How does socialism develop if Marx's ideas are developed by others?

[TerranGames]

This question isn't about what if Marx never existed, or never came up with his ideas. I've seen other threads asking those questions, and a lot of them claim that Marx was the "man of the hour" and that others would have developed similar or the same ideas had he not existed. My question is about that, what if his ideas that he developed and refined, like Alienation, Exploitation, Base and Superstructure, and so on were all developed my multiple different thinkers?

I ask this question because I've read about how a lot of different people at the time Marx was around who called themselves "Marxists" were just random people who read some of Marx's works, and were in many cases only somewhat influenced by them, and disagreed on him heavily, and it got to the point where Marx said that he wasn't a Marxist, and that "Marxists" before Red October encompassed everyone from gradual reformists like Bernstein, to industrial unionists like Gronlund and Deleon, Lenin, Luxemburg, Kautsky, and more with massive divergence on tactics and endpoints (or lack thereof).

So what I'm asking is, if the ideas of Marxism developed, but from multiple different thinkers, without a central figure to rally around, what would the socialist movement look like? What would they be called? How would they divide themselves?

 

[Salvador79]

A good question!

Well, Marx was not really an actual political leader that the labour movement rallied around, really, ever.
But he provided not just a couple of interesting ideas, but a coherent political philosophy. And, as you said, lots of people with highly differing viewpoints generally liked his political philosophy and considered it relevant. And some of them became political leaders behind whom many people rallied. Actually, this is not so very special. People throughout late antiquity identified as "Platonists" and meant a plethora of different things with that; in the 1780s and 1790s, there was a host of German philosophers who were fond of having been influenced by Kant, but they all had very different philosophies... and for almost a century now, there are many people in the world who think Mahatma Gandhi is a shining model to follow, but they may mean different things by that.
It was the Leninist state and the Comintern that it sponsored that turned "Marxism" into the dogmatic beast that sought, in doctrinary strictness, to emulate Christianity, with its canonicity (and its inquisition...).

Now if it wasn't Marx who uttered all the various ideas together, then the most important point is that probably the different ideas never actually appear as a combined philosophy. Surely, Marx's specific variation of the Labour Theory of Value would have been derived by someone, starting from Smith and Ricardo and criticising problematic laborist tenets like the "iron rule" - but maybe that idea remains more confined to the sphere of economic theory / philosophy, and sure the labour movement would occasionally borrow references to the general idea as arguments, but not to the extent that it did IOTL. Maybe some other leftist German philosopher would formulate a materialist variation of Hegelian history - but it would probably remained an intellectual contribution, understood and debated only by a limited amount of people, even if it posited something as a "proletarian revolution" overturning the "age of capitalism", like Hegel's ideas were, too. And sure Marx wasn't even at the forefront of leftist critics of the religious socialism - he basically just reiterated Feuerbach here. Without being unified into a political philosophy, all these ideas remain scattered in the wider currents of 19th century thinking. I doubt any single one of them would have been able to achieve the impact that they, together, achieved when championed by old Charlie.

 

[Anarch King of Dipsodes]

it got to the point where Marx said that he wasn't a Marxist...

"I am not a Marxist. I am Marx."

 

[TerranGames]

Assuming something like the IWA still happens, would there still be a split between more state-participating socialists like the Lassalians and the anarchists without Marx or his ideas in play? And would there still be socialist mass parties formed around the same time?

 

[Salvador79]

I think socialist mass parties, attempting to participate in the electoral process, would form where the political system allowed for this; Marx was only one among many who supported the formation of the SPD; but they would differ greatly from country to country (as they did IOTL, of course, too). Without Marx, Proudhonism would be a lot stronger in French Socialism, and that means I'm not sure whether a Paris Commune would actually form, and if so, what policies it would pursue.
Bakunin, on the other hand, would probably have been a lot more obscure, had he not had the verbal duels with Marx in the limelight of the IWA. After all, Russian anarchists were not exactly strong. Would Bakunin have wrestled so much with Lassalle? (Maybe.) With Proudhon? (Probably not.) WIth British Owenites? (No idea.)
Germany's industrialisation and the universal male suffrage for its Reichstag meant that German influence, while initially weaker than French or British by a lot, would grow in importance over time. Germany was on the way to develop a multi-party system without Marx's contribution, so a mass labour party (or more than one) would come into being and be an influential voice in the IWA or whatever similar congresses might come. The discussions - national participation vs. international pacifism; electoralism vs. syndicalism - that would plague these congresses would be no less intense without Marx. (That was an understatement. There would be less of a platform uniting them all.)