A glaring paradox in the theory of communism, I feel, is the notion of “withering away of the government.” Perhaps, no other formulation could have generated as much ridicule and apathetic laughter. I also used to think – why at all should somebody take the extra burden to conduct and act as a ruler of the rest of the population? Can a person who does not have enough time or is incapable of looking after his own personal affairs be prepared to be a ruler of hundreds of millions of people? 

Outwardly, it may appear that nobody shall take such a heavy and serious responsibility of unmanageable proposition. On the contrary, the human tendency shows that almost all are ready to assume any office of power and authority. This is the strength and beauty of power. It is so alluring that people are ready to reign over the country even from the intensive care unit (ICU) of a hospital. After all, we have witnessed how chief ministers, who were on nasal feed, were still running the government and refusing to leave their seat of power. 

Miracles will have to take place to bring about a change in the approach towards power. We have seen it at its optimum in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republic (U.S.S.R), eastern Europe and China, among others. It was always evident that the communists were invariably drawn to the intoxication of power, in all its manifestations, more than any section of ideological politicians. 

Even today, China, the world’s second-largest populous country (with India recently displacing its long-held domination at the top), is being ruled by just one man irrespective of the nature of the peculiar political system that makes this possible. The quest for power and territorial conquest of the Chinese sovereign is unquenchable as he seeks to bring under his reign even over other land stretching from Taiwan and Hong Kong to Arunachal Pradesh. 

Ironically, he seeks to do all this in the name of communism!

Marx’s erroneous conceptions of power and class

There is no limit to the thirst for power. Yet, Marx peddled this antimony about the “withering away of the government.” Did Marx actually realise the varied dimensions of power, in all its manifestations and forms? For, little could have he predicted the coming of the likes of Joseph Stalin, Mao Tse Tung, Pol Pot, the Kim dynasty and many East European communist leaders who were not just cruel, brutally repressive and whimsical but ensured that the theory and practice of communism become identified with the way they pursued and exercised power. 

Critics have for long pointed at these autocratic epochs to impress upon the world that the theory of communism, when claimed to be a peoples’ movement cannot be practised in a democratic order whereas an equally-dreaded capitalist system thrived across democracies. If anywhere the greed of power is most evidently exhibited, it could have been where the communists were dominantly present. In other words, communism is the greediest network of absolute power wherein ordinary people or the working class are merely used as tools and enablers for the pursuit and acquisition of power.

Thus, what was framed as an ‘emancipatory’ theory for mankind, in practice, turned out to be a system to enslave mankind. 

It will be a rather avoidable and futile exercise to ascertain the most verbose and histrionic declaration of Karl Marx, which, to me, is the statement that “the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggle.” It also puzzled me how someone could make such a profound statement without any sort of credible and conclusive evidence. That, in fact, is the talent of this man. 

For a pretty long time, man lived and advanced without much ‘conscious’ endeavours, but, yet, kept moving forward all the same. What though was evident throughout such periods were his laxity, non-planning, non-voluntariness and classlessness. For that matter, even today people just live out full on their lives without only sort of class concept or consciousness. They have, as such, no such realisation or bother about class approaches at all. The vast majority, in other words, just dwell and pull on without any class prejudice whatsoever. 

One Marx in Europe or Lenin in Russia or a Krishna Pillai in Kerala might have been attracted to the class theory upon which people in general have no inkling at all. All that has been evident in the human endeavour which could be construed as a class approach is, in fact, his unrelenting effort to further improve his standard or quality of life. This is denoted by man’s continuous urge to advance further in life, be it by an increase in wealth and concomitant better living standards, and his elevation from his current ‘class’ and climb to the next available higher ‘class’.

This human endeavour or innate behavioural trait is the direct manifestation of the fact that man as such has no class and, hence, possess an enormous urge to the higher steps of the social ladder. 

Marx’s European influence

Many political scholars are inherently fond of praising Europe for its higher social conditions in comparison to Africa and Asia, which, though, is not factually inaccurate. But the fact remains that Europe has a committed tendency to be with royalty. Even today many of the so-called advanced countries of Europe are kingdoms, which is nothing but their subservience to the royalty. A notable example would be the United Kingdom, with the nomenclature itself pointing to the paradox. Nonetheless, no Englishmen have ever hesitated to point fingers at the plight of Asia and Africa. Yet, they continued to remain unchanged (like the Arabs). 

It seems to be this peculiar approach in Europe that could have led Marx and Engels to conceive the ‘class’ concept as something genuinely prevailing everywhere as if inherent to human endeavour. In fact, the ‘class’ concept is a close clown of the aristocracy still followed in Europe, Arab countries or even Japan, and from which almost all others are free.

It, hence, sounds amusing that Britain or other European countries will not reform their political system and end the reign of the monarchy even while pushing to change the rest of the world in the name of progress.  

