We love talking about Karl Marx. Earlier this year, we had our first Marx Madness, where every article in our blog was written about Karl Marx and those who were influenced by his ideas. And we get it, truly, because Marx was very much an architect of the political and cultural landscape of the 20th century, even though he passed away before its conception.

In this post, we are once again the meme. And while the meme is fun AF, it’s a good place to talk about why Karl Marx is not Santa, in more than one way. And this will not be a pleasant task. As such, please read with care, as much of the content below is incredibly uncomfortable.

The Meme

We are blessed with the joys of t-shirts built for and designed by philosophers. The shirt-meme in question depicts a jolly-looking Karl Marx sporting the iconic festive cap, with the words: “This is not Santa” printed in a charming font along the bottom. 

Now, let’s be real here. How many people are going to look at this shirt and understand that this is indeed not Saint Nick? To see who even notices is something of a game. Personally, I’ve long had the “All I want for Christmas is the means of production” shirt, which I wore during “ugly Christmas sweater” days when I worked at a grocery store. If people even saw the shirt at all, they simply assumed Santa.

It’s truly a test of mettle to see who responds to such a shirt, and the feeling (especially in a Conservative Southern state) is delightful, even if the political climate outside is frightful.

We can read this text several ways. We can read this text in the literal, baseline sense. Yeah, Karl Marx isn’t Santa. Duh. Or we can read it in a second sense, that the communism proposed by Karl Marx is not just giving things away for free to all and sundry. Or, thirdly, and importantly, that perhaps there are ways that Marxist communism fails, and fails hard, historically committing injustices. Let’s talk about the second and third, since we already got the first out of the way.

Communism?: Let’s Manifest It

Communism, as Marx wrote it, is not what seems to be prevalent in the popular imagination. In writing the Manifesto and other essays, Marx did not seek to have a society that simply gave and gave and gave, that would be a utopia, in the sense that people would live in harmony and not struggle.

In many of Marx’s writings, he speaks of class struggle, and, as we shared in our former blog post, the working class proletariats eventually seizing the means of production. This is not a nice or sweet idea, to be sure. Nor is the idea that the bourgeoisie, other people, should be destroyed. And yes, this means violence on the proletariat’s part. Think Marie Antoinette French Revolution levels, here.

You don’t get to the means of production without getting past the ruling class that owns the means. And Marx freely admits that this would be violent. Revolution, many say, almost always comes from some sort of violence, and Marx does not hesitate to say that a class struggle would incorporate much bloodshed.

The Twentieth Century’s Disheartening Reality: Red Totalitarianism

When Marx died in 1883, he could not have imagined where his ideas (and those of his contemporaries) would go, across the world, painting more than the town red. Marx, whose Highgate grave is to this day both honored and vandalized in turn, wrote a text that set fire to three very, very problematic revolutions and regimes.

And while these are not and were not the only Communist states in existence, nor were they the only ones to do a great harm to their people and the world, I hope you will understand that I only have so much time here, so much knowledge, and so much space on a page.

The Soviet Union: Orwellian and Authoritarian

During the early 20th century, some people took the idea of revolution seriously, disgusted with the Czar and his ruling family, their incompetence, and the grief the wars and mismanagement of the country was giving the many people who spent their days drudging away, hour after hour. The Russian Revolution itself, and the founding of the USSR, are some incredibly complicated events that it’s hard to parse them out into easy and friendly prose.

Basically, the working class came into power in a bunch of leftist factions, warring against each other and the monarchy that was already there. Eventually, the Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, gained so much support that they were able to take over, under the Soviet hammer and sickle that we all know so well to be the symbol of Communism.

And while the depression and war of the early turn of the 20th century was worthy of some sort of revolt, and worthy of the attention and desire for change of the people, the USSR turned into a surveillance state which forbade any form of dissent. We can talk about the propaganda practices of Stalin, the gulags, the entire Cold War, and the fear about “Soviet Russia” that still persists well after its dismantling in 1991, in a string of memes. 

We can talk about so many of these things that made people glad when the Berlin Wall fell, and when places like Ukraine and Georgia (the country) were able to gain independence. In the end, there is nothing I can say about this that the history books cannot better say, or even the movies. It’s a good idea to look up a few. 

The point of the matter is, however, that Lenin and his friends were all working from a Marxist plan. Lenin did what the Manifesto said. That is, he pitted the working class against the ruling class and built a revolution. And he started an authoritarian and very scary regime.

Cambodia: The Khmer Rouge and the Killing Fields

Another stain against Marxism and Communism lies in Cambodia, where another communist party built up momentum. By 1975, the Khmer Rouge, as they were popularly called, took control of the country and began systematically killing off as many citizens of that country as they could, basically anyone who might potentially dissent against them.

The killing was systematic, working and starving their own people to death, around two million people. The Killing Fields, as they were known, housed the mass graves of so, so many who were unwanted by this regime. This unspeakable genocide continued until it was curtailed by the war in Vietnam, which spread to Cambodia.

