As announced in the last post, the next few installments on our series on Marxist thought will focus on the different schools of Socialism identified and targeted by the Communist Manifesto. Today we will start discussing Reactionary Socialism, which was a powerful ideological adversary to Communism for much of the 19th and the 20th century. In its original form, it was the last refuge of the losers of the Capitalist Revolution, a violent death spasm of the Middle Ages. According to Marx and Engels, it comes in three varieties: (a) feudal, (b) petty-bourgeois and (c) German or “true” socialism. The first two are named after the class the interests of whom they represented.The third one is specific to the German context, and over the decades evolved into something very different. We will focus on feudal and petty-bourgeois socialism for now, leaving German socialism for later posts.
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Thucydides within: the origins of Reaction
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As announced in the last post, the next few installments on our series on Marxist thought will focus on the different schools of Socialism identified and targeted by the Communist Manifesto. Today we will start discussing Reactionary Socialism, which was a powerful ideological adversary to Communism for much of the 19th and the 20th century. In its original form, it was the last refuge of the losers of the Capitalist Revolution, a violent death spasm of the Middle Ages. According to Marx and Engels, it comes in three varieties: (a) feudal, (b) petty-bourgeois and (c) German or “true” socialism. The first two are named after the class the interests of whom they represented.The third one is specific to the German context, and over the decades evolved into something very different. We will focus on feudal and petty-bourgeois socialism for now, leaving German socialism for later posts.