I

“How to change the world” is a collection of essays divided into two

parts which seeks to revisit the history of formation of Marxism and
the labour movement which was inspired by Marxism in the late 19th
and the 20th century and it tries to conclude what will be the fate of
humanity in the 21st century. Although the book analyses the
political relevance of Karl Marx in both contemporary context and in
a historical manner in which the contribution of both Marx and
Engels and the a brief history of pre-Marxian socialism is also
discussed but this book mostly focuses on the history of “Western
Marxism” and in that particular context the chapter on Gramsci
bares huge importance as he is seen to be the “guiding light” of the
Western Marxists. The book also includes Hobsbawm’s introduction
to some of Marx & Engel’s own work - “Grundrisse (Marx)”, The
Communist Manifesto (Marx and Engels) & “The condition of the
working class in England (Engels)”. These essays are arranged in two
parts the first part talks about Marx and Engels and their idea about
socialism & their connection with pre-Marxian socialism. And the
second part talks about the history of Marxism after Marx in the
West.

The first chapter “Marx Today” talks about how Marx is

revisited in contemporary times? Prof. Hobsbawm starts with the
legacy of Karl Marx which is followed by a brief discussion on the
applied Marxism of USSR. Eric Hobsbawm says that the
interpretation of Marxism varies from time to time. After
denunciation of Stalin by Khrushchev some new trends emerged in
the sphere of Marxism. Which according to Prof. Hobsbawm were
“ex-communist breakaways” meaning those trends denounced the
old practices of Marxism and talked about a new approach to analyse
the world. Obviously, he is referring to Frankfurt School and Euro
Communism. Beside that, the established communist parties around
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the world according to Prof. Hobsbawm have denounced the old
project of Marxism-Leninism in contemporary times. And Karl Marx
was forgotten by the world. Then how Marx is revisited today in the
context of 21st century? Eric Hobsbawm says that the contemporary
economic crisis has kept Marx alive. The capitalists themselves are
also curious to know what Marx had to say about the capitalist
system of production. Marx is the only social scientist who critiqued
capitalism from its base i.e. the production system of capitalism and
how capitalist system reproduces its condition of production. One
important fact in this context is, during the 2008 crisis Marx’s
legendary work “The Capital” made the list of most sold books. The
2008 crisis also made Marx the most relevant figure in the 21st
century way ahead of someone (in terms of popularity) like Adam
Smith (ironically) who is considered to be the early theorist of
capitalism along with David Ricardo. People became interested about
Marx’s view on society and capitalism and he (Karl Marx) essentially
became a thinker of the 21st century as well.

The history of interaction of Marx and Engels with pre-

Marxian socialists is important because they actually started their
writing by criticising the pre-Marxian socialist views. Works like “The
holy Family”, “The German Ideology” bares example of that.
Pre-Marxian theories of socialism talks about a primitive
origin of socialism. They give examples about many communist
features in the pre-industrial societies. The reason for this is as Prof.
Hobsbawm puts it, the capitalist industrial society challenged some
of the core points or foundations of the hitherto known community
of men and women. To counter this particular influence of capitalism
the early socialist looked for inspiration in the several pre-
industrialist societies in the world and noted the features of
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communitarianism in them to show the world that the idea of
communism is practicable and it has its origin in human nature and a
world with no private property is possible. The pre-Marxian socialists
criticised the notion of progress and also the idea of civilisation itself.
For instance, Charles Fourier identified the primitive society as
heaven, Rousseau’s thought also bares similar line of argument. Eric
Hobsbawm argues that Communism as a modern social movement
began after the French revolution of 1830.

The third chapter of Part I deals with Karl Marx and Engels’
political thought and theory. Where the question of “State and
political authority’ has been discussed with ample importance.