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Ideas have consequences.

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Sometimes good. Sometimes bad.

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And sometimes catastrophic – like the ideas
of Karl Marx.

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Born in Trier, Germany in 1818, Marx didn’t
invent communism.

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But it was on his ideas that Lenin and Stalin
built the Soviet Union, Mao built communist China,

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and innumerable other tyrants, from
the Kims in North Korea to the Castros in

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Cuba, built their communist regimes.

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Ultimately, those regimes and movements calling
themselves “Marxist” murdered about 100

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million people and enslaved more than a billion.

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Marx believed that workers, specifically those
who did manual labor, were exploited by capitalists

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– the people who owned, as Marx put it,
“the means of production” (specifically, factories)

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– but who did very little physical
labor themselves.

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Only a workers’ revolution, Marx wrote in
Das Kapital, could correct this injustice.

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What would that revolution look like?

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Marx and his collaborator, Friedrich Engels,
spelled it out point-by-point

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in The Communist Manifesto.

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It included the “abolition of property and
inheritance” and the “centralization of

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credit, communication, and transport in the
hands of the state.”

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And a lot more along the same lines.

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In other words, the state owns and controls
pretty much everything.

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This notion was widely discussed and debated
in European intellectual circles during Marx’s

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lifetime, but nothing much came of it until
Vladimir Lenin took power in Russia in 1917.

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This changed everything.

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Despite its repeated economic failures, Lenin’s
Russia, which became known as the Soviet Union,

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became the model for dictators around the
world.

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Wherever Marx’s ideas were practiced, life
got worse – not by a little; but by a lot.

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There is not a single exception to this rule.

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Not the Soviet Union, not Eastern Europe,
not China, not North Korea, not Vietnam, not

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Cuba, not Venezuela, not Bolivia, not Zimbabwe.

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Wherever Marxism goes, economic collapse,
terror and famine follow.

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So, if cataclysmic failure – meaning terrible
human suffering – is the inevitable legacy

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of Marxism, why do so many people – and
now, especially, young people – defend it?

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The most common answer Marxism’s advocates
offer is that “they” – whoever “they” are:

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Lenin, Stalin, Chavez – never really
practiced Marxism.

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They all somehow got it wrong.

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Marxism, we are told, is, at its essence,
about sharing what we have: “From each according

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to his ability, to each according to his needs,”
as Marx put it.

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Maybe that sounds good to you.

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But what does it mean?

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Who determines ability?

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Who determines need?

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The answer is The State.

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The ruling elite.

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Under Marxism, that’s who has all of the
power.

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That’s why the truth is this: Marxist dictators
like Lenin, Mao and Pol Pot really did get

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Marxism right.

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They wanted absolute power, and Marxism gave
them the way to get it.

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Karl Marx never had to face the consequences
of his theories.

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He lived most of his adult life breathing
the free air of London, England, living off

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the generosity of his collaborator and patron
Engels, who, as it happens, inherited his

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money from his wealthy merchant father.

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Marx spent his days in the Reading Room of
the British Museum, researching and writing.

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Although he was obsessed with the term “scientific,”
he was never able to marshal data

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to prove his theories.

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There’s a good reason for this: There was
no data to prove his theories.

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For all of his time in the library, Marx couldn’t
find any evidence to suggest that capitalism

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– the free exchange of goods and services
through privately-owned business –

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was a passing phase.

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Throughout the industrial age, working conditions
constantly improved and wealth expanded.

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Marx had to rely on outdated reports to make
his case.

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And even then, he had to manipulate the data
to get it to conform to his predetermined theories.

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But Marx really had no interest in proving
his theories.

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He knew that they could be put into practice
only by brute force.

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He said so himself.

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“Of course, in the beginning, [communism]
cannot be effected except by means of despotic

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inroads,” he wrote.

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His ends could “be attained only by the
forcible overthrow of all existing

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social conditions.”

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All existing social conditions.

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That’s religion, family, personal possessions,
freedom, and democracy.

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They all had to go in order to achieve Marx’s
vision of an earthly paradise.

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But since few people give up their liberties
and property voluntarily, creating a Marxist

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state has always required guns, prisons, and
summary executions.

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Marx’s many disciples, from Lenin on, never
considered this a problem.

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Some, like revolutionary poster-boy Che Guevara,
considered it a bonus.

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“I don’t need proof to execute a man,”
Che is said to have boasted.

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“I only need proof that it’s necessary
to execute him!”

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If you’re still a fan of Marxism after all
the death, suffering, and destruction it’s

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caused, that’s your right.

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But own up to it.

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Don’t hide behind the “it’s never really
been tried” line.

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It has.

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I’m Paul Kengor, Professor of Political
Science at Grove City College, for Prager University.