Was Karl Marx evil or naive?
He was actually very evil, not merely na?ve, and certainly not anything else but evil.
Let's not forget that when discussing Communism with Friedrich Engels around 1849, he said, and I quote, "Once we are at the helm, we shall be obliged to reenact the year 1793?When our time comes, we shall not conceal terrorism with hypocritical phrases. . . The vengeance of the people will break forth with such ferocity that not even the year 1793 enables us to envisage it."
To put it into more context (really hate that phrase, but still...), Karl Marx was referring to the French Revolution, or more specifically, Robespierre's reign of terror. At the time he said this, most people in Europe especially would have still been very much aware of what was going on during that time, having lived in its shadow, and said event had the guillotine blade lop off 17,000 times in 1793 alone, and that's not even counting the beatings by street mobs, or the drownings, or any of the far more horrific killings. It's like declaring during 1960s America that not only should one party be obliged to reenact the year 1942 upon taking power in direct reference to the creation of the Nazi death camps, but also specifically advocating that they kill even MORE people than that time. In case anyone wants the source: Marx-Engels Gesamt-Ausgabe, vol. vi pp 503-505, final issue of Neue Rheinische Zeitung, May 18, 1849. Quoted in Thomas G. West, Marx and Lenin, The Claremont Institute
And then we should note what he said just a year earlier, where he explicitly advocated for revolutionary violence:
"There is only one way in which the murderous death agonies of the old society and the bloody birth throes of the new society can be shortened, simplified and concentrated, and that way is revolutionary terror."
Source: Marx, Karl, ?The Victory of the Counterrevolution in Vienna?, Neue Rheinische Zeitung, November 1848.
That shows he knows EXACTLY what his views would result in, which is MASS death and carnage, all for a laugh.
5.5K viewsView upvotes
He was actually very evil, not merely na?ve, and certainly not anything else but evil.
Let's not forget that when discussing Communism with Friedrich Engels around 1849, he said, and I quote, "Once we are at the helm, we shall be obliged to reenact the year 1793?When our time comes, we shall not conceal terrorism with hypocritical phrases. . . The vengeance of the people will break forth with such ferocity that not even the year 1793 enables us to envisage it."
To put it into more context (really hate that phrase, but still...), Karl Marx was referring to the French Revolution, or more specifically, Robespierre's reign of terror. At the time he said this, most people in Europe especially would have still been very much aware of what was going on during that time, having lived in its shadow, and said event had the guillotine blade lop off 17,000 times in 1793 alone, and that's not even counting the beatings by street mobs, or the drownings, or any of the far more horrific killings. It's like declaring during 1960s America that not only should one party be obliged to reenact the year 1942 upon taking power in direct reference to the creation of the Nazi death camps, but also specifically advocating that they kill even MORE people than that time. In case anyone wants the source: Marx-Engels Gesamt-Ausgabe, vol. vi pp 503-505, final issue of Neue Rheinische Zeitung, May 18, 1849. Quoted in Thomas G. West, Marx and Lenin, The Claremont Institute
And then we should note what he said just a year earlier, where he explicitly advocated for revolutionary violence:
"There is only one way in which the murderous death agonies of the old society and the bloody birth throes of the new society can be shortened, simplified and concentrated, and that way is revolutionary terror."
Source: Marx, Karl, ?The Victory of the Counterrevolution in Vienna?, Neue Rheinische Zeitung, November 1848.
That shows he knows EXACTLY what his views would result in, which is MASS death and carnage, all for a laugh.
5.5K viewsView upvotes