The Communist Party of Kampuchea’s leader, Pol Pot, ordered the deaths of so many people he thought were against him, even well after the Killing Fields ceased being actively fertilized by human bodies. It was not until the 1990s that Pol Pot faced any sort of retribution for his war crimes, being kidnapped and house imprisoned by the Khmer Rouge itself. He died in his sleep.

These guerillas decided that they wanted to take a page out of Stalin’s and Mao’s book, which is frankly also a page from Marx’s book, though perhaps not as closely aligned as to that dictatorial delight. 

Haing S. Ngor, the man who played a journalist who is able to escape Cambodia during this time in the film, “The Killing Fields,” and an outspoken advocate of awareness of the genocide, was murdered outside his home in 1996. 

The People’s Republic of China: Modern Communism

While the two other communist governments no longer exist as they were when they were in their prime, the People’s Republic of China continues to exist. The Communist Party of China has governed that country since 1949, and remains.

And we know a few things from a secretive and controlling government that does not like to see or showcase dissent to its grasp on the entire country. There are many reports of cruel treatment of political prisoners, of very problematic labor practices, and worse. China is often the world’s market for cheap items, but everything comes at a price.

And you can still see busts of Karl Marx decorating the streets of China, the hammer and sickle happily flown as in the USSR back in the day. While I cannot personally attest to the differences between classic Marxism and Chinese communism (many have told me they are different but I am not a scholar in this area), it’s clear there is, for the PRC, a bridge between them and the Manifesto. 

I would invite everyone to learn a little more about these and other problematic governments inspired by Marx’s writings and modern political leanings. It’s important to understand different views, to see into the lives of different cultures, and to keep the memories of people who met very sad ends alive through reading and learning history. 

How Do We Reconcile Marxism, Violence, and Political Dissent?

I have identified as a Marxist since around 2005, when reading the Early Manuscripts opened my eyes to things I had noticed that were not at all touched in American politics. In the United States, outside of academia, calling oneself a Marxist has always been problematic.

The United States has a very, very lengthy history of hatred of communism from the top. From Eugene V. Debs running for president in a prison cell in 1920 to the Cold War, Hollywood blacklisting, Red Scare, etc., the United States preferred the status quo to socialism. Of course, in the current political environment, Marxism in any of its forms is very, very unwelcome.

And Georgia (the state) has not proven any different. For years, Georgia has been what they call a “red state” (not that kind of red), dominated by the conservative Republican Party through gerrymandering, a love of racism, and some very bad voter suppression processes. And while I am sure the details of why this is so might be interesting, I offer this information to say that the fear of communism here is so great that to mention Marxism at all might cause more than a mere clutching of Southern pearls.

Dissent is something that is treated with hatred and social ostracization. In other words, it has been very difficult to understand or even comprehend why someone would be a socialist, a Marxist, or a communist. I am often uncomfortable mentioning this to people outside my inner friend circle, even people who vote on the liberal side of things.

But when it is mentioned, there are two things that ignorant people like to point to: the first is the regimes that people think of when they think of communism. The states in power of which I spoke, usually. Or you could add Cuba, for some reason. The second, is that the Nazis of Germany were communist because they used the term “National Socialism” in their propaganda. You can look at Wikipedia to see that is absolutely not true. I am not even going to link it because that is beyond silly.

However, I was once approached online by a Catholic woman from a Latin American country that had once been brutally communist. She asked me why I would want to be associated with something that had done some very horrible things to people she had known, that had destroyed her country.

To this there is no grandiose answer. There is no good answer in the face of human suffering, in the face of oppressive governments, of genocides. I can only offer why, twenty years later, I return to Marx for guidance in my political philosophy.

Growing up in late 20th century Georgia, my mother was working class. She labored long, unpleasant hours at a warehouse, and when she was older, in retail. She did most of her work as a stocker, but I watched as the pointlessness and the tedium overtook her. And with her single wages, as children, my sister and I suffered. We spent some months without utilities. No lights, heat, or air conditioner (an essential here in the summer). She wheeled and dealed so that we could have food on our plates, and sometimes I would fantasize about the food I saw on the spam flyers we would get in the mail.

In high school, I shared the national traumas of the Columbine High School shootings and 9/11. I saw multiple pointless wars. I wondered why both political parties were so much the same. And as I grew, my frustration grew. As a philosophy undergrad, I studied political and Continental philosophy. I understood how I viewed the world, then.

I understood why I wanted everyone to have welfare, why I wanted everyone to feel safe at school or on the street or at home. I started to understand (to an extent) the experiences of people unlike myself, the frustration boiling just beneath the surface. I understood poverty, homelessness, anguish. For many years after I graduated, I was there. Working class poverty was an education many academics do not have.

And so, while I do not wish for any suffering and I am not comfortable with Marx’s call for civil wars and bloody revolutions, I cannot at the same time be content with the daily plights of people under a government that cares so little for the basic needs of its people. I believe there is a socialist solution, but not all socialism is terror and fear.

And so Marx is not Santa. Marx will not offer us red-wrapped presents, will not benevolently deliver everything we wanted in politics. The 20th century was a testament to this. But we have to go forward, have to take what was good in Marxist thought, and move toward a brighter future that is neither communist nor capitalist, but our own.