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Karl Marx was a fiercely bearded German economist and philosopher.

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seriously look at beard .fierce. with the help of his equally bushy pal Friedrich [Marx pictured]

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angles Marx wrote a little book that would have enormous influence on the

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Russian revolutionaries of the early 20th century. that book of course was

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called Little House on the Prairie. it's just making sure you're with us. it

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was actually called the communist manifesto. so let's break it down .the

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world according to Marx suffers because of social classes. well in the Western

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world we started with feudalism as the class system .if you were a king life was

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groovy. if you were a serf and not so much. feudalism crashed and burned and

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capitalism rolled in with its booze huazi and proletariat classes. well

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according to the Communist Manifesto capitalism was much much much worse than

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feudalism. why ?because the booze huazi or owners are the means of production who [communist manifesto pictured]

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embraced capitalism would do anything to make a dollar.

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this included dehumanizing abusing and manipulating the proletariat or worker

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class who toiled on their behalf. so Marx and Engels believed that capitalism

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caused enormous suffering and hardship in the modern world. furthermore it

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caused corruption because the government was essentially in cahoots with the

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bourgeoisie. thanks to the unfairness inherent in capitalism Marxism states

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that the proletariat and bourgeoisie will forever be butting heads .more

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importantly that tension will eventually result in a revolution of the masses. and

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just what would that revolution look like? well Marx and Engels had a few

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ideas .there would be no private ownership of land. there would be no

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inheritance rights. the state would control the means of communication and

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transport .and instead of laboring in factories kids would go to school where

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they'd get a free education. the communist manifesto posits that Marxism

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would succeed where other forms of socialism had failed because communists

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would always put the proletariat first. furthermore other forms of socialism

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were nothing more than programs for small reforms .if the ship of the worker [different ships with different forms of government written on sails]

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was going to be set right full-blown an all-out revolution was needed.

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and that's what Marxism was all about. Marx and Engels like to think that

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Germany would be ground zero for the proletariat takeover.

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they probably rolled over in their graves when Hitler came to power, but

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never fear the Communist Manifesto was a home run for one group. da the Russians.

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at the turn of the 20th century there were two divisions of the Russian social

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democratic Labour Party .the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks many of whom had been

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kicked out of Russia for being naughty revolutionaries spent about a decade

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meeting in pubs in London. over a nice warm pint they'd argue about whose

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interpretation of Marxism was correct and what the best method for taking over

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Russia was .well frankly we would have picked somewhere tropical for our

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communist revolution but well to each his own. while the Mensheviks and [Castro pictured]

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Bolsheviks both wanted Russia to ditch capitalism and the Czar their

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medium-term goals were quite different. well the Mensheviks wanted to work with

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Russian officials already in office to build a kind of democratic system that

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would make Russia a better place for everyone. Bolsheviks wanted to burn it

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all down. well if you're wondering where Vladimir Lenin is and all this wonder no

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more it was at the head of the Bolsheviks. he thought the Mensheviks

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were wusses and that Russia's communist government would need to be small and

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tightly controlled so that the masses wouldn't rebel. anywho after all those

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years of plotting abroad the Mensheviks and Bolsheviks finally saw an

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opportunity to get things going in 1917. and viva la revolucion. but that's for [mob of Russians protest]

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another video. what, you thought we'd give you all the fun stuff right now?

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