I took a sociology class in my Junior year of high school, just for kicks and giggles. I thought it'd be fun--and in all honesty, it really was. Unfortunately, I'm doomed to run around for the rest of my life defending the so called "Father of Socialism" thanks to that class.
It's not that I believe that communism is the way. I like my democracy quite a lot, to tell the truth. I don't think that the system we know today works, at all. But nevertheless, my feathers still get ruffled whenever people, like say, Presidential Hopeful John McCain, make remarks about Fidel Castro getting the illustrious chance to meet Marx soon. And I'm pretty sure that most of you who believe in Heaven are feeling pretty comfortable in the fact that you won't be getting the chance to meet Castro when you finally kick the bucket.
And that's all very well and good, except that assuming Marx and Castro do end up in the same general area, Marx will be delivering Castro a swift punch to the gut.
Little known fact: Close to Karl Marx's death, he stated very plainly, that he was not a Marxist. Karl Marx is rolling in his grave at the idea of Communism. His form of belief dictated that society is lead by conflict, and eventually we, as a society, will reach a point in our lives where there is no conflict and then this idea of everybody being equal, this idea of "Communism" will naturally instill it's self into our society. There will be no war fought, no revolutionary group overthrowing the government in favor of this new form--this idea of communism will be a natural result.
He also went on to state, at the time he came up with this idea, that it was a very very very long time in coming.
And of course psychologists of the world rolled their eyes and muttered about how sociologists know nothing of the human nature, we will always want what our neighbor has.
So, yeah, Fidel Castro is on his way to the great white pearly gates (and will probably be tossed out before he can get in), and he was a follower of a belief system based loosely on Marx's own belief system.
Loosely, though.
Honestly, though, such ignorance. I feel horrible for Karl Marx, you have to take a specialized class in order to learn that Communism isn't his fault. I wonder how many times his spirit's been sucker punched?
Hi,
Though i feel that you do make some very good point i don think that you quite have fully understood what Marx actually meant when he said "I am not a Marxist". I was NOT that he didn't believe in communist, he did and to him it would not have even mattered as he thought that he was just predicting what will inevitably happen so his beliefs don't even come in to it. But back to the point, when he said that it was because he didn't feel that Marxism is an ideology, in fact he though there was no such thing as ideology, only ideas, history and predictions. So he though that people calling themselves a Marxist was ridiculous as all ideologies are just a false conciseness provided by the capitalist society we live in. It makes us believe that there is such thing as different ideologies but really there is one one final inevitable outcome, communism. As for Castro, HE IS NOT A COMMUNIST LEADER!!!!! never has there been and never will there be, a communist leader as it is completely contradictory! In FULL communism, there is no leaders as everyone makes the decisions together. Before communism, there is the dictatorship of the proletariat, which is where Castro would claim he got to, BUT HE DIDN'T! there was no grande REVOLUTION! This is something people often forget, when Marx was talking about the revolution, he was talking about a complete revolution of everything! For example, Marx and Engles were together some of the first feminists! They felt after the revolution, everyone would become equal! People often make that mistake thinking that Russia had a revolution, they didn't, they just changed the way they were governed! nothing else!
I advise you to go away and read some of the original texts! they are fantastic! Both Marx and Engles are just Brilliant and very few people today fully understand what they meant! it is obvious that you enjoyed you sociology class so go on! Expand you mind!
Good Luck! and keep on supporting those great men who's names have been tainted by a capitalist media!
your truly
Edward Massey