So here I am finding out about instrumental and structural Marxism.
The problem is that the main promoters of both theories were anti soviet. So my question is. Are there any sources of either Marx, Lenin, Stalin or Mao and what they thought about it?
I can imagine that maybe the terms instrumental and structural could've been coined after their death. But I can also imagine they had some thoughts on similar concepts
Thank you for your response comrade.
Here's a link to instrumental Marxism but beware it's from natopedia: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrumental_Marxism
It seems to me that instrumental Marxism is more logical, but I don't know enough theory to be completely convinced if I'm right or wrong.
I had a quick read over this and a few criticisms jump to mind.
Firstly, it talks about how the elite in the state are inherently bougie and serve the class interests of both the state and those that enable the state.
I think it misses the mark, it puts politics above the upper class. The issue is not that there are politicians, we will always need those; they are elected represnatives after all. The issue is that the politicians only serve the upper classes interests.
I believe the only time these theories have been significant is when one of the leading theorists had a debate with Ed Millibands brother, Ralph Milliband, a capitalist sociologist; Ralph Milliband.
I also see it has ties with Orthodox marxism, which honestly dont even bother reading, those guys are legit just idiots who treat the word of Marx like the bible 2, whack jobs.
By orthdox I mean Karl Kautsky and "Kautskyism" or "Menshevism", and also ultras to a degree; the only one out of the three that are relevant in a modern day setting are Ultras, and they do have a signficant prescene in the east and middle east, as well as south america; and are worth studying, but mostly as what to avoid doing.