The statement to be discussed is as follows: "History proves that organized attempts to achieve 'social justice' invariably lead to conflict and almost as inevitably result in violence." This statement is reversed in a way that places the onus for violence and war on those attempting to redress social injustice rather than on those causing it in the first place. We might as well say, and more correctly, that "social injustice leads to organized attempts to achieve social justice and so to conflict and almost inevitably to violence." We can certainly agree that the quest for social justice results from a lack of said justice and that the quest has involved violence as a response to the recalcitrant elements bent on maintaining the status quo at all costs. Yet, it is true that attempts to achieve social justice do tend to lead to conflict and almost inevitably result in violence. This is true both on the international front and domestically as one group in a society seeks social justice from another.
While the West has demonized Karl Marx and Marxist thought to the point where it is seen as a necessarily pernicious and dictatorial system, in fact Marxism was set forth by marx and Engels as a movement for social justice, based on Marx's perception of history as tending in that direction. Marx indeed called for violence as a way of implementing the change that he saw as inevitable, and indeed he saw violence as inevitable. The Russian Revolution was a social movement as well as a political one and involved the assertion of a people that they wanted a change in leadership, in economic structure, and in how society was ordered. The revolution was based essentially on principles espoused by Marx and Engels and then reshaped by Lenin and others in the era prior to the onset of the revolt. The Russian Revolution would serve as a model for other revolutionary movements to come, notably that in China, with modifications according ...