Marxism: Impossible to Implement

Marxism: Impossible to Implement

            During the discussion of Marx’s Communist Manifesto, there was an argument over whether socialism and Marxism are effective or not. I was originally of the idea that by viewing Marxism through the context of history, one could determine that Marxism was a failure. I thought that by looking at such examples as the Soviet Union and Cuba that I knew for a fact that Marxism would fail again if it were ever implemented. In fact, I still believe that it would now, just not for the same reason. When we were discussing Marxism, an idea was brought up that Marxism does not work in practice because it has always been attempted with an extremely large group of people, i.e. an entire nation. In fact there are some groups that live communally in a way that is successful, but of course these groups are small. When these groups are small it is easy to punish anyone who does not follow the group’s rules, however once the group is in the size of thousands or greater, it becomes much more difficult to enforce the Marxist ideals.

            In the examples of the Soviet Union and Cuba, the reason Marxism failed was because it was never truly implemented in the first place. Both the Soviet Union and Cuba fell prey to autocratic regimes that rose to power under the guise of communist revolution. These autocratic rulers were deemed necessary because it was thought to be the only way to enforce Marxist law and society. This is true, because with such a large community, it would be nearly impossible to force everyone to abide by the Marxist ideals without a ruler with absolute authority. However, this situation also poses a huge flaw in its own ideology. Marxism proposes that the proletariat destroy the bourgeoisie, however, when an autocratic leader is put into power, he becomes the new upper class. The upper class is the thing that the proletariat are constantly in conflict with according to Marx, so by having essentially a bourgeoisie member ruling over the masses to enforce Marxism a paradox is created.

            Essentially, the problem with Marxism is not entirely within its own theory, although there are many issues with that as well, but instead with its implementation. In theory Marxism should work, maybe not perfectly, but nonetheless work. However in the practice of entire nations or societies it is entirely impossible to create a true Marxist “paradise” due to the fact that it would require the rule of one person over the many, who would be able to use exploitation of labor to achieve his goals, which is in direct contradiction with the true beliefs of Marxism.