S8 Ep114: Tiananmen Square, the Unmasking of Communism, and Karl Marx's Hegelian Roots Professor Sean McMeekin Professor Sean McMeekin's book, To Overthrow the World: The Rise and Fall and Rise of Communism, begins with the Tiananmen Square Massacre in 1989 as the

1. Tiananmen Square, the Unmasking of Communism, and Karl Marx's Hegelian Roots

Professor Sean McMeekin

Professor Sean McMeekin's book, To Overthrow the World: The Rise and Fall and Rise of Communism, begins with the Tiananmen Square Massacre in 1989 as the "tearing off of the mask" of communism, revealing raw force and brutality. The discussion traces communism back to Karl Marx, noting that he was a Hegelian who drew from Hegel the idea of history as a product of "incessant struggle," which Marx reduced to class struggle between oppressors and oppressed. Marx's theory, described as an "abstract word game" and a "philosophical project," posited that history would inevitably simplify into a "binary dialectical cataclysm" between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat.