ABSTRACT
The basic message is the prophetism that emerges from Marx's critique of capitalism. Each era of Marxism is defined by a particular version of the prophetism, ever at odds with the facts. The first, the era of the Second International, extending to World War I, was marked by Bernstein's revisionism, which was a testimony of the contradiction between the prophetism and the actual course of development of European capitalism. The second era demonstrated the fact that developed capitalism does not lead to revolution: it is Marxism-Leninism that brings revolutions about. The Marxism of Marx and Engels ceased, after 1914, to fulfill its function as the ideology of the Second International and the various socialist movements. With a good conscience, intellectuals and activists again took up Marx's messianism and one or the other of his arguments, at the same time dissociating themselves from the Soviet experience.
