INTRODUCTION

arxism is an extremely radical political ideology. It is basically a form of Socialism. It is that form of socialism which is advocated by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. This is a form of socialism that is based on a basic perception of actual material economic facts. This brand of socialism is considered as Scientific Socialism. Engels in his book, Socialism: Scientific and Utopian, distinguishes between Marxs version of socialism and the alternate varieties against which it was competing at that time. The socialists who preceded Marx have been designated as Utopians. Some such socialists were, Thomas More, Henri Saint-Simon, Charles Fourier, and others. Although Marxism cannot be reduced to a mere compilation of their ideas, there is little doubt that The Utopians played a significant part in the development of Marxs system. There are a number of fundamental differences between Marxs scientific socialism and that of his Utopian precursors. The Utopians had regarded poverty as the principal source of the ills of society and private property as the chief cause of poverty. They believed that the changes that they sought could be brought about on repeatedly appealing to the rationale and sense of integrity of prominent members of the society. They never considered the use of force or bringing about a revolution for achieving their goals. Though they criticized capitalism and advocated various socialistic reforms,

their ideals were basically idealistic. They never thought of putting an end to the system as a whole and supplanting it with a social structure that adhered to their ideals. They persevered rather to set up communities which would act as model communities, and they hoped that upon witnessing the success of such communities, others would follow as well. Most of these experimental communities failed. The Utopian socialism was thus vague and unscientific. The important thing about Marxs work is not its originality but its synthetic power. He put together a number of different ideas of different thinkers and fused them together to form one dynamic, systematic theory that energized the proletarian movement with an incredible impulse to action. The proletarian movement, powered by Marxs call for action, evolved from a meek body into one which knew its objectives, had a definite attack plan and thus, became militarily aggressive. Marxism is said to be scientific, not only because it gives the members of the proletariat the ultimate objectives to be achieved, but also because it gives detailed directions of how these objectives are to be attained. Marx hence can be called as the first scientific socialist writer. He is the real founder of socialism. He not only sketched the kind of society that ought to be established, but also prepared a program of action. He is thus, in the real sense of the word, the father of modern socialism.

The Life and Works of Karl Marx:

K

arl Marx was born on the 5th of May, 1818 at Treves. Marx showed intellectual ability at a young age. He was sent to the University of Bonn in 1835 and in 1836 was transferred to the University of Berlin. Here he studied jurisprudence, but soon turned his attention to history and philosophy. It was here that he came across the writings of Hegel. Radicalism was the in thing in the university and soon, Marx became one. He joined a movement called the Young Hegelian Movement, led by Bruno Bauer. Upon the completion of his studies, he looked forward to an academic appointment which, he thought could be secured using Mr. Bauers influence. But fate had other plans for him. Bauer was expelled from the university and Marx turned his attention to political journalism. He studied Hegel thoroughly. He was influenced by Hegel and English scholars like Adam Smith, Ricardo and William Thompson. He became a severe critic of the existing economic and political order. Because of his revolutionary idea, he was expelled

from his homeland. He then engaged himself in conspiratorial activities in France and Belgium from 1843 to 1849. The Communist Manifesto, written jointly with Friedrich Engels, was a product of these years, appearing in January 1848. He was once again exiled from France at the insistence of Prussia in 1849 and he went to London where he spent the remainder of his life.

DOCTRINE OF KARL MARX:

Dialectical Materialism of Karl Marx:
Dialectical Materialism is the backbone of Marxism. It is the basic foundation of Marxs ideology. It is through this idea that Marx makes his studies of history. Dialectic was a new form of logic formulated by Hegel for a purpose which wanted to explain Change and development through a process of contrast and contradiction. The basic features of the dialectical Materialism of Karl Marx are: Change and development in the world today occurs through the conflict between material forces, and ideas are only products of the material environment in which the human race resides.

 Dialectical Materialism alone can provide an inkling to the scientific study of history and society. The progress is dialectical, but its nature is materialistic. Marx says, With me the ideal is nothing else than the material world reflected by the human minds, and translated into other forms of thought. The metaphysic of Marxism is materialism.

The Materialistic Interpretation of History:

The materialist conception of history is a methodological approach to the study of society, economics, and history, first articulated by Karl Marx (1818-1883). Also known as historical materialism, it looks for the causes of developments and changes in human society in the means by which humans collectively produce the necessities of life. The non-economic features of a society (e.g. social classes, political structures, ideologies) are seen as being an outgrowth of its economic activity. Historical materialism started from a fundamental underlying reality of human existence: that in order for human beings to survive and continue existence from generation to generation, it is necessary for them to produce and reproduce the material requirements of life. While this may seem obvious it was only with Marx that this was seen as foundation for understanding human society and historical development. Marx then extended this premise by asserting the importance of the fact that, in order to carry out production and exchange, people have to enter into very definite social relations, most fundamentally production relations. Historical materialism can be seen to rest on the following principles: 1. The basis of human society is how humans work on nature to produce the means of subsistence.

