History is defined by the way governments run their countries. One of the most popular governmental systems in the world is communism, used by China, North Korea, and formerly Russia, Cuba, and Vietnam. Communism was created by Karl Marx, a German philosopher who inspired radical theories on socialism and how the working class is undertreated and underpaid. This is what people are taught in the history books, but what if the history was all wrong?

After recent studies, it’s been confirmed that Karl Marx was indeed capitalist, and he created the idea of communism as a big joke to make fun of his proletariat friend. Unfortunately, the joke went a bit too far thanks to Marx’s fellow German, and friend Friedrich Engels, who took the joke a little too seriously. As it turns out, The Communist Manifesto was only created by Engels, and not Marx, despite Karl’s name inscribed as an author. According to Marx’s great-great granddaughter Karli Marx, “my great grandfather told me that his father never wanted communism to be a big thing, it was just a big misunderstanding. I know he would be furious at people like Mao Zhedong, Castro, or Lenin for taking his joke ideology too far.” The idea of communism has continued to influence countries in the modern world. North Korea is a full-fledged communist dictatorship. China is in a different situation, the government considers itself communist, but the Chinese economy is more capitalistic, thanks to a large number of corporations based in its cities.

Most people learned about Marx in school and about how he was the creator of this radical rip-off of socialism. While he was, it never meant to be anything more than a minor joke. This is a good life-lesson to everyone reading this, be careful what you joke about, you never know how seriously someone will take it. So whenever you’re thinking about telling an innocent joke around your friends or family, just remember what happened to Karl Marx.