Marx, Engels, and Lenin never said they were trying to make everyone equal and one need only read exerpts from the classics found in THE RELEVANCE OF MARXISM to see as much:
90 (Add) "The idea of socialist society as the realm of equality
is a one-sided French idea resting upon the old 'liberty, equality, fraternity'--an
idea which was justified as a stage of development in its own time and
place but which, like all the one-sided ideas of the earlier socialist
schools, should now be overcome, for...more precise modes of presentation
of the matter have been found."
Marx, Critique
of the Gotha Program, Moscow, Progress Publishers, 1966,
page 36
502 (a) "Engels was a thousand times right when he said that the
concept of equality is a most absurd and stupid prejudice if it does not
imply the abolition of classes. Bourgeois professors attempted to
use the concept 'equality' as grounds for accusing us of wanting all men
to be alike. They themselves invented this absurdity and wanted to
ascribe it to the socialists. But in their ignorance they did not
know that the socialists--and precisely the founders of modern scientific
socialism, Marx and Engels--had said: equality is an empty phrase if it
does not imply the abolition of classes. We want to abolish classes,
and in this sense we are for equality. But the claim that we want
all men to be alike is just nonsense, the silly invention of an intellectual
who sometimes conscientiously strikes a pose, juggles with words, but says
nothing--I don't care whether he calls himself a writer, a scholar, or
anything else."
Lenin, Collected Works,
45 Volumes, Moscow, Progress Publishers, 1963-1970,
Vol. 29, page 358
(b) "..his (i.e., Professor Tugan-Baranovsky--Ed.)
is the reasoning of a liberal scholar who repeats the incredibly trite
and threadbare argument that experience and reason clearly prove that men
are not equal, yet socialism bases its ideal on equality. Hence,
socialism, if you please, is an absurdity which is contrary to experience
and reason, and so forth!
Mr. Tugan repeats
the old trick of the reactionaries: first to misinterpret socialism by
making it out to be an absurdity, and then to triumphantly refute the absurdity!
When we say that experience and reason prove that men are not equal, we
mean by equality, equality in abilities or similarity in physical strength
and mental ability.
It goes without
saying that in this respect men are not equal. No sensible person
and no socialist forgets this. But this kind of equality has nothing
whatever to do with socialism. If Mr. Tugan is quite unable to think,
he is at least able to read; were he to take the well-known work of one
of the founders of scientific socialism, Frederick Engels, directed against
Duhring, he would find there a special section explaining the absurdity
of imagining that economic equality means anything else than the abolition
of classes. But when professors set out to refute socialism, one
never knows what to wonder at most--their stupidity, their ignorance, or
their unscrupulousness....
By political
equality Social Democrats mean equal rights, and by economic equality,
as we have already said, they mean the abolition of classes. As for
establishing human equality in the sense of equality of strength and abilities
(physical and mental), socialists do not even think of such things....
The abolition
of classes (which Marxists do seek--Ed.) means placing all citizens on
an equal footing with regard to the means of production belonging to society
as a whole. It means giving all citizens equal opportunities of working
on the publicly-owned means of production, on the publicly-owned land,
at the publicly-owned factories, and so forth.
...when socialists
speak of equality they always mean social equality, equality of social
status (in other words, the abolition of classes--Ed.), and not by any
means the physical and mental equality of individuals."
Lenin, Collected Works, 45 Volumes, Moscow, Progress
Publishers, 1963-1970, Vol. 20, pages 144-146
(c) (Add) "By equality, Marxism
means, not equalisation of personal requirements and everyday life, but
the abolition of classes, i.e. (a) the equal emancipation of all working
people from exploitation after the capitalists have been overthrown and
expropriated; (b) the equal abolition for all of private property in the
means of production after they have been converted into the property of
the whole of society; (c) the equal duty of all to work according to their
ability, and the equal right of all working people to receive in return
for this according to the work performed (socialist society); (d) the equal
duty of all to work according to their ability, and the equal right of
all working people to receive in return for this according to their needs
(communist society)....
To draw from
this the conclusion...that according to the Marxist plan all should wear
the same clothes and eat the same dishes in the same quantity--is to utter
vulgarities and to slander Marxism."
Stalin, Collected Works, 13 Volumes, Moscow, Foreign
Languages Publishing House, Vol. 13, pages 362-363
(d) (Add) "We have not promised
equality (under socialism--Ed.) and we have not got it. There can
be no equality so long as one has plenty of corn (or any other commodity--Ed.)
and the other has none."
Lenin, Collected Works, 45 Volumes, Moscow, Progress
Publishers, 1963-1970, Vol. 32, page 109