C/P/15 Assess critically Marx's distinction between ideology and science

INTRODUCTION: In 1958 the Chinese government, with Mao Zedong's blessing, launched an unprecedented campaign of economic construction - the Great Leap Forward - to allow China's transition to Communism within the space of a few years. To realize the unrealisable economic plans, Mao resorted to the revolutionary spirit of Marxism-Leninism, combined with new insights of the Mao Zedong Thought. Inspired by these revolutionary ideas the Chinese people would make a great leap out of backwardness towards a brighter future. The Soviet economists criticized China's ambitious industrialization plan, but the Chinese politicians defied criticism and blamed the Soviets for the lack of revolutionary fervour. Neglect of economic realities took a heavy toll on China: in months, the country faced economic collapse and starvation. The ideology of Marxism proved insufficient to produce an economic miracle. But Marx himself would have turned in his grave had he known about Mao's use of his name as a banner for ultra-leftist policies that defied reality. For much of his own career Marx debated with philosophers of Mao's kind - those who sought to liberate Man by liberating his Conscience, those who thought that Conscience determines the Being. Whatever the ethical merit of these ideas, Marx found them utterly unscientific, without a basis in reality, and hence - only an ideology. He drew distinction between the baseless philosophy of his own contemporaries and his own scientific theory that, he firmly believed, was rooted in reality itself.