“Where Marxists go wrong is in believing that one can jump start history and move directly to a utopian society.”
I agree that Marx had important insights, the best of which was the enormous influence of economics on driving society and history. But “jump-starting history” was Lenin’s Bolshevik program, essentially a heresy of Marxism. Marx had it that “stages” defined by a dominant economic method (like Feudalism or Capitalism) pass away organically when the productive potential of the stage has been maximized and wealth concentrated in so fews hands that economics ceased to work. It’s true though, that Marx got so wee-weed up by the Paris Commune that he wished away his own principles.
I agree, you have it exacty.