Defenders of Marxism claim that Marxist theory has nothing to do with the deaths. Terry Eagletonwrote In Praise of Marx. From his essay:
The truth is that Marx was no more responsible for the monstrous oppression of the communist world than Jesus was responsible for the Inquisition.
However, Eagleton doesn’t mention what was responsible for the deaths. Most people grant that the Holocaust was no accident. It was simply Nazi ideology in practice.
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If one reads a basic Marxist document, The Communist Manifesto written by Engels and Marx, one can find a recipe for corpse making.
The Manifesto sets up a struggle between good and evil:
Bourgeois and Proletarians
The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.
Humans have fought and cooperated in many forms as they worked together for common goals or competed for resources. To put all these actions in the context of class struggle is unjustified reductionism. However, the bourgeoisie becomes the enemy of the ‘noble’ proletariat. ‘Bourgeoisie’ in practice becomes an inclusive term. It embodies the ‘class enemy.’ The class enemy can be anyone who opposes either the Marxist state or communist domination. It can be a peasant who works harder and as a result accumulates more than the other peasants. Stalin called them kulaks and purged them. It can be a person who opens an auto or bicycle repair shop. Castro called such people cockroach capitalists. It could be a person whose father owned or managed a factory. Such a person could be condemned for ‘unsuitable class origins.’ It is an elastic category which gives the party or the state justification for persecution.
After a condemnation of bourgeois society the Manifesto specifies ten measures of a new society which may differ in different countries. Some follow:
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1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.
Home ownership is out. One has a residence at the sufferance of the state.
3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance.
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