What Marx called for way back in 1848 weighs no more on my Christian socialist conscience than what Charlie Chaplin called for in " The Great Dictator ". No more than what Groucho Marx called for in " You Bet Your Life ". I smile when I recall 60s era "Yippie " Abbie Hoffman saying that all political ideology was a " brain disease . Not quite true , but true enough.
I remember joking way back then about the daffy " Marxist " Maoists involved in the anti-Vietnam War movement : I thought : " The Bible cannot possibly replace the " Little Red Book " as a guide to salvation and a source of inspiration for us all " . We more independent left wing radicals observed that the " Trots " were not much better : every question can be answered with a dead pan reference to the holy scriptures of Marxism-Leninism-Trotskyism, or by consulting the wisdom of the senile inner circle of THE PARTY or the Great Oz himself , their permanent Great Leader.
For more than 100 years no sectarian Marxist party has had any roots in the real working class. Writers like socialist H.G. Wells also observed that HISTORY had cycles of revolutionary change . In his day Marx analyzed capitalism brilliantly - it was and is indeed a system of exploitation and oppression that sooner or later provokes REVOLUTION on every continent.
But the history of 20th century has made a mockery of the kind of " socialism " inspired by an abstract ideological construct of the WORKING CLASS. The world only KNOWS nightmare " socialism " of Orwell's " 1984 " . Yet Orwell himself wary of all " smelly orthodoxies " wrote that " socialism should be obvious ".
Show me a " Marxist " party today that resonates with real working class people - not turning them off with stick-in-the-mud Central Committee bureaucrats- and hack, uninspired writers- and I'll give it my Christian socialist blessing .
Perhaps if they mastered MASS APPEAL skills one or two Marxist parties might distinguish themselves above the " Church of Scientology " with its legion of " Clears ".
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