The 1887 New York Times book review of Karl Marx's tome, Das Kapital, bares no resemblance to the review that the paper would write today. Back then, they were able to recognize who Marx was right away:
"He is a militant political economist. He may not encourage the spilling of blood to effect the ends he desires; but the means he proposes point to that inevitable conclusion."
Indeed, no other form of government has come anywhere near the body count credited to those nations that modeled their state rule after Marx: 149,469,610 and climbing.
The historian Henry Steele Commager ranked Karl Marx at number 31 insofar as his impact on the American mind was concerned - click here to understand his reasoning (his pull seems strongest now)...