 2. There is a division of labour into social classes (relations of production) based on property ownership where some people live from the labour of others. 3. The system of class division is dependent on the mode of production. 4. The mode of production is based on the level of the productive forces. 5. Society moves from stage to stage when the dominant class is displaced by a new emerging class, by overthrowing the "political shell" that enforces the old relations of production no longer corresponding to the new productive forces. This takes place in the superstructure of society, the political arena in the form of revolution, whereby the underclass "liberates" the productive forces with new relations of production, and social relations, corresponding to it. In his analysis of the movement of history, Marx predicted the breakdown of capitalism (as a result of class struggle and the falling rate of profit), and the establishment in time of a communist society in which class-based human conflict would be overcome. The means of production would be held in the common ownership and used for the common good.

Class Struggle:
Class struggle is the active expression of class conflict looked at from any kind of socialist perspective. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, leading ideologists of communism, wrote "The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggle". Labour (the proletariat or workers) includes anyone who earns their livelihood by selling their labor power and being paid a wage or salary for their labor time. They have little choice but to work for capital, since they typically have no independent way to survive. Capital (the bourgeoisie or capitalists) includes anyone who gets their income not from labor as much as from the surplus value they appropriate

from the workers who create wealth. The income of the capitalists, therefore, is based on their exploitation of the workers (proletariat). Marx's notion of class has nothing to do with social class in the sociological sense of upper, middle and lower classes (which are often defined in terms of quantitative income or wealth). Instead, in an age of capitalism, Marx describes an economic class. Membership of a class is defined by one's relationship to the means of production, i.e., one's position in the social structure that characterizes capitalism. Marx talks mainly about two classes that include the vast majority of the population, the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. Other classes such as the petty bourgeoisie share characteristics of both of these main classes

Theory of Surplus value:

Surplus value is a concept used famously by Karl Marx in his critique of political economy, although he did not himself invent the concept. It refers roughly to that part of the new value created by production which is claimed by enterprises as "generic gross profit". Marx argues its ultimate source is unpaid surplus labor performed by the worker for the capitalist, and that the surplus-value is the primary basis for capital accumulation. The German equivalent word "Mehrwert" means simply value-added (an output measure of the net increase in product wealth), but in Marx's value theory, the extra or surplus-value has a specific meaning, which is

not the new value added to the output of products, but rather the amount of the increase in the value of capital upon investment in production, i.e. the yield or increment in value, regardless of whether this takes the form of profit, interest or rent. Marx calls the process of this increase "valorization". He regarded his reduction of profit, interest, and rent income to the one category surplus-value, and sourcing surplus value to surplus labour as one of his greatest theoretical achievements. In his manuscript Theories of Surplus Value he discusses critically how philosophers and economists had previously theorized about value-creation in market-oriented societies. For Marx, the gigantic increase in wealth and population from the 19th century onwards was mainly due to the competitive striving to obtain maximum surplusvalue from the employment of labor, resulting in an equally gigantic increase of productivity and capital resources. To the extent that increasingly the economic surplus is convertible into money and expressed in money, the amassment of wealth is possible on a larger and larger scale. Marx himself also put the problem of surplus value as follows: "If the exchange-value of a product equals the labour-time contained in the product, then the exchange-value of a working day is equal to the product it yields, in other words, wages must be equal to the product of labour. But in fact the opposite is true. Ergo, this objection amounts to the problem, -- how does production on the basis of exchange-value solely determined by labour-time lead to the result that the exchange-value of labour is less than the exchange-value of its product? This problem is solved in our analysis of capital." Marx's solution was to distinguish between labor-time worked and labor power. A worker who is sufficiently productive can produce an output value greater than what it costs to hire him. Although his wage seems to be based on hours worked, in an economic sense this wage does not reflect the full value of what the worker produces. Effectively it is not labour which the worker sells, but his capacity to work.

Dictatorship of the proletariat:

In Marxism, the dictatorship of the proletariat denotes the transitional socialist State between the capitalist class society and the classless communist society. During the transition, the State can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat, thus the term refers to the Classical Roman dictatura concept republican and constitutional whereby the proletarian government would

replace the incumbent capitalist economic system and its socio-political supports, i.e. the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie.

Marxian Philosophy is a coherent whole. In fact, Marx provided the socialist movement with a creed, a movement which hitherto had no adequate theory. Utopian socialists like Proudhon had expressed truths of the first order, but their theories had been intellectual patchwork. It was Marx who provided a scientific base and vision to socialism.

CONTENTS
Introduction

The life and works of Karl Marx

The Doctrine of Karl Marx

Materialistic interpretation of History

Class Struggle

Theory of Surplus Value

Dictatorship of the Proletariat

Bibliography

BIBLIOGRAPHY
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4. Bertsch, Gary . K and Robert P. Clark. Comparing Political Systems: Power and Policy in Three Worlds. New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1978.