Karl Marx and Leo Tolstoy: Prophets of Anarchism An Analysis of Theory and Practice

Karl Marx and Leo Tolstoy never met each other, yet within their social criticisms, there is a component of anarchism. This paper asks if Marx’s and Tolstoy’s anarchistic ideas be better understood if we think of them as a form of social prophecy. This paper establishes a three component set of criteria. I analyze Marx and Tolstoy on three criteria: prophetic revelation, revolutionary doctrine, and positive action towards an anarchistic society. Marxist texts analyzed include his essay on Alienated Labor, The German Ideology, Theses on Feuerbach, Critique of Hegel’s Doctrine of the State, and The Civil War in France. Tolstoyan texts analyzed include The Kingdom of God is Within You, What Then Must We Do, as well as the essays Church and State and The End of an Age In addition to primary texts, I also incorporate an analysis of secondary scholarly research as well as correspondence. This paper concludes by assessing the strengths and weakness of each of Marx and Tolstoy’s prophetic criteria. Moreover, it concludes by an observation on the benefits and disadvantages of simultaneously assessing the practice and theory in terms of prophecy. Ultimately, it concludes by determining Marx and Tolstoy’s theories of anarchism become less understood if we regard them as social prophets since the breadth of information on both theory and practice is too large to practically to be understood comprehensively. Note: There are various references to the Marx-Engels Collected works throughout this paper. This has been abbreviated at MECW for the sake of convenience.