more on marx

This last week, I finished reading Fado Alexandrino by Portuguese novelist Antonio Lobo Antunes. Among other things, the novel is about (and structured around) a Marxist revolution in Portugal back in the 70s. Reading this alongside Capital vol. 1 by Marx, I've been thinking about Marxism's history, and how condemnations of Marxism always entail pointing towards its bloody revolutions, Soviet Russia, Stalin, Mao, etc.

I've never read a Marxist defense of these things, which I imagine would be about as interesting/boring as hearing Christian defenses against the history that is leveled against it: the Crusades, the Inquisition, witch trials, slavery, church corruption, etc. I imagine the typical responses would be the same, "That's not real Marxism," "That's not real Christianity." And then there are the historians, "Well, that's not really what happened during the Crusades," or "Well, if you look at the Inquisition in the context of 16th century Spain..." The appeal to purity or history is always a losing argument, or at best a back-pedaling argument.

What's more interesting for me is to take things full force, to say, "Yes, let's suppose all this is true, that the church really did institutionalize murder, genocide, and torture..." A better question, but one I'm not satisfied with either, is "What about Marxist ideology was useful for revolutionaries, or fascist leaders, to appropriate?"

What I think is disappointing about this last question is that it still puts the ideology first, as the motivating factor behind genocide and torture and exploitation. What's more convincing to me is that the ideology is secondary to the torture, that the torture serves as a justification for the ideology rather than the ideology for the torture....