I don't really think 19th and early 20th century Germany, France, Scandinavia, etc. can be considered such bubbles. Elections were won, wars were stopped, wages were raised...
My feeling is that before the Russian revolution, Marx was just the last of a long line of luminaries in the socialist tradition, a tradition that had almost never been a part of a government, had never commanded a great deal of support, and was generally illegal.
I also think there's no thinker like Marx before Marx. No single thinker was so influential to a revolutionary movement as Marx was to the communists. Rousseau doesn't come close.
Obviously Marx was a lot more influential than Fisher, but you actually see this phenomenon all the time: consider Foucault, or Zizek, or even Said, or Fanon. They are absolute giants amongst certain groups, and absolute unknowns outside.