User blog comment:Saturn120/What if Karl Marx Was Never Born?/@comment-24473740-20140514121145

A theory "like Marxism" would have been popularised if you mean a theory criticising capitalism from a modernist point of view and championing the industrial working class as society´s leader. the question is "how much like Marxism". The 19th century was ripe with socialist theories. Without Marx, perhaps the French (mutualist / anarchist) or the English (reformist) thinkers would have played a greater role.

Russia would certainly have a revolution, Czarism was anachronistic. If Lenin didn`t have Marx to base himself on, perhaps he and his comrades might have chosen a French anarchist or some other radical theorist. The extension of Russian power over central Europe is debatable, depending on what sort of revolution takes place and what sort of regime results.

A cold or hot war between leftist and capitalist countries may have resulted, or it may not. Again, it depends on how the labour movement would have developed.

If the world would be a better place or not, that´s really extremely difficult to predict.

Some American political leaders would not have come to power - e.g. without WWII, no Eisenhower... but I wouldn`t say that Marxism and even the Cold War have not shaped America`s political landscape so deeply that everything would look different in the US.

Marxism - and even the highly politicised 20th century resulting from the pointed ideological controversies - were a great source of inspiration for many artists, authors etc. Here, we might have lost a lot without Marx and Marxism, indirectly.