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Marxism: Soviet Union
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The first impact of Marxism was felt in continental Europe. By the late 19th cent., through the influence of the Internationals , it had permeated the European trade union movement, and the major socialist parties (see Socialist parties , in European history) were committed to it in theory if not in practice. A major division soon appeared... between those socialists who believed that violent revolution was inevitable and those, most notably Eduard Bernstein , who argued that socialism could be achieved by evolution; both groups could cite Marx as their authority because he was inconsistent in his writings on this question.
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The irony is that in practice, even after decades of total control, Marxism did not improve the lot of the average person, but usually made living conditions worse than before the revolution. It is not by chance that the world's greatest famines have happened within the Soviet Union (about 5 million dead from 1921-23 and 7 million from 1932-3, including 2 million outside Ukraine) and communist China (about 30 million dead from 1959-61). Overall, in the last century almost 55 million people died in various Marxist famines and associated epidemics ? a little over 10 million of them were intentionally starved to death, and the rest died as an unintended result of Marxist collectivization and agricultural policies.
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Marxism formed the basis for the anthropologies, and indeed, the governments, of both China and the Soviet Union/Russia. But in the Europe and North America, it was highly unpopular to be associated with Marxism until well after World War II. The works of other anthropologists, like Boas and Malinowski, made it further "unfashonable" to be associated with such ideas.
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Since Marx's death in 1883, various revolutionaries around the world have appealed to Marxism as the intellectual basis for their politics and policies, which can be dramatically different and conflicting. Marxism was the ideology that inspired the creation of the Soviet Union, and post World War 2 political Communism. Although there are still many Marxist revolutionary movements and political parties around the world, relatively few countries have Marxist governments in power. Cuba, North Korea, and the People's Republic of China have governments in power which describe themselves as Marxist.
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These facts are tangential to the question of Marxism, although they do confirm that many people in many countries gave their primary loyalty to movements and other countries claiming to realize Marxist ideas. Somewhat less tangential is the information about the effect of the disbanding of the Communist International (Comintern) in 1943 on Soviet espionage. Connections with communist parties now had to be handled directly by the KGB.
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In 1991 the Soviet Union collapsed and the new Russian state ceased to identify itself with Marxism. Other nations around the world followed suit. Since then, radical Marxism or Communism has generally ceased to be a prominent political force in global politics, and has largely been replaced by more moderate versions of democratic socialism—or by capitalism, sometimes becoming more democratic but often retaining an authoritarian government.
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