Until quite recently, the broad consensus in the study of International
Relations was that Marxism had little if anything to offer the serious
analyst. Realists argued that Marxism was concerned with how societies
have interacted with nature rather than with how they have interacted
with each other in ways that often led to major war. The paradigm of
production analysed class structure and class conflict rather than persistent
national loyalties, state power and geopolitical rivalry. A failure to
understand these phenomena meant that Marxists were wrong in thinking
that capitalist globalization was the prelude to a more peaceful, cosmopolitan
world. Illustrating the point, Waltz argued that Marxists
failed to appreciate the implications of the belief that socialism
would first be established within one or more nation-states. The upshot
of this expectation was that governments would have to ensure their
national survival before they could hope to export socialism to other
parts of the world (Waltz 1959). Trotsky’s remark that he would issue a
few revolutionary proclamations as Russia’s Commissar for Foreign
Affairs before closing shop has often been cited as evidence of the
naïvety of Marxists regarding the persistent realities of international
affairs