WI Marx and Engels die in 1848

OTL -- in 1844, Engels met Marx in Paris, where they stayed until they were kicked out in 1845, after their radical newspaper employer, Vorwärts, expressed approval on an assassination attempt against the King of Prussia.

WI -- This otherwise obscure attempt does not happen; so, in 1848, both Marx and Engels are still living and working in Paris; they take part in demonstrations, and are killed.

What is the affect on socialist thought -- is (violent) revolutionary socialism still viable? On economics -- do "scientific socialism" and "historic materialism" still become major ideas? On sociology? On anything else I forgot to mention?
 
I do not know if there was any more influential
commie thinkers but we would have no Das Kapital
for one thing and that is positive in my opinion.
 
No, but -- and this is weird -- The Communist Manifesto, if published the same day as OTL, would be released two days before the bloodiest day of the 1848 Revolution in Paris.
 
this becomes the face of Communism:

bakunin_01.jpg
 
That's probably your number one winner, yes - with Marx and Engels gone, the International follows Bakunin.

Marx systemetized diverse ideas without actually making many new ones. The Labor Theory of Value -St. Simon, a generation earlier. Dictatorship of the proletariat - too widespread an idea at the time to even track; Marx was actually a softening influence in the Rhineland, as the plan in the organizations he belonged to in his youth was to exterminate the monied classes completely (The French Terror was bad only in that it stopped at the aristocracy) and then had some vague plans to abolish money. Anarchism was in its infancy as an organised philosophy, but the groundwork had been laid.

Scientific Socialism will evolve anyway from the works of Robert Owen, and thus won't be especially opposed to religion. It may remain confined to the Anglosphere unless it gets a major thinker and exponent on the Continent, though. Historical materialism is still coming through Bruno Bauer, among others.

So without Marx to fuse them, you probably have three distinct movements - Bakunin's international anarcho-syndicalism, an extremely violent working class proto-revolution, and SciSoc/Hegel-Bauer philosophers taking over the universities. I can't help but notice each of these movements corresponds to a certain social stratum. If I get my wish, we also see the skilled labor/upper working class take another look at Proudhon if they consider Bakunin too dreamy or intellectual.
 
Wow, great analysis Shawn :):D

I'm wondering how viable that proto-revolution is, though, with such vague ideas guiding it (think Luddites)... I imagine that'll mean more influential anarchism, still..
 
Here's a thought -- could anything resembling Leninism (or Stalinism or Maoism) come into being without Marxism? Coould such a totalitarian ideology use anarchism as it's root philosophy?
 
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Here's a thought -- could anything resembling Leninism (or Stalinism or Maoism) come into being without Marxism? Coould such a totalitarian ideology use anarchism as it's root philosophy?

well the main difference between Communism and anarchism was the issue of a middle step, Marx felt that after the class war a new order (Socialism) would rise and slowly go away leaving us without government, Bakunin though we could loose that Socialism step and go straight to Communism

Lenin differed from Marx in that Marx felt the whole lower class had to raise as one to bring about the change, Lenin felt that it was best done by a small core of professional revolutionaries that would move the people and tell them what to do, so maybe Lenin comes up with what we know as Marxism but it's seen as a sub set of Bakuninism in "Communism"
 
Well, if Lenin differs from Bakuninism in both having a middle step and taking control of it, does anyone seriously think of him as a "communist"? If not, wouldn't that preclude Leninism, as an ideology, from gaining ground, and thus no "communism" as we understand it OTL?
 
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While I have to read him in translation, Mao strikes me as surprisingly original. Or perhaps more accurately, I think he draws on earlier Chinese thinkers more than on Marx or Lenin. So even if Marx is gone, I wouldn't be surprised to see a Mao-like figure arise in China eventually. (Mao could also derive inspiration from Bakunin just as well, or even be the Lenin figure you're looking for).

I don't think Bakunin's anarcho-syndicalism is fertile ground for Lenin to get to minority rule from, no. I can see him drawing on Proudhon - but then he's stuck with the second-most popular philosopher, and post-Imperial Russia would see a very real and nasty struggle between Leninists and Bakuninists (I would think). Alternatively, Lenin might be inspired by Robert Owen - again, more fertile ground than Bakunin. Either way, Lenin can't justify his ideas as descended from Bakunin so he'll have to present them as an alternative to Bakunin (which he can do).
 
Well, if Lenin differs from Bakuninism in both having a middle step and taking control of it, does anyone seriously think of him as a "communist"?

every one calls Mao a Communist, and he has very little to do with Marx's ideas, Marx saw a mass movement of factory workers in large cities over throwing an empowered middle class in a quick (mostly bloodless) coup of the people, Mao fought a long term guerrilla war based in the countryside and run by farmers against cities, also in Marx's idea once the overthrown of the bourgeoisie has happened the class struggle would be over and we all work for Communism, while Mao viewed and endless class struggle with "capitalist restorationist elements" in the Communist movement it self

all I'm saying is VERY different ideas are in Communism today and are all called Communism.
 
Oh, I don't doubt that -- but it got there by a process, nonetheless.

Marx said the move toward a communist society would come by a revolution leading to a dictatorship of the proletait, lead by the urban working class.

Lenin tweaked this, saying this revolution would come about by a professional cadre, who would oversee the transition.

Then, Stalin tweaked Leninism to develop a "Socialism in one country" philosophy.

Mao then tweaked Lenin and Stalin, saying the revolution would be lead by the farmers, etc

Then Kim Il Sung... well, you get the idea

Point is, each new deviation is built on the deviations that came before -- it's very hard, for example, to imagine Maoism without Leninism, or that if something similar to it came up, describing it as "communist", without Leninism to compare it to...
 
Marx is important for one unique reason that the other radical writers of his time weren't. The first foreign translation of Das Kapital was in Russian, and that was because a book publisher was able to get it past the Russian censors because it was such huge tome and was too complex for them to understand. They assumed nobody would actually read it. They also thought that it was a specific critique of the capitalist Britain and German systems, when capitalism hadn't developed in Russia yet.

To the surprise of the censors the first edition sold out immediately. Would the other more revolutionary writers get past the censors like Marx did?
 
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Excellent point, Tobit. The Russian censors aren't going to pass anything by Bakunin, and I suspect they're smart enough not to let Proudhon or Bauer through either. I wonder if Robert Owen might be able to get a Russian edition though?

Still, though, Russia is a big place with lots of hiding-holes. Don't underestimate the power or reach of samizdat. There's nothing unbelievable about France or Germany going *Communist first though.
 
Sounding like an emerging consensus that Lenin's Russian Revolution is butterflied out TTL.

Can't see why fascism and national socialism couldn't still come up, though...
 
Is there any chance at all that a successful Bakuninist revolution could establish something like the Free Territory in Ukraine, or some other sort of anarchist "state"?
 
Is there any chance at all that a successful Bakuninist revolution could establish something like the Free Territory in Ukraine, or some other sort of anarchist "state"?

My inclination is to say no, seeing as they never seemed able to last long in OTL.

Another question: does scientic socialism, vis a vis Robert Owen and Bauer, still create a distinct school of economic thought?
 
They lead to a planned economy rather than a market one - although you could use Owen's ideas to justify socialism or fascism depending on your interpretation. Bauer didn't really address economic matters, so your economics is definitely coming from the Anglosphere.
 
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