Sunday, September 27, 2015

It's Not Marxism Because...

.
"A world where men and women would be equal is easy to visualize, for that precisely is what the Soviet Revolution promised." - Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex (New York, Random House, 1952), p.806
.

One of the most common arguments I see made against the notion that feminism and Marxism are one in the same goes something like this:

"Feminism and Marxism aren't related because Stalin's policy of xyz was certainly not feminist!" (or Mao's, or Pol Pot's or Gorbachev - take your pick).

Another common argument goes like this:

"Russian women aren't raving feminists like American women, therefore, Marxism and feminism aren't related."

Well, all these things may be true, but, one must also realize that Marxism is kinda like Christianity in that while it has a large over-riding ideology, there are many different denominations with varying beliefs. Lenin's interpretation of Marxism was one such type, called Leninism, and when Stalin took over he interpreted Marxism in a different way - over-riding some of Lenin's beliefs - and thus becoming "Stalinism." Mao as well interpreted Marxism differently from Stalin, and this became known as "Maoism." So, just as it is false to say that Protestants aren't Christians because they don't have a Pope and never go to confession, so is it false to say that Marxism and feminism are unrelated because of reason XYZ during Boris Yeltsin' s vodka soaked tenure at the helm.

Mostly when people such as myself assert that Marxism and feminism are one in the same, it has a lot to do with the philosophies behind Marxism, such as the oppressor vs. victim class, the use of the Marxist dialectic to manipulate the population, the "end-goal" of Marxism & feminism being remarkably similar, and most of all it comes from Engels' own words (Marx made a few references to liberating women, but Engels really got into it).

(Read More Here)