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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2009
During the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Europe witnessed the development and spread of major innovations in the structures and practices of politics which were to reach their fruition during the l900's. It was a revolutionary epoch whose major theme was increased participation by the people in governing themselves: the traditional aristocratic authoritarianism was in the process of fighting and losing its last battles, while liberal democratic political institutions seemed to be riding the crest of the wave of the future.
* In this study, the terms “Marxism,” “Marxist,” and “Marxian,” when unaccompanied by modifiers, shall be understood as referring to the ideas and beliefs presented in the writings of both Marx and Engels. I wish to express my gratitude to Professor Robert C. Tucker of Princeton University for his constructive criticism and encouragement.
1 Correspondence and political pamphlets are the works contained in the Selected Works of Marx and Engels (2 vols.: Moscow, 1955), theGoogle ScholarSelected Correspondence (Moscow, 1965),Google ScholarLetters to Americans (New York, 1953),Google ScholarThe Condition of the Working-Class in England (London, 1892), the newspaper articles written by Marx and Engels and collected in such works as Revolution and Counter-Reuolution, The British Labour Movement, The Eastern Question, and The American Civil War, etc. An easier way of defining the texts which have been used as the basis for this study is by exclusion; that is, all the major works of Marxism have been consulted with the exceptions of Capital and A Contribution to the Critique of Political EconomyGoogle Scholar.
2 I do not, however, suggest that there is a dichotomy between the Marxian texts explicitly concerned with economic issues and those concentrating on historical and political questions. Rather, I contend that the economic writings, for example, Capital, contain a great deal of political commentary, but due to the economic framework within which this is set, the political ideas are “tainted” and distorted by the economic factors with which these writings are primarily and overtly concerned.
3 Marx, Karl and Engels, Frederick, “The Communist Manifesto,” in Marx and Engels, Selected Works (Moscow, 1962), I, 56: hereafter cited as Selected WorksGoogle Scholar.
4 Idem.
5 Ibid., II, 451.
6 Ibid., I, 278.
7 Ibid., I, 166–67.
8 Ibid., 275.
9 These demands were: (1) universal suffrage; (2) direct legislation by the people; (3) universal military training and a people's militia; (4) abolition of all exceptional laws, especially the laws of the press, association and assembly; (5) people's courts; (6) universal, equal and free elementary education; and (7) freedom of science and freedom of conscience. See: ibid., II, 39, n1.
10 Ibid., II, 33.
11 Ibid., II, 39.
12 Where the bourgeoisie is economicallydominant.
13 In addition, for Marx and Engels, the term “bourgeoisie” seems to have been used to describe either the big bourgeoisie or the big bourgeoisie plus its subclass, the petty bourgeoisie.
14 Ibid., I, 208.
15 Ibid., 162.
16 Ibid., 164.
17 Ibid., I, 254.
18 Ibid., 255.
19 Ibid., 330.
20 Ibid., 329.
21 Ibid., 278.
22 Ibid., 117.
23 This is apparent throughout the writings on France, as well as in the Address to the Communist League.
24 Selected Works, II, 33–34.
25 Ibid., 233.
26 Ibid., I, 321.
27 Neue Zeit, XX, no. 1, 11; in Bober, M. M., Karl Marx's Interpretation of History (New York, 1965), p. 269Google Scholar.
28 Marx, and Engels, , Selected Correspondence (Moscow, 1965), p. 371: hereafter cited as Selected CorrespondenceGoogle Scholar.
29 Ibid., p. 363.
30 Ibid., p. 471.
31 For just prior to the citation quoted above, he had declared: “the victory of the disintegrating petty bourgeoisie … will bring us a bourgeois republic.” Ibid., p. 470.
32 Selected Works, I, 148.
33 “Germany at the Outbreak of the Revolution,” Tribune,10 25, 1851, in, Revolution and Counter-Revolution (London, 1933)Google Scholar.
34 For a succinct statement of this conception, see Engels' 1891 “Introduction” to the “Civil War in France,” Selected Works, I, 485.
35 Ibid., I, 110–117, 231; Selected Correspondence, p. 374.
36 Selected Works, I, 116, 198.
37 Ibid., 172, 226, 273–274, 287.
38 Ibid., 158.
39 Ibid., 227.
40 Selected Correspondence, p. 161.
41 Selected Works, I, 233.
42 Marx, Karl, N. Y. Tribune, 08 29, 1859, p. 4, inGoogle ScholarBloom, Solomon F., The World of Nations (New York, 1941), p. 91Google Scholar.
43 Quoted by Engels in his 1895 “Introduction” to the “Class Struggles …,” and identified by the editor, Selected Works, I, 129, fn. 1.
44 Ibid., 467.
45 Ibid., 642.
46 Selected Correspondence, p. 260.
47 Engels, , “Trade Unions (continued),” The Labour Standard, 04 4, 1881, in The British Labour Movement (New York, 1940), p. 20Google Scholar.
48 Marx, and Engels, , Letters to Americans (New York, 1953), pp. 250–251Google Scholar.
49 Selected Works, II, 112.
50 Ibid., II, 419.
51 Letters to Americans, p. 261.
52 Selected Works, II, 322.
53 Letters to Americans, p. 176.
54 Ibid., p. 253.
55 In reference to the“Introduction,” Michels, Robert, Political Parties (New York, 1966), p. 370n., quoting a letter Engels had sent to Kautsky, argues that this preface was written to satisfy the timid members of the Party, who feared a reenactment of the antisocialist laws, and did not really conform to Engels' thoughts. If this is true, it in no way adversely affects our argumentation; Engels' discussion of universal suffrage in the “Introduction” does not deviate significantly from his earlier views of this democratic form, although in this later work he advocates a revised working-class strategy. The concept of universal suffrage has not changed, but the implications drawn from this view have been alteredGoogle Scholar.
56 Selected Works, I, 129.
57 Ibid., 129.
58 Ibid., 129.
59 Ibid., 130.
60 Ibid., 130.
61 Ibid., 130.
62 The Unfinished Revolution (New York, 1960), p. 38Google Scholar.
63 German Marxism and Russian Communism (London, 1954), pp. 121–135Google Scholar.
64 The Open Society and Its Enemies (New York, 1963), II, 146–148Google Scholar.
65 The Marxists (London, 1963), p. 86Google Scholar.
66 Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (New York, 1962), p. 15Google Scholar.
67 Class and Class Conflict in Industrial Society (Stanford, 1959), p. 87Google Scholar.
68 Bober, , op. cit., p. 108Google Scholar.
69 Manifesto, Class Struggles in France, The Eighteenth Brumaire, and The Civil War in France.
70 Marxism (New York, 1965), p. 86Google Scholar.
71 Selected Works, I, 230 (my italics).
72 Ibid., 211.
73 This interpretation was suggested to me by Professor Robert C. Tucker, who in no way bears responsibility for any distortion which my formulation of his idea may cause.
74 For a few of the many possible supporting quotes, consult: “Engels and the Sources of Confusion,” Problems of Communism, July–August, 1966, p. 33.
