What if Karl Marx had died in June of 1844?

[JohnT]

What would be the effects upon the world had Karl Marx been killed* in his early days in Paris, say June 1844, (or at any time before he met Engles)?

*Make up your own scenario - the one I have in mind has him getting kicked by a spooked horse while walking along the streets of Paris. The previous thread taught me my lesson: if somebody doesn't like the scenario, they won't bother to answer the question. Sava.

[Lonestar]

Che would have to find something else to rally behind.

[monkspider]

We would all be speaking Dutch right now.

[DRoseDARs]

I don't like this scenario. It dismisses Eastern philsophies that had already come to similar conclusions as Marx millenia ago. (<-Parodying myself. )

Question: Was June 1844 BEFORE he wrote, erm...*draws a blank again*...what he wrote?

[JohnT]

Yes, it was before he wrote anything of much consequence, including the Communist Manifesto (1848) and Das Kapital (no idea). I'm literally asking:

"What would the world be like if Marx died before he met Engles"?

[The Templar]

I know some of the more "rugged individualist" types won't like this, but they are wrong. So here it goes:

Someone else would have come up with a similar theory. Marxism was "in the air" or just part of the zeitgiest. People do not just pull ideas out of thin air. Moreover, it takes the surrounding society to pick up on these ideas. Someone would have come up a similar theory, and the same people would have likely picked up on it.

I think Marx would agree

[Spiffor]

Not much different. The socialists would have had other intellectuals to build their ideology upon.
On the scope of the ideology, things could have been different (more radical, or better thought out as there would be no star to shadow over other socialist scholars). But these changes are only interesting if you're into ideological scholarship.

If you're talking about the world history, I say there would have been about no change. Socialist agitation didn't wait for Marx, and Marxism wasn't much used by socialist parties or countries despite the rethoric. Example : Marx said the revolution would be successful in highly industrialized countries (he had Germany in mind), and in the end, the German revolution failed, while the Russian and Chinese ones succeeded.

[JohnT]

I have no doubt that socialism would still emerge as a dominant political force, but don't doubt the importance of personality on these sort of things. Imagine if the AH's Marx's "successor" (for want of a better word) was a lot less confrontational and strident in his writing, used far fewer violent epigrams, and (unlike the real Marx) wasn't overtly hostile to religion. Would Stalin, Lenin, Mao, Pol Pot, etc rise to the same prominence in a "kinder, gentler" communist movement, one that was more willing to incorporate (or at least tolerate) the elements of traditional religion?

[Spiffor]

At the time Marx was writing, there was already a stringent opposition to religion in the left. The whole tone of the left (with its anarchist representatives such as Proudhon) was very radical, which fitted the extreme social tension of that time. Religion was seen as an element of the Bourgeois order, and would have continued to be seen so until social democracy came and soothed the working class in industrial countries.

The working class became calm only once it has been tamed by the social democracy. During Marx era, a 'kinder gentler' communism would have had very small support.

[mrmitchell]

Marxism would be called Bananaism, a whole sociopolitical landscape in which everyone lived their life as they saw fit and prejudice did not exist. Hitler would have merely been a struggling arts student, love would roam freely around the world, and prostitution would be legal and far cheaper.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Without Marx, you wouldn't have had a 'unifying' force of the left, basically. It would be a plethora of various lefty groups fighting among each other (like now ). Marx did bring some unification to the far left, for a little while anyway. Yes, you did have your anarchists still, but most lefties were Marxists.

I also think that these groups would not have been as powerful as the Marxist ideology was. There would be many, many mini revolutions which would turn quickly to guerrila warfare. Somewhere down the line some moderate commies would start to gain power and go for a middle ground between the radicals and right-wing. 'Social Democracy' (or whatever it would be called) would be the dominent ideology much earlier and would take over countries, especially like Russia, which never would have gone Bolshevik.

[GePap]

As templar said, something very close to what Marx said would have come up: I really have to wonder how much effect, for example, Marx had on the Paris Commune. Radicals and anarchists would have continued to be active,as well as socialists (who did not come out of Marx either). Various old empires were realy on the verge of being torn apart..I doub what would have come up in those vacuums would have somehow been more humanitarian than Marxism.

As for particulars like this guy's rule or that guys, too much is involved for one act, like no Marx, making that great a shift.

[JCG]

I agree that the end result would probably be similar, but by all means not necessarily equal to the history we know.

The minimum changes caused by Marx's death would create other small differences that could, if they gathered enough weight, potentially affect history in ways we cannot guess nor measure (and I won't pretend to try).

[The Vagabond]

Then the world would be decades behind in what concerns welfare and social justice, and the working classes would be under a harsher exploitation.

[Giancarlo]

Originally posted by The Vagabond
Then the world would be decades behind in what concerns welfare and social justice, and the working classes would be under a harsher exploitation.

where did you get that from? Pravda?

Actually 40 million people wouldn't of died under Stalin. And the world would be a better place right now without Marx, who was a raving lunatic.