Marx: a beginners guide. By Gill Hands, Hodder & Stroughton.
As a basic introduction to Marx’s ideas for 10- to 16-year-olds this short book could, with some reservations, be recommended. It is rather unfortunate that this age group is not specified as it would provide a useful resource, especially for schools.
Brief summaries of Marx’s ideas on philosophy, economics and history are particularly well-written. The most serious errors are in a paragraph regarding the “dictatorship of the proletariat”. For Marx, this was a very brief period in which the proletariat as a whole are able to dictate to the bourgeoisie. Since the working class is the vast majority such a stage could not be undemocratic, as the author states.
Similarly, the communist (or socialist) party as the “vanguard of the proletariat” is not a concept found in Marx’s writings and is entirely a Leninist product. While Marx did envisage a purely political period of transition before the creation of communism, he did not refer to this as “socialism” since in his works the terms “socialism” and “communism” are used interchangeably to refer to the new system of society following capitalism.
These and some others are common mistakes and do not detract too much from a generally useful work.
Kaz.
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