritarian states, with stagnating economies. This caused some debate about whether Marxism was doomed in practise or these nations were in fact not led by "true Marxists". Critics of Marxism speculated that perhaps Marxist ideology itself was to blame for the nations' various problems. Followers of the currents within Marxism which opposed Stalin, principally cohered around Leon Trotsky, tended to locate the failure at the level of the failure of world revolution: for communism to have succeeded, they argue, it needed to encompass all the international trading relationships that capitalism had previously developed.

The Chinese experience seems to be unique. Rather than falling under a single family's self-serving and dynastic interpretation of Marxism as happened in North Korea and before 1989 in Eastern Europe, the Chinese government - after the end of the struggles over the Mao legacy in 1980 and the ascent of Deng Xiaoping - seems to have solved the succession crises that have plagued self-proclaimed Leninist governments since the death of Lenin himself. Key to this success is another Leninism which is a NEP (New Economic Policy) writ very large; Lenin's own NEP of the 1920s was the "permission" given to markets including speculation to operate by the Party which retained final control. The Russian experience in Perestroika was that markets under socialism were so opaque as to be both inefficient and corrupt but especially after China's application to join the WTO this does not seem to apply universally.

The death of "Marxism" in China has been prematurely announced but since the Hong Kong handover in 1997, the Beijing leadership has clearly retained final say over both commercial and political affairs. Questions remain however as to whether the Chinese Party has opened its markets to such a degree as to be no longer classified as a true Marxist party.[citation needed] A sort of tacit consent, and a desire in China's case to escape the chaos of pre-1949 memory, probably plays a role.

In 1991 the Soviet Union collapsed and the new Russian state ceased to identify itself with Marxism. Other nations around the world followed suit. Since then, radical Marxism or Communism has generally ceased to be a prominent political force in global politics, and has largely been replaced by more moderate versions of democratic socialism—or, more commonly, by neoliberal capitalism. Marxism has also had to engage with the rise in the Environmental movement. A merging of Marxism, socialism, ecology and environmentalism has been achieved[where?], and is often referred to as Eco-socialism.

[edit] Social Democracy

Social democracy is a political ideology that emerged in the late 19th and early 20th century. Many parties in the second half of the 19th century described themselves as social democratic, such as the British Social Democratic Federation, and the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. In most cases these were revolutionary socialist or Marxist groups, who were not only seeking to introduce socialism, but also democracy in un-democratic countries.

The modern social democratic current came into being through a break within the socialist movement in the early 20th century, between two groups holding different views on the ideas of Karl Marx. Many related movements, including pacifism, anarchism, and syndicalism, arose at the same time (often by splitting from the main socialist movement, but also by emerging of new theories.) and had various quite different objections to Marxism. The social democrats, who were the majority of socialists at this time, did not reject Marxism (and in fact claimed to uphold it), but wanted to reform it in certain ways and tone down their criticism of capitalism. They argued that socialism should be achieved through evolution rather than revolution. Such views were strongly opposed by the revolutionary socialists, who argued that any attempt to reform capitalism was doomed to fail, because the reformists would be gradually corrupted and eventually turn into capitalists themselves.

Despite their differences, the reformist and revolutionary branches of socialism remained united until the outbreak of World War I. The war proved to be the final straw that pushed the tensions between them to breaking point. The reformist socialists supported their respective national governments in the war, a fact that was seen by the revolutionary socialists as outright treason against the working class (Since it betrayed the principle that the workers "have no nation", and the fact that usually the lowest classes are the ones sent into the war to fight, and die, putting the cause at the side). Bitter arguments ensued within socialist parties, as for example between Eduard Bernstein (reformist socialist) and Rosa Luxemburg (revolutionary socialist) within the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). Eventually, after the Russian Revolution of 1917, most of the world's socialist parties fractured. The reformist socialists kept the name "Social democrats", while the revolutionary socialists began calling themselves "Communists", and soon formed the modern Communist movement. (See also Comintern)

Since the 1920s, doctrinal differences have been constantly growing between social democrats and Communists (who themselves are not unified on the way to achieve socialism), and Social Democracy is mostly used as a specifically Central European label for Labour Parties since then, especially in Germany and the Netherlands and especially since the 1959 Godesberg Program of the German SPD that rejected the praxis of class struggle altogether.

