There is so much that is wrong with Marxism as a set of ideas and a political tradition that it's a wonder that its critics and opponents ever feel the need to characterize it in indefensibly pejorative ways. One can say more than this. What precise weight of responsibility the original ideas, as put forward by Karl Marx himself, bear for the political disaster that was Stalinism may be a matter of debate; but only the most blinkered of Marxists will today deny that central deficiencies of classical Marxism played a role in the developments that led ultimately to the Gulag. Two central deficiencies in particular: the lack of an adequate theory of democratic political institutions; and the tendency to mock and diminish the importance of ethical argument (despite the fact that Marxism itself, and in Marx's hands, contained a moral vision and a commitment to principles of justice).
Yet it is not, in truth, a matter of wonder. The dynamics of political division and disagreement, the dialectic of passionate intellectual argument and counter-argument, these produce willy-nilly exaggeration on every side, and the exaggerations have an appeal and make their way in the world.
Writing yesterday about the death of Leszek Kolakowski, Oliver quotes him approvingly for saying that Marxism is 'a dream offering the prospect of a society of perfect unity, in which all human aspirations [will] be fulfilled and all values reconciled'. Each of the three contentions in this grouping is not only false but demonstrably so. Just think for a moment about the middle one: all human aspirations will be fulfilled. Really? Did Marx think this about the aspiration to eternal life. No he didn't. OK, obviously - Kolakowski evidently didn't mean that. But, whatever he meant, it's false. A life altogether free of pain or illness, a life of unblemished happiness, with no unrequited love, with total human harmony? Nope, nothing Marx wrote warrants the conclusion that he anticipated these things.
Some years ago I wrote an essay devoted to answering claims about Marxism of this kind, claims suggesting that to be a Marxist a person had - and has - to be not merely mistaken about certain things, in the way that people who think and act politically regularly are mistaken, but dim-wittedly, grinningly, vacant-in-the-head mistaken. The piece is long and you may not wish to be detained over it, but it's available online [pdf] for anyone who may be interested enough in these matters to want to pursue them further. I will not attempt a summary of it here. I will just highlight three points relating to the other two of Kolakowski's claims quoted by Oliver: a society of perfect unity; and a society in which all values have been reconciled. False and false.
(1) Marx envisages a future society in which there will be no more economic classes in his sense of that word. This may be thought to be a utopian and/or undesirable objective in itself. But it does not amount to saying there will be no differences of interest as between individuals or as between other types of grouping than classes.
(2) Two assumptions of Marx's that are both absolutely central to his thinking about a future society are: (a) that there will be a great flourishing of human individuality there, much greater than ever before; and (b) that this will be a society which exercises a conscious control over its own affairs. From these two assumptions it is most unlikely that you can get, as a good inference, perfect unity. On the contrary, more probable would seem to be a fairly boisterous discussion of public affairs. Or, putting the same thing another way, a vigorous politics.
(3) What I have merely inferred at (2) we know independently, from Marx's texts, to be what he thought. There will be a public life, a politics, because there will be - wait for it - a state. It is commonly said that Marx thought the opposite, that the state will wither away; but this is one of those things people like to say about Marxism because it makes it easier for them to fail to understand how anyone could ever have taken Marx seriously. Better to try and understand. Marx projected an end to the state, but that was the state in the meaning instrument of class rule. With no classes there could be no state in this sense; but there would be a 'public power', Marx held, and one subject to democratic control from below. A politics, therefore; and no grounds for the conclusions perfect unity and complete reconciliation of values.
Marxism is flawed in many ways, and Marxists have aggravated some of those flaws and still do. That's one reason why so many of them make excuses for tyranny and for terrorism. There's no need to exaggerate about it. It's more important to be careful about the history of ideas.