My feeling is that before the Russian revolution, Marx was just the last of a long line of luminaries in the socialist tradition, a tradition that had almost ne

My feeling is that before the Russian revolution, Marx was just the last of a long line of luminaries in the socialist tradition, a tradition that had almost never been a part of a government, had never commanded a great deal of support, and was generally illegal. I also think there's no thinker like Marx before Marx. No single thinker was so influential to a revolutionary movement as Marx was to the communists. Rousseau doesn't come close.