"The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions.
Let the ruling classes tremble at a communist revolution."
If the man himself agrees that his ideas can only be implemented through a "forcible overthrow", isn't it safe to say that those who follow his teachings today are either purposely ignoring a big part of his message, or are merely biding their time for the next revolution?
It all reads the same to me. In the same way I consider every Nazi a Nazi, I consider every Marxist a Marxist.
Your quote without context does indeed proclaim "forcible overthrow"... of all existing social conditions.
If you read it with context in mind it becomes clear that the notion or idea of the revolution is multifaceted as the communist manifesto refers to different means as to how the revolution is spreading (france, germany and Switzerland) and said quote is meant to represent the unrelenting resolution to not conceded to the "bourgeoisie" terms of the social condition upon the working class/proletarian, hence forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions that primarily the working class had to suffer through.
Out of all the things you could pick to critic the communist manifesto this has to be the weakest one, you could bring up the flimsy and quite frankly speaking terrible argument for the abolishing of private property.
Or the assumption that capital is only defined by materialistic definitions.
And now you change your point.
Yes all Marxists are Marxists, tankies are not Marxists however, which is what you originally said.
But the core of Marx ideas are an analysis of value, labor, production and surplus. They have been very useful for analysing the global recessions and over-production crisis, the concentration of wealth and lowered wages that we see today vis-a-vis the 70s.
They're not some loonie ideas about the size of skulls or a master race.
They are, however, deeply flawed. The labor theory of value is the core Marxist economic principle, and it is incorrect. Marx also doesn’t deal with the knowledge problem, and he doesn’t adequately address the value of laborless resource. If we move on from there, his summation of the trend of history is also incorrect. Societies have not tended toward Communism but instead toward Fascism (corporate and governmental merger coupled with totalitarianism) at the level of countries, and toward a neo-feudal order globally.
Of course Marx is wrong, he's a scientist. The work is never "done". And everyone is ofcourse free to critique the theories - but I find it rather extreme to view his theories as deranged garbage on the level of eugenics or social darwinism.
This is absurd. Nobody would ever say “But the core of Nazi ideas are an analysis of genetics” as though that excused anything. The fruits of both ideologies were hellish disasters, and the oppressed/oppressor dichotomy of Marxist thought is every bit as poisonous as the aryan/non-aryan dichotomy of Nazism.
Marxism can easily be adapted to support any group's resentful revenge fantasies so it's seen with much better eyes than a German man's resentful revenge fantasies.
"The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a communist revolution."
If the man himself agrees that his ideas can only be implemented through a "forcible overthrow", isn't it safe to say that those who follow his teachings today are either purposely ignoring a big part of his message, or are merely biding their time for the next revolution?
It all reads the same to me. In the same way I consider every Nazi a Nazi, I consider every Marxist a Marxist.