[edit] Socialism

The term "socialism" could be used to describe two fundamentally different ideologies - democratic socialism and Marxist-Leninist socialism. While Marxist-Leninists (Trotskyists, Stalinists, and Maoists) are often described as communists in the contemporary media, they are not recognized as such academically or by themselves. The Marxist-Leninists sought to work towards the workers' utopia in Marxist ideology by first creating a socialist state, which historically had almost always been a single-party dictatorship. On the other hand, democratic socialists attempt to work towards an ideal state by social reform and are often little different from social democrats, with the democratic socialists having a more leftist stance.

The Marxist-Leninist form of government has been in decline since the collapse of the Soviet Union and its satellite states. Very few countries have governments which describe themselves as socialist. As of 2007, Laos, Vietnam, Cuba, and the People's Republic of China had governments in power which describe themselves as socialist in the Marxist sense.

On the contrary, electoral parties which describe themselves as socialist or democratic socialist are on the rise, joined together by international organizations such as the Socialist International and the Fourth International. Parties described as socialist are currently dominant in Third World democracies and serve as the ruling party or the main opposition party in all European democracies. Eco-socialism, and Green politics with a strong leftist tinge, are on the rise in European democracies.

The characterization of a party or government often has little to do with its actual economical and social platform. The government of mainland China, which describes itself as socialist, allows a large private sector to flourish and is socially conservative compared to most Western democracies. A more specific example is universal health-care, which is a trademark issue of many European socialist parties but does not exist in mainland China. Therefore, the historical and cultural aspects of a movement must be taken into context in order for one to arrive at an accurate conclusion of its political ideology from its nominal characterization.

[edit] Communism

A number of states declared an allegiance to the principles of Marxism and have been ruled by self-described Communist Parties, either as a single-party state or a single list, which includes formally several parties, as was the case in the German Democratic Republic. Due to the dominance of the Communist Party in their governments, these states are often called "communist states" by Western political scientists. However, they have described themselves as "socialist", reserving the term "communism" for a future classless society, in which the state would no longer be necessary (on this understanding of communism, "communist state" would be an oxymoron) – for instance, the USSR was the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Marxists contend that, historically, there has never been any communist country.

Communist governments have historically been characterized by state ownership of productive resources in a planned economy and sweeping campaigns of economic restructuring such as nationalization of industry and land reform (often focusing on collective farming or state farms.) While they promote collective ownership of the means of production, Communist governments have been characterized by a strong state apparatus in which decisions are made by the ruling Communist Party. Dissident 'authentic' communists have characterized the Soviet model as state socialism or state capitalism.

[edit] Marxism-Leninism

Marxism-Leninism, strictly speaking, refers to the version of Marxism developed by Vladimir Lenin known as Leninism[citation needed]. However, in various contexts, different (and sometimes opposing) political groups have used the term "Marxism-Leninism" to describe the ideologies that they claimed to be upholding. The core ideological features of Marxism-Leninism are those of Marxism and Leninism, that is to say, belief in the necessity of a violent overthrow of capitalism through communist revolution, to be followed by a dictatorship of the proletariat as the first stage of moving towards communism, and the need for a vanguard party to lead the proletariat in this effort. Those who view themselves as Marxist-Leninists, however, vary with regards to the leaders and thinkers that they choose to uphold as progressive (and to what extent). Maoists tend to downplay the importance of all other thinkers in favour of Mao Zedong, whereas Hoxhaists repudiate Mao.

Leninism holds that capitalism can only be overthrown by revolutionary means; that is, any attempts to reform capitalism from within, such as Fabianism and non-revolutionary forms of democratic socialism, are doomed to fail. The first goal of a Leninist party is to educate the proletariat, so as to remove the various modes of false consciousness the bourgeois have instilled in them, instilled in order to make them more docile and easier to exploit economically, such as religion and nationalism. Once the proletariat has gained class consciousness the party will coordinate the proletariat's total might to overthrow the existing government, thus the proletariat will seize all political and economic power. Lastly the proletariat (thanks to their education by the party) will implement a dictatorship of the proletariat which would bring upon them socialism, the lower phase of communism. After this, the party would essentially dissolve as the entire proletariat is elevated to the level of revolutionaries.

