Individual and State Roles in Communism According to Marx and Engels

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Individual and State Roles in Communism According to Marx and Engels

Individuals will ultimately serve the state in which the state will control many facets of the individuals’ life, but in return, the civilians will receive the freedoms they deserve in a communistic society. Karl Marx and Frederick Engels adamantly opposed capitalism in many ways and felt the bourgeoisie, or capitalists are enslaving the proletarians, or working class. They claimed that industrialization was reducing the common workingman into mere wage labor and believed that the proletarians of every nation needed to unite and form a revolutionary party in order to overthrow their bourgeoisie captors in order to bring about the “common interests of the proletariat.”1 This party will create a society in which all men are equal: a communistic society. Within the society there were roles which the individual and the state would play: the individuals would join to form a classless society in which the common interest of the citizens will rule, but the state would require the individuals to make sacrifices.

Marx and Engels placed much of the responsibility of forming this ideal society on the individual. They called upon the working class, the proletarians, to unite and overthrow their oppressors, the bourgeoisie. In the Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels urged the “Formation of the proletariat into conquest of political power by the proletariat.”1 The proletariats needed to disregard their immediate interests in order to promote the general will of the masses. The Communist Manifesto called upon all proletarians to unite in order to overthrow the bourgeoisie for the implementation of a classless society.

One of the main roles of the indi...

... middle of paper ...

...freedom and resources that are necessary. The party will listen to the desires and opinions of the individuals in order to keep the people in control. The idealistic society that Marx and Engels envisioned is reciprocative: individuals sacrifice many of their self- interests to the state, and in return, the state provides equality and freedom.

Works Cited

1 Engels, Frederick and Karl Marx. Communist Manifesto.

http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/treatise/communist_manifesto/mancont.htm. March 11,

2002.

2 Fromm, Erich. Marx’s Concept of Man. New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1966.

3 Fetscher, Iring. Marx and Marxism. New York: Herder and Herder, 1971.

4 Leonhard, Wolfgang. Three Faces of Marxism. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston,

1970.

Links

- Read The Communist Manifesto

- The Principles Of Communism

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