ABSTRACT
Students new to the study of critical theory often ask why we study Marxist criticism now that the Communist Bloc in Europe has failed, thereby proving that Marxism is not a viable theory. In addition to ignoring the existence of China, among other communist countries, such a question overlooks two important facts. First, beyond some relatively small and relatively short-lived communes, there has never been, as far as we know, a true Marxist society on the face of the earth. Communist societies, though they claim to be based on the principles developed by Karl Marx (1818-1883), have been, in reality, oligarchies in which a small group of leaders controls the money and the guns and forces its policies on a population kept in line through physical intimidation. Second, even if communist countries were true Marxist societies and even if all of them had failed, Marxist theory would still give us a meaningful way to understand history and current events. Indeed, one could use Marxism to interpret the failure of Marxist regimes. However, before we can attempt a Marxist interpretation of such political events, or of events of any kind, we must rst, of course, understand Marxist theory.
