Marxism is a revolutionary theory and a guide to action for the working-class struggle against capitalism.
There are three parts to Marxism:
Karl Marx was a revolutionary, socialist, economist and political scientist. Marx examined society from many different angles. He studied the world, nature and history, and began to discover the laws that govern societal and economic evolution. Just as Charles Darwin discovered the law of development of organic nature, Marx discovered the law of development of human history. Marx showed that societies develop through the way people produce and reproduce the means of life, the social relations that arise from production, and the class struggles rooted in those relations. This is the materialist conception of history — historical materialism.
Having recognized that the economic system is the foundation on which the legal, political and ideological superstructure is erected, Marx devoted his greatest attention to the study of that economic system. Marx’s principal work, Capital, is devoted to the study of capitalism.
Marx was more than a thinker or an academic. He was a revolutionary organizer and, with Frederick Engels, co-author of the “Communist Manifesto.” He took part directly in the class struggle, helping to organize the Communist League and later the International Working Men’s Association. The Communist Manifesto concludes “Proletarians of all countries, unite!” which was amended by the Communist International at the Congress of the Peoples of the East in Baku, Azerbaijan, in 1920 to “Workers of the world and oppressed peoples, unite!” to reflect the changed character of capitalism, which had been transformed into monopoly capitalism and imperialism.
We are taught that greed and selfishness are simply human nature. Marxism shows otherwise. Human beings have lived under many different forms of society, and their behavior has changed with the way they produced and shared the means of life. Capitalism rewards competition and private gain, then calls the results natural and eternal.
Dialectical and historical materialism give us a scientific way to understand how society develops and changes. They show that social relations are made by people under definite material conditions — and that people can change them. [read more]
Capital
Capital, says the capitalist, is money used in the production of more money. The teachers of capitalist political economy put it more “scientifically.” They explain that capital is factories, machinery, raw materials, and money to pay wages. [read more]
Capitalism
The bosses like to call it “free enterprise.” But for the millions locked into hard, boring jobs with no relief except unemployment, the present system is neither free nor enterprising. What makes capitalism tick — and why does it so often lead to war and economic catastrophe? [read more]
Class struggle
“The workers have nothing to lose but their chains.” “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.” “Workers of the world and oppressed peoples, unite!” [read more]
Imperialism
Capitalism must expand or die. When monopoly capital is driven beyond national borders in search of markets, resources and profits — economically and militarily — this is imperialism, the highest and last stage of capitalism. [read more]
Racism and oppressed nations
In an open colonial relationship, it is easy to recognize an oppressed nation. Imperialism has made national oppression more complex by uprooting and dispersing peoples, redrawing borders and suppressing languages and cultures. [read more]
Class solidarity
One of the greatest weapons that workers and oppressed people possess against the bosses and capitalists is our unity. [read more]
Exploitation
Everybody who works for a capitalist is exploited. If the capitalist couldn’t profit from your labor, they wouldn’t hire you. [read more]
Private property
Private property, to a communist, is not your shoes or toothbrush, or even your house. [read more]
Women’s oppression
The oppression of women in the 21st century takes many forms and reaches into every part of social life. [read more]
LGBTQ+ oppression
For much of modern history, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and Two-Spirit people were forced into invisibility. [read more]
Self-determination
All workers, regardless of national background, have the same class interests. They all need to eliminate capitalist exploitation and replace the rule of the bosses with the rule of the workers — socialism. It is clear that this tremendous task can’t be achieved without the closest possible unity and trust among all workers. But when one or several sections of the working class are oppressed over and above the class as a whole, when they are part of a people that constitutes an oppressed nation, then the problems of unity are complicated. [read more]
Culture
Culture reaches into every part of social life. It is part of the superstructure. Our thoughts, ideas, language, arts and forms of human expression are shaped by and connected to society’s culture. [read more]
How the sate arose
When Marxists speak of the state, they do not mean New York, Ohio or California. They mean the machinery through which one class rules another, including the government, courts, police, prisons and armed forces. [read more]
The state today
The U.S. has developed one of the most expensive state machines in human history. The federal military budget alone has passed $1 trillion, not counting the classified budgets of paramilitary organizations like the CIA. [read more]