The Political Ideas of Marx and Engels: Volume I: Marxism and Totalitarian Democracy, 1818-1850

This first of two volumes challenges the common identification of Marx and Engels with totalitarianism. By examining the entire body of their works as well as their political activities until 1850, Dr. Hunt shows that the two men were genuinely democratic revolutionaries who had no use for terror-ism, minority revolution, or dictatorship. As he develops these arguments, Dr. Hunt makes some startling historical discoveries, including two separate theories of the state, one fathered by Marx, the other by Engels. He also asserts that the two most famous documents attributed to Marx and Engels in the 1848 period-the Communist Manifesto and the March Circular of 1850-in fact included key compromise formulations.