Even granting Marx wasn't particularly specific, the specific invention of Leninism, the Party as "intermediary" between the proletariat and History with a capital H, is conceived of absolutely nowhere in Marx's work, but the 'perversion' of Marxism to Leninism to Maoism is no different than the 'perversion' of Agile to Scrum to SAFE; there's no 'perversion' at all, because the idea of "lineage", while it works for and describes sequences of organic structures, is completely unfit for understanding ideas and how and why they change, to the point that its difficult to really use the word "origin" when it comes to ideas, particularly when each phase distinguishes itself from the last by what problems its trying to solve, the constraints on solutions, etc. We can only really talk about them being related insofar as there are structural identities in the concepts but that's about it.
If this is clear and understood, congratulations, you basically understand the gist of the French historian Michel Foucault's criticism of modernity (it supposes origins and progress when no such thing actually exists, so how do we talk about politics, history, ethics?), a criticism which would go on to inform all of contemporary Left politics, including contemporary progressivism and identity politics.
If this is clear and understood, congratulations, you basically understand the gist of the French historian Michel Foucault's criticism of modernity (it supposes origins and progress when no such thing actually exists, so how do we talk about politics, history, ethics?), a criticism which would go on to inform all of contemporary Left politics, including contemporary progressivism and identity politics.