How can the ideology of Marxism be separated from the uses to which it was put?

removing incentive to achieve then leads to government demanding you achieve because they wont reimburse you for effort.  its a crippling spiral.  best stay away.  capitalism offers incentives for achievment.

Proletariat: ?those individuals who sell their labour power, and who, in the capitalist mode of production, do not own the means of production?. The capitalist mode of production establishes the conditions enabling the bourgeoisie to exploit the proletariat because the workers? labour generates a surplus value greater than the workers? wages.

Bourgeoisie: those who ?own the means of production? and buy labour power from the proletariat, thus exploiting the proletariat; they subdivide as bourgeoisie and the petit bourgeoisie

Redistribution from employer to employee under federal demand is an ugly prospect  .

We're getting closer....the liberals are about to take over 1/7th of the economy....and theyve already taken over the auto industry and banks.

Whats to stop them from taking over the rest?

Obviously not the liberals.

Im about to sell the rest of my stock.

Trotsky argued, against Lenin, on three points, which together constituted, according to him, an alternative (and superior) theory of organisation. The first is the opposition that he set up between the self activity of the class and a ?fantastic? sectarian error, whereby Lenin allegedly wanted a ready made set of tactics to enable the Central Committee to control the masses. The second point is the opposition between democracy and Lenin?s ?pitiless centralism? (to borrow a term used by Rosa Luxemburg). The third point is the contrast between a formalist and a historical political viewpoint. One important charge he made against Lenin and his supporters was that they believed in automatic success due to their possession of Marxist doctrine. One can refer to statements like: ?The Party is the organized detachment of the working class?, or the ?General Staff?. Trotsky himself was a Marxist. And it was certainly not his intention to decry the merits of Marxism. But he did question its exclusive possession by any individual, group of individuals, or party; and even more strongly did he reject the notion that possession of Marxism was a guarantee against mistakes. Acknowledging the existence of different political trends in the Russian working class movement, he insisted that they have to be situated in the historical context, and argued that part of their mistakes stem from an ahistoricity. ?Each period has its own routine and tends to impose its own tendencies on the movement as a whole.? The necessary and correct industrial work gave rise to the errors of ?economism?. The centralising of Iskra gave rise to the errors of Bolshevism. So ran his argument. The problems arose because ?Each new tendency casts the previous one into anathema. For the bearers of new ideas, each preceding period seems no more than a gross deviation from the correct path, an historical aberration, a sum of errors, the result of a fortuitous combination of theoretical mystifications.? Trotsky?s position is of more general value, because even if Lenin is taken to be free of every error that Trotsky mentions, the ?Leninism? that has been propagated, by Stalinists, and sometimes by sectarians who believe that revolutionary discipline means utterly wooden rigidity entirely measures up to Trotsky?s critique.

Some think Trotsky actually believed in Marx's Utopian, equal world, and that's why he was exiled and murdered by Lenin and Stalin - who were just opportunist thugs like Hitler who saw an opportunity for power and grabbed it.
Sad.

Marx promoted the idea that economies morph  and the struggles..

striving for any perfect political economic system of any composition
is always a theoretic and could never be achieved

I actually wrote an essay for college quite similar to this one, except mine was on to what extent the socialist revolution in Russia was a Marxist one.

Basically, the biggest point on which Marx and, say, Lenin differentiated was how the revolution should start, which had knock-on implications for how communism actually operated. Lenin broke with Marx's view that a revolution had to be led by the vast majority for the vast majority. You can find the exact quote to that effect in chpter 2(?) of the communist manifesto. While Lenin wrote (in his April theses I think) and believed that there had to be a dedicated revolutionary elite to start the revolution and centralise the means of production.

But Lenin did actually agree with Marx on a lot of the rest. It's just the way he went about starting the revolution, and then continued with the elite power model that differed. You kind of have to take the context of socialism in Russia into account too. Marx (and Engel) wrote for the heavily industrialised society of Germany ("the communists turn their attention to Germany..." is the relevant passage in the communist manifesto) while Lenin and the Russian intelligensia had to apply the ideas to a heavily agrarian Russia.

Also, Marxism is just that - an ideology. Leninism was an attempt to put theory into practice, but the practice itself can of course be seperated from the theory in the same way that you might have a theory of how you will be able to fly if you attach some wings, but the reality will prove a bit different if you jump out of a high window!

It's actually quite interesting to look at how Marxism was applied in Germany at the time too. There was a guy called Kautsky who led the SDP (social democrat party) who tried to bring socialism/Marxism into effect by evolutionary rather than revolutionary means (using the parliament).

As for later use of the concept of Marxism in communist Russia, well I don't know a whole load about stalinism because I haven't studied it since my secondary school days, but stalinism was a whole other kettle of fish. Definitely worth looking at how his paronoid persona effected how totalitarian his state became. Actually, if you could do that for Lenin too - and relate it to how theory is corrupted by practice and man's eternal persuit of power and glory, that'd be good too!

Hope this helps, you can drop me a line if you like (thought I'm not sure if I'm allowing messages through my profile... will check!)
Karen

Because what Stalin did was NOT what Marx wrote.

Thus, Marx's ideas weren't put to use; they were distorted.

If you told me what you think, and I take a distorted version of that to justify mass murder, that's not a flaw in YOUR views; it's my mis-use that's wrong.

So, research what Marx actually wrote; and what Stalin did and said, and notice all the places where they differ.

marx said that  there were stages of development as shown below

   1. Primitive Communism: as in co-operative tribal societies.
   2. Slave Society: a development of tribal progression to city-state; Aristocracy is born.
   3. Feudalism: aristocrats are the ruling class; merchants evolve into capitalists.
   4. Capitalism: capitalists are the ruling class, who create and employ the true working class.
   5. Dictatorship of the proletariat: workers gain class consciousness, and via proletarian revolution depose the capitalists to assume control of a socialist state.
   6. Communism: a classless and stateless society.

number 5 is  the tyranny you speak of, but its supposed to be only a step  in the 6 point plan unfortunately left wing leaders are like all other leaders in which once they have power they choose not to give it away meaning that true communism never takes off. id argue that it could never work out side of a theory  simply because humans are to greedy