Marxism arose as part of a larger, more diffuse proliferation of political organizations in the nineteenth century. "The nineteenth century was par excellence a century of organization," writes P. H. Noyes. "Hosts of associations sprang up, from secret revolutionary conspiracies and public political parties to trade unions, singing and gymnastic clubs, temperance and ladies political societies. ''1 Noyes sees the rapid development of such associations as a response to the decline of the old hierarchical society and the need for new group memberships to compensate for people's growing anonymity. One may add that many West Europeans, both rural and urban, had long acquired considerable organizational experience and competence, one of the most important such groups being the artisans with their tradition of guild experience. Thus when the old arrangements began to deteriorate in Europe, there were many with ample organizational competence to begin a rebuilding that might provide them with special-purpose organizations to protect their threatened interests and to serve as rudimentary new communities.
As a "real historical movement," Marxism was a fusion of ideology with organization, each bleeding into and defining the other. To view theory only as organization's steering mechanism, however, is an anthropomorphic reification. Theory is not self-maintaining, but is strategically situated in a relatively few privileged persons who steer or, more precisely, who attempt to steer. Their interpretations and applications of theory are selectively structured by the privileged positions they occupy and seek to retain. The content of theory itself only provides a provisional grammar part cause and part post-factum ideology -allowing or disallowing a large variety of interpretations and steering maneuvers, and often merely serving to justify strategies based on interests, expedience, and prudence.
In what follows, these general considerations alert us to selected aspects of Marxism's early history. Out of an interplay between this theoretical sketch 2