Evaluate Marxism as an Ideology That Influenced the Russian Revolution

584 Words3 Pages
In this essay, i will assess how Marxism was the main factor that influenced the Russian revolution. I will also discuss the other reasons for the cause of the revolution, and how they are linked to Marxism. Marxism is an economic and socio-political worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry based upon a materialist interpretation of historical development, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis of class-relations within society and their application in the analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. The Russian revolution was a response to repression and dissatisfaction under Tsar Nicholas II, and a political ideology (communism) responding to a need for change people were desperate for. This frantic poverty and gross inequality marked the Russian society. The Czar and the aristocracy, as well as Russia’s capitalist class, lived in opulent luxury in palaces such as the Hermitage, while most Russians literally did not have food, and suffered from skyrocketing costs. In the countryside most farmers still used wooden ploughs. Hundreds of thousands died from epidemics on a regular basis. 1/3 of all Russian babies died before their first birthday. Russia was flailing WWI, unemployment was high – a classic formula for dissent. The partial industrialization of Russia in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, which created an urban working class in places like St. Petersburg and Moscow that could organize against its exploitation through unions and workers councils (known as 'the soviets'). This enabled the workers to work together much more effectively against their bosses than the scattered, isolated, and thus largely de-politicized peasantry. The cities were also connected via trade and communication to the outside world, where intellectuals and workers alike had access to revolutionary ideas from Western Europe such as Marxism.
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