Marxism with all its unacceptable inputs built in projections though failed in developed countries gained reasonable inroads in developing and under-developed countries against the postulation of Marx himself. One of the reasons for this is because it was a European utopia. 

Why Hobbes got sidelined and Marx was celebrated

We have a habit of ranking the writings. When it comes to writers, we divide, categorize and rank them. One of the rankings of mass reading goes thus: Marx-Lenin-Shakespeare-Aristotle-Plato-Freud-Noam Chomsky. Consequently, it remains a fact that we may disproportionately, and maybe undeservedly, uphold some work and ditch some others. 

Suppressing and consciously ignoring some outstanding work is reprehensible. The best example could be one of, what I feel, is the greatest work of all times – Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679). Despite the gravity and depth of his work, Hobbes has hardly been heard or read to the extent Marx has been revered and propagated. No study of either political philosophy or jurisprudence could be complete with the study of Leviathan. 

Ironic it may sound that Hobbes was sidelined despite being British and despite the work being considered as “the only work in English on political philosophy that ranks with Plato, Aristotle, Hegel and Marx.” 

J.C.A. Gaskin of Trinity College, who edited the 20th-century edition of the Leviathan, published by the Oxford University Press, had the following to say in his introduction.

“…poised between the outmoded fashion for burning heretics, and the minor vindictiveness of refusing honorary degrees, Oxford belatedly vent its anger upon Hobbes in 1683 by ordering copies of Deceive and Leviathan to be burned along with other ‘pernicious books and demandable doctrines’ on account of their being ‘heretical and blasphemous’, infamous to Christian Religion and destructive of all government in church and the state.”

“He (Hobbes) died on 4 December 1969 at the great age of 91. A broadsheet which circulated in London concluded: ‘Ninety year’s eating and immortal jobs.” Here Matter lies, and there is an end to Hobbes!

But it was not. Despite the hostility of politicians, despite angry refutations by countless books and pamphlets, and despite the convocation of Oxford University, neither ballad-makers nor divines nor academics nor politicians could bury the ideas a nature had ultimately buried the man.   

Gaskin further lamented: 

“No more comprehensive, tightly structural, and closely argued political philosopher exists than Hobbes set out in Leviathan. It shocks our conventional assumptions, and it is disquieting.” 

“Modern man, if not all mankind, is ominously close to Hobbes’s account of us – competitive, acquisitive, possessive, restless, individualistic, self-concerned, and insatiable in our demands for whatever we in isolation as our own good…a life which would be solitary, poor, hasty and short.” 

Britain, which is considered to be the champion of individual freedom, at least to its own citizens, if not to others, placed every hurdle possible to suppress this great work. Interestingly, monarchic Britain was successful in rejecting Hobbes but failed to reject Karl Marx, despite the former being British and the latter, being a self-declared nation-less man. 

Marx made a creed for himself

To Hobbes, both religion and politics are Leviathan, i.e., a sea monster. He hated both and criticized both. But he never bothered to create a creed for himself to take forward his idea or vision. He wrote and left the scene like thunder. None were there to carry forward his legacy, unlike in the case of Marx. And, he was forgotten with Britain happy about the outcome. 

However, Marx had different ideas and a vibrant approach. First, he created an exclusive class – the working class – to which he never himself belonged to. He was a thinker, writer, political philosopher and economic analyst, and had nothing to do with workers. Yet, he perfected the art of making an exclusive class as a creed to fight for his doctrine through class struggle. This is what made Marxism attractive to the millions of toiling masses, to rise up and fight. Yet, this happens to be only an outward appeasement. Marx had something more attractive in his stock – “dictatorship of the proletariat.”

To every power monger, this very idea of ‘dictatorship’, be it that of the proletariat or otherwise, became an ideal tool to establish absolute power and control in the very game of the ruling class. Marx’s idea, like wildfire, attracted many power mongers to the cause – be it Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Kim, and so on. Ironically, all of them outwardly and profoundly spoke for the total emancipation of mankind and the eventual arrival of a classless society. Yet, they all worked inwardly in all earnestness for a class rule of dictatorship of the ruling class, if possible, until the end of mankind. 

No political philosophy, other than Marxism, ever had the audacity to openly declare dictatorship as an ideal form of government. And there lies the seeds for its eventual fall. The level of insanity confronted by the intelligence of Marx is astonishingly horrible and frighteningly terrible. Marx propagated the idea of dictatorship with firm determination, which, I feel, is the biggest tragedy in the history of political philosophy. 

Since then, the history of Marxism is also the history of consistent persecution and persistent onslaught on and upon all hapless non-Marxists. From country to country, it may differ in level and gravity, but the form and method are the same – perennial homicide!