|
The Eighteenth Brumaire
of Louis Bonaparte On December 2, 1851, Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte (1811-82), the
nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte,
staged a coup d'état against the short-lived Second Republic to which the
1848 revolution in France had given birth. Karl Marx (1818-1883) composed a
series of articles for publication in a New York journal edited by his friend
Josef Weydemeyer in which he reflected on the path
from the February Revolution of 1848 to Louis Napoleon's seizure of power.
His essay has proven influential both for its interpretation of events in
France and for its more general theory of history. Men make their own history, but
not just as they please. They do not choose the circumstances for themselves,
but have to work upon circumstances as they find them, have to fashion the
material handed down by the past. The legacy of the dead generations weighs
like [a nightmare] upon the brains of the living. At the very time when they
seem to be engaged in revolutionizing themselves and things, when they seem
to be creating something perfectly new--in such epochs of revolutionary
crisis, they are eager to press the spirits of the past into their service,
borrowing the names of the dead, reviving old war-cries, dressing up in
traditional costumes, that they may make a braver pageant in the newly-staged
scene of universal history. . . . [T]hus did the
revolution of 1789-1814, drape itself successively as the Roman Republic and
the Roman Empire; and thus was it that the revolution of 1848 could find
nothing better to do than to parody by turns 1789 and the revolutionary
traditions of 1793-1795. . . . . . . [T]he heroes as well as the
parties and the masses of the great French revolution, though they donned
Roman garb and mouthed Roman phrases, nevertheless achieved the task of their
day--which was to liberate the bourgeoisie and to establish modern bourgeois
society. The Jacobins broke up the ground in which feudalism had been rooted,
and struck off the heads of the feudal magnates who had grown there. Napoleon
established throughout France the conditions which made it possible for free
competition to develop, for landed property to be exploited after the
partition of the great estates, and for the nation's powers of industrial
production to be utilized to the full. Across the frontiers he everywhere
made a clearance of feudal institutions, in so far as this was requisite to
provide French bourgeois society with a suitable environment upon the
continent of Europe. As soon as the new social forms had come into being, the
antediluvian titans and the resuscitated Romanism vanished. . . . The social revolution of the
nineteenth century cannot draw its figurative embellishments from the past;
it must create them anew out of the future. It cannot begin its work until it
has rid itself of all the ancient superstitions. Earlier revolutions had need
of the reminiscences of historic pageantry, for thus only could they bemuse
themselves as to their own significance. The revolution of the nineteenth
century must let the dead bury their dead, for thus only can it discover its
own true meaning. In those earlier revolutions, there was more phrase than
substance; in the revolution that is to come, there will be more substance
than phrase. In the revolution of February
1848, the old society was taken by surprise. The people thereupon declared
that this coup de main, this
unexpected achievement, marked a phase in universal history, was the opening of
a new epoch. On December 2nd, the February revolution was jockeyed out of its
gains by a conjuring trick. As a result, what was overthrown by that
revolution was no longer the monarchy, but the liberal concessions that had
been wrung from the monarchy by centuries of struggle. We see that, after
all, society has not entered upon a new phase. . . . Society now seems to
have gone back further than the point from which it set out on the adventure.
In actual fact, however, it must first create the point of revolutionary
departure--must provide the situation, the relationships, the conditions,
under which alone a modern revolution can become a serious matter. Bourgeois revolutions like those
of the eighteenth century speed from success to success; they vie with one
another in the lustre of their stage effects; men
and things seem to be set in sparkling brilliants; every day is filled with
ecstasy; but they are short-lived; their climax is soon reached; on the
morning after, society has to pass through a long fit of the dumps; and only
when that is over can there be a dispassionate assimilation of the
achievements of the period of storