:) Well, I'm a graduate student who's working full-time. I'm mostly exhausted and always bitter :) Given your particular circumstance, it might behoove you to consult Marx if for no other purpose than to better your reasons for currently hating your employer and your teachers ;-) Such passions do wonders for productivity :)
If merely wishing would just make it so :) Also, if you wish to see all of this in its appropriate lighting, may I recommend reading Marx's actual key works? This sort of effort seems to remedy the cognitive darkness that seems to result from groping about in classical and neo-classical economic theory ;)
Marx and Marxism have had the same general goal as anarchists. This is fairly well accepted universally. Recall that in the Era of Romanticism anarchists were entirely composed of anti-capitalist/socialist-oriented anarchists: those who enthusiastically stood against the State, established Religion, and Property. The key difference between these two schools of thought--if you could even call anarchism that--involved the play of governing ideas. Anarchists simply didn't trust any sort of political philosophy or analysis, which also included supposed bourgeoisie extensions of rationalism: science, history, and the use of systematic logic. Marxism made use of these tools because they didn't see that the desired goal of human freedom meant purging ourselves of all the historical benefits that streamed from the State.
Yes, there was a very contentious debate in the IWA--or First International. There's at least two reasons why Marxists dissented on this point: (1) Keep in mind that the reason this sort of union was created was due to the rejection and suppression of European States on key groups of rebellious working-class people. The origins of this movement are rooted in the Rebellion of 1848. (2) Marxists saw the result of this as the State maintaining its power for the time being, and that instead of pushing for some grand--probably unrealistic--revolution (since all such efforts had been an abysmal failure in the-then- very recent past), the alternative idea would be to attempt democratic influence through Parliament. This approach is consistent with Marxism because, as you should recall from the prior implications of our other discussion, Marxism wasn't necessarily for the immediate abolition of the State. The State in Marxism was generally viewed as a simple reality for which it was necessary to include in one's political philosophy and in one's political agendas. This position, however, was simply not relevant to the anarchists who could care less for theory and structured praxis.
However, the State is included in Marxian analysis, but its historical presence isn't seen as something "fixed," but rather it was thought of as a transient phenomenon that would eventually pass from the pages of history.
Again, if one understands Marx's ideas, then his actions--and that of many of his followers' actions--would make perfect sense here. It's simply the dogmatic impulse of his critics to coerce Marx to conform to every 20th century statist corruption.
Nope! Some quotes from Marx's other writings might suggest terror is a means to an end--however, you have to read those in the context they were given: e.g. " “The Victory of the Counter-Revolution in Vienna,” similar comments were made as current reactions to particular events--some insights were good and others far more questionable.
However, this sort of talk and writing wasn't unusual for its day. Liberty was thought by most to be something people had to fight and die for:
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." Thomas Jefferson.
The issue of the state's involvement is something that Marx's critics have read into Marx via Lenin! It was his belief that the state would have to be a necessary transition given the nature of the Russian Revolution--it was bloody from within and from without: even the U.S. sent troops to support anti-communist forces.
One of the problems with Marx has always been that he never outlined in clear detail what he thought the transition would be or could be like. But I would argue it isn't relevant. What was his fundamental teaching? Where is that to be found? Clearly in his works on communist manifesto and on capitalism.
You also have to be careful whenever reading commonly used words of our day in other people's works. "Dictatorship" and "terror" carried very different nuanced meanings in Marx than they do today.
He also believed, and I posted this, too, that "conflict" was a natural process of history--this he almost certainly derived from Hegel's dialectical approach. Here nor there, what we should want to know is what was essential in his works directly outlining and expounding his most powerful ideas. We can always find something that will support a criticism, and this is as true of Marx as it has been for Darwin and Freud. What we should want to know is what was his core teachings. On this matter, what I posted is correct.
People should learn more about those writings than taking hints from the critics who likely won't, and certainly don't, understand what they're criticizing.
Meaning that he thought that democratic impulses for the many to rule was a necessary transition towards a more full communist society. What that meant exactly for Marx wasn't altogether clear because he wasn't that interested in speculating about some exact future state of affairs. He thought that this is just how the historical process must work when moving from capitalism to communism.