The dictatorship of the proletariat refers to the absolute power of the working class. It is governed by a system of proletarian direct democracy, in which workers hold political power through local councils known as soviets.

[edit] Trotskyism

Trotskyism is the theory of Marxism as advocated by Leon Trotsky. Trotsky considered himself a Bolshevik-Leninist, arguing for the establishment of a vanguard party. He considered himself an advocate of orthodox Marxism. His politics differed sharply from those of Stalin or Mao, most importantly in declaring the need for an international "permanent revolution". Numerous groups around the world continue to describe themselves as Trotskyist and see themselves as standing in this tradition, although they have diverse interpretations of the conclusions to be drawn from this.

Trotsky advocated proletarian revolution as set out in his theory of "permanent revolution", and he argued that in countries where the bourgeois-democratic revolution had not triumphed already (in other words, in places that had not yet implemented a capitalist democracy, such as Russia before 1917), it was necessary that the proletariat make it permanent by carrying out the tasks of the social revolution (the "socialist" or "communist" revolution) at the same time, in an uninterrupted process. Trotsky believed that a new socialist state would not be able to hold out against the pressures of a hostile capitalist world unless socialist revolutions quickly took hold in other countries as well, especially in the industrial powers with a developed proletariat.

On the political spectrum of Marxism, Trotskyists are considered to be on the left. They fervently support democracy, oppose political deals with the imperialist powers, and advocate a spreading of the revolution until it becomes global.

Trotsky developed the theory that the Russian workers' state had become a "bureaucratically degenerated workers' state". Capitalist rule had not been restored, and nationalized industry and economic planning, instituted under Lenin, were still in effect. However, the state was controlled by a bureaucratic caste with interests hostile to those of the working class. Trotsky defended the Soviet Union against attack from imperialist powers and against internal counter-revolution, but called for a political revolution within the USSR to restore socialist democracy. He argued that if the working class did not take power away from the Stalinist bureaucracy, the bureaucracy would restore capitalism in order to enrich itself. In the view of many Trotskyists, this is exactly what has happened since the beginning of Glasnost and Perestroika in the USSR. Some argue that the adoption of market socialism by the People's Republic of China has also led to capitalist counter-revolution.

[edit] Maoism

Maoism or Mao Zedong Thought (simplified Chinese: 毛泽东思想; traditional Chinese: 毛澤東思想; pinyin: Máo Zédōng Sīxiǎng), is a variant of Marxism-Leninism derived from the teachings of the Chinese communist leader Mao Zedong (Wade-Giles transliteration: "Mao Tse-tung").

The term "Mao Zedong Thought" has always been the preferred term by the Communist Party of China, and the word "Maoism" has never been used in its English-language publications except pejoratively. Likewise, Maoist groups outside China have usually called themselves Marxist-Leninist rather than Maoist, a reflection of Mao's view that he did not change, but only developed, Marxism-Leninism. However, some[who?] Maoist groups, believing Mao's theories to have been sufficiently substantial additions to the basics of the Marxist canon, call themselves "Marxist-Leninist-Maoist" (MLM) or simply "Maoist".

In the People's Republic of China, Mao Zedong Thought is part of the official doctrine of the Communist Party of China, but since the 1978 beginning of Deng Xiaoping's market economy-oriented reforms, the concept of "socialism with Chinese characteristics" has come to the forefront of Chinese politics, Chinese economic reform has taken hold, and the official definition and role of Mao's original ideology in the PRC has been radically altered and reduced (see History of China).

Unlike the earlier forms of Marxism-Leninism in which the urban proletariat was seen as the main source of revolution, and the countryside was largely ignored, Mao believed that peasantry could be the main force behind a revolution, led by the proletariat and a vanguard Communist party. The model for this was of course the Chinese communist rural Protracted People's War of the 1920s and 1930s, which eventually brought the Communist Party of China to power. Furthermore, unlike other forms of Marxism-Leninism in which large-scale industrial development was seen as a positive force, Maoism made all-round rural development the priority.

Mao felt that this strategy made sense during the early stages of socialism in a country in which most of the people were peasants. Unlike most other political ideologies, including other socialist and Marxist ones, Maoism contains an integral military doctrine and explicitly connects its political ideology with military strategy. In Maoist thought, "political power grows from the barrel of the gun" (a famous quote by Mao), and the peasantry can be mobilized to undertake a "people's war" of armed struggle involving guerrilla warfare in three stages.

[edit] Left communism

Left communism is the range of communist viewpoints held by the Communist Left, which criticizes the political ideas of the Bolsheviks from a position that is asserted to be more authentically Marxist and proletarian than the views of Leninism held by the Communist International after its first two Congresses.

Two major traditions can be observed within Left communism: the Dutch-German tradition; and the Italian tradition. The political positions those traditions have in common are a shared opposition to what is termed frontism, nationalism, all kinds of national liberation movements and parliamentarianism and there is an underlying commonality at a level of abstract theory. Crucially, Left Communist groups from both traditions tend to identify elements of commonality in each other.

The historical origins of Left Communism can be traced to the period before the First World War, but it only came into focus after 1918 . All Left Communists were supportive of the October Revolution in Russia, but retained a critical view of its development. Some, however, would in later years come to reject the idea that the revolution had a proletarian or socialist nature, asserting that it had simply carried out the tasks of the bourgeois revolution by creating a state capitalist system.

Left Communism first came into being as a clear movement in or around 1918. Its essential features were: a stress on the need to build a Communist Party entirely separate from the reformist and centrist elements who were seen as having betrayed socialism in 1914, opposition to all but the most restricted participation in elections, and an emphasis on the need for revolutionaries to move on the offensive. Apart from that, there was little in common between the various wings. Only the Italians accepted the need for electoral work at all for a very short period of time, and the German-Dutch, Italian and Russian wings opposed the "right of nations to self-determination", which they denounced as a form of bourgeois nationalism.

[edit] Disputing these claims

Some academics[who?] dispute the claim that the above political movements are Marxist. Communist governments have historically been characterized by state ownership of productive resources in a planned economy and sweeping campaigns of economic restructuring such as nationalization of industry and land reform (often focusing on collective farming or state farms.) While they promote collective ownership of the means of production, Communist governments have been characterized by a strong state apparatus in which decisions are made by the ruling Communist Party. Dissident communists have characterized the Soviet model as state socialism or state capitalism. Further, critics such as Leon Trotsky and Rosa Luxemburg have often claimed that a Stalinist or Maoist system of government creates a new ruling class, usually called the nomenklatura.

Marx defined "communism" as a classless, egalitarian and stateless society. To Marx, the notion of a communist state would have seemed an oxymoron, as he defined communism as the phase reached when class society and the state had already been abolished. Once the lower stage towards communism, commonly referred to as socialism, had been established, society would develop new social relations over the course of several generations, reaching what Marx called the higher phase of communism when not only bourgeois relations but every class social relations had been abandoned. Such a development has yet to occur in any historical self-claimed socialist state.

Some[who?] argue that socialist states have contained two new distinct classes: those who are in government and therefore have power, and those who are not in government and do not have power. Sometimes, this is taken to be a different form of capitalism, in which the government, as owner of the means of production, takes on the role formerly played by the bourgeois class; this arrangement is referred to as "State capitalism". These statist regimes have generally followed a command economy model without making a transition to this hypothetical final stage.

[edit] Criticisms

Criticisms of Marxism are many and varied. They concern both the theory itself, and its later interpretations and implementations.

[edit] Right

Marx and Engels never dedicated much work to show how exactly a communist economy would function, leaving Marxism, at least in its classical form, a "negative ideology," concerned primarily with criticism of the status quo. Later generations of Marxists have attempted to fill in the gap, resulting in several different and competing Marxist views of the way a communist society should be organized.

Prominent economist Milton Friedman was of the opinion that free markets are the best and most efficient way of running the economy for the benefit of all.[26] In the economic calculation debate between Austrian Economists and Marxist economists, the Austrians claimed that Marxism is flawed because without a market for productive factors, which Marxism would abolish, productive factors could not be labeled with market prices and therefore, so the Austrians say, Marxism makes rational economic calculation impossible and would lead to social collapse. This criticism could also be seen as part of the Austrian School's general criticism of command-control-type mathematical modelling and Keynesian "fine-tuning" of the economy generally, which Austrian economists believe is not possible due to the inherent complexity of market participants' ever-evolving subjective choices.

Individualists disagree with the basic approach of Marxism, that of viewing all people as acting under the influence of socio-economic forces, and instead focus on the differences and unpredictable actions of individuals.

[edit] Left

Criticisms of Marxism have come from the political left as well:

[edit] See also

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Bridget O'Laughlin (1975) Marxist Approaches in Anthropology Annual Review of Anthropology Vol. 4: pp. 341–70 (October 1975) (doi:10.1146/annurev.an.04.100175.002013).
    William Roseberry (1997) Marx and Anthropology Annual Review of Anthropology, Vol. 26: pp. 25–46 (October 1997) (doi:10.1146/annurev.anthro.26.1.25)
  2. ^ S. L. Becker (1984) "Marxist Approaches to Media Studies: The British Experience", Critical Studies in Mass Communication, 1(1): pp. 66–80.
  3. ^ See Manuel Alvarado, Robin Gutch, and Tana Wollen (1987) Learning the Media: Introduction to Media Teaching, Palgrave Macmillan.
  4. ^ See MIA introduction at "The Programme of the Parti Ouvrier"
  5. ^ Not found in search function at Draper Arkiv
  6. ^ Elster, pp. 79–80.
  7. ^ "Alienation" entry, A Dictionary of Sociology
  8. ^ Evans, p. 53; Marx's account of the theory is the Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (1859). [1]. Another exposition of th theory is in The German Ideology. It, too, is available online from marxists.org.
  9. ^ See A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (1859), Preface, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1977, with some notes by R. Rojas, and Engels: Anti-Dühring (1877), Introduction General
  10. ^ Marx does not claim to have produced a master-key to history. Historical materialism is not "an historico-philosophic theory of the marche generale, imposed by fate upon every people, whatever the historic circumstances in which it finds itself", K. Marx, Letter to editor of the Russian newspaper paper Otetchestvennye Zapiskym, 1877) He explains that his ideas are based upon a concrete study of the actual conditions in Europe.
  11. ^ Joseph McCarney: Ideology and False Consciousness, April 2005
  12. ^ Engels: Letter to Franz Mehring, (London 14 July 1893), Donna Torr, translator, in Marx and Engels Correspondence, International Publishers, 1968
  13. ^ Karl Marx, The German Ideology
  14. ^ For example, the Communist Party of China alone has more than 66 million members. See http://www.chinatoday.com/org/cpc/
  15. ^ http://www.marx2mao.com/Stalin/FL24.html#c1
  16. ^ http://www.workers.org/2008/us/ww_1982_1120/
  17. ^ http://www.plp.org/books/Stalin/node14.html#SECTION00500000000000000000
  18. ^ "The characterisation of the anti-bureaucratic revolution as "political revolution" referred to the fact that the bureaucracy had politically expropriated the proletariat ..." http://www.radicalsocialist.in/index.php/articles/marxist-theory/100-capitalist-restoration-in-the-former-soviet-union
  19. ^ "Marxist Theology" in The Westminster Dictionary of Christian Theology, p. 352.
  20. ^ [2] Marxist Roots of Black Liberation Theology[unreliable source?]
  21. ^ Karl Korsch (1950) Ten Theses on Marxism Today
  22. ^ [plato.stanford.edu/entries/sartre/ Jean-Paul Sartre on Stanford Encyclopedia.]
  23. ^ Anderson, Jon. Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life. 1997 p.468
  24. ^ Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses: Notes Toward an Investigation is available in several English volumes including Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays
  25. ^ Thompson, E. P., (1978). The Poverty of Theory & other essays Merlin, 1978. ISBN 085036-231-8.
  26. ^ Free to Choose, Milton Friedman

[edit] References

[edit] External links

[edit] General resources

[edit] Introductory articles

[edit] Marxist websites

[edit] Specific topics

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