ABSTRACT
Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli was an Italian diplomat, politician, historian, philosopher, humanist and writer of the Renaissance period. Machiavelli can teach Karl Marx patience in indulgently tolerating abusive commentators or disciples unfaithful by dint of ignorance, passion, or even sometimes their fidelity. The old Machiavelli and the young Marx have had remarkably similar posthumous fates. For a long time now, every historian of Machiavelli has had to become willy-nilly a historian of Machiavellianism, especially when he proposes to strip away the successive layers of commentary with which passing generations have overlaid the elliptical and provocative writings of the Florentine chancellor. The descendants of both Machiavelli and Marx are as numerous as they are cumbersome, but the work of these two men differs so profoundly that their respective disciples and adversaries have almost nothing in common. The liberal disciple of Machiavelli finds in the fate of twentieth-century Marxism many confirmations of the Florentine's teaching.
