Quest for Democracy in Scientific Socialism 02

Marx and Engels argued that scientific socialism is founded on the continuation of democracy.

But those who attack Marx point out that their early book, "The Communist Manifesto," does not contain any democratic theory of revolution.


But (as I have written in this blog before) parliamentary democracy (a system in which the people elect a parliament and government) did not exist in Europe at that time.

Even in the rare cases where a parliamentary system existed, only landlords, aristocrats, and capitalists had the right to vote.

At that time, revolutions were only possible through force and strong actions.

In a document called "The Demands of the Communist Party in Germany" written by Marx and Engels around 1848, they wrote the following:

"Scientific socialism, or the so-called communist movement, is not a movement that first creates a fixed plan and then forcibly imposes it on society. When the realization of democracy becomes urgent, we respond to the demands of the people and tackle various problems to solve them."

And Marx and Engels advocated universal suffrage without discrimination between men and women.
In the second half of the 19th century, universal suffrage expanded in Europe.


*We have introduced this argument by Marx and Engels in previous blog posts, but we will repeat it here.

Marx and Engels also argued that the path to communism should be pursued in each country, taking into account the circumstances of each country, rather than being uniform worldwide. (This has also been mentioned in this blog before.)

Those who attack Marx take parts of his works, add fear, and promote them to the public.
People who know nothing about Marx are not only frightened by the incitement, but also somehow end up trusting the words of the attackers.
It is important that we always verify things from a scientific perspective.