>>509074075 (OP)Friendly reminder that Marx was a pro-democracy advocate in the German Empire, and was driven into exile in Austria along with many of Germany's intellectual elite, when the Kaiser decided "actually no we won't be having representation today"
There are three focuses of Marx's body of works:
Analyzing and critiquing the socioeconomic conditions of the German Empire, a klepto-oligarchy where a despotic clique of military elite monopolize the economy by exchanging political and military favours with each other and the Kaiser.
Accusing Britain--and by extension America, which Marx's german-nationalist mind believed was simply an anglo-imperial puppet state--of being morally culpable in the crimes of the German Empire by failing to intervene on the side of the democratic agitators
And third: trying to foment a popular revolution in the German Empire to overthrow the Kaiser and punish the ruling Junker class. Not because he felt it was morally responsible but because he wanted revenge against them for his exile.
Everyone in the 20th century onwards calling themselves a Marxist is actually a Leninist. They don't care about the socioeconomy circumstances of the 19th century German Empire. They don't care about some conspiracy theory about perfidious anglo-traders. But they see what happened in Russia and they want in. They fantasize about being the man in baggy pants standing at the head of the angry mob, dream of getting to be the dictator in "people's dictatorship" and believe that when push comes to shove. That when the blood is shed they'll be the one holding the rifle, not the one facing the wall. They yearn of the power to topple sandcastles for the fun of it and order millions to their death unquestioned because the godless worship them as god.
But then the wakeup call happens and they always end up the Trotsky, never the Stalin.