Keith_w wrote:DMcCunney wrote:Germany had a fair number of Marxists, but Mark thought a developed nation like Germany was where Communism would develop. The notion is might take root in still agrarian and feudal societies like Russia was not one that occurred to most Marxists.
The Marxists were hardly the only ones the existing ruling classes worried about. Socialists were seen as a greater threat, as were major industries not under the control of the existing nobility, with industrialists amassing fortunes that exceeded the nobles, and a middle class that increasingly expected a voice in how things were run. Religion was also in that mix, with Catholic versus Protestant one of the major cleavages.
<Snipped for Brevity not because I disagree with or dislike anything not included>
Although I cannot tell you where I read it, I recall reading that Marx was terrified at the thought of marxism being implemented in agrarian societies such as Russia's.
You may well be right. I was reading some histories of the period and believe I saw similar sentiments.
As for fear of Marxists and Socialists, let us not forget Anarchists as well. I was just reading up on Anarchism and see that Marxism was originally included in that political spectrum although true Anarchists believed that Marxism would simply replace one set of rulers with another and it looks as though they were correct.
Quite right. I left out the Anarchists because my point was simply that the Marxists were far from the only concern of the ruling classes.
Marx foresaw that sort of thing withering away as True Communism came to fruition, but did see a period of leadership required to guide it to that point. Anarchists would not have been pleased at the notion.
I was also somewhat grimly amused at the process that produced what we think of as Germany, which was a political effort by Bismark to unify a batch of independent polities whose main thing in common was that they all spoke a dialect of German. Bismark was concerned with how not to include German speaking areas like Austria, because his goal was a German federation dominated by Prussia and ruled by the Prussian monarchy.
He was a classic reactionary, who wanted the King and the Junkers to remain firmly in control.
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Dennis