Marxism of the 20th Century: Modern Interpretations

The article is dedicated to the bicentennial of Karl Marx, it considers the key interpretations in the opinion of the authors that the Marxist doctrine has received over the past period.Two political interpretations - Leninist and Social-Democratic - are viewed as two opposing, incompatible strategies for achieving a new society, two different practical readings of the Marxian heritage; The third interpretation is seen by the authors as referring to the disclosure of not the means, but the very "Marxist teleology", to the philosophical meaning of Karl Marx’s ideas. The authors believe that both practical political readings, to some extent, influenced the
current history, affected the lives of a number of generations, but neither the first nor the the second led to the emergence of a new fair social order. At the same time, the third interpretation, concerning the philosophical meaning of the materialist understanding of history, points to the enduring value of Marxian ideas, which actually act as regulative.