As far back as 1941, George Orwell — in his essay “The Lion and the Unicorn” — was describing Marxism as a “German theory interpreted by Russians and unsuccessfully transplanted to England”, as well as accusing Marxists of looking at the world through eighteenth-century lenses.
Quoting Orwell is largely a waste of time if you hope to engage a Marxist in debate. The more hardline Marxists dismiss him almost entirely as an anti-communist shill, and Orwell had notable grievances with the Communist Party of Great Britain. However, this is beside the point.
Orwell was right that Marxism was outdated by 1941. It was, after all, a full ninety-three years after The Communist Manifesto was published. To expect society to have remained static and for Marxism to have remained infallible during that time is ridiculous to the point of being dogmatic, and this was as long ago as 1941. Not only this, but Marxism can never be a universal theory, and has never even been applied as such.
Nations differ significantly in their political culture and makeup. It’s easy to look back at history and perceive all the European monarchies as cut from the same imperialist cloth, but one simply can not truthfully say that nineteenth century Britain was just the same as nineteenth century Russia, in the same way that Britain and Russia; or America and Germany; or Singapore and Finland; aren’t perfect reflections of one another today just because they’re nominally capitalist. With this in mind, one can not use Marxism as a go-to in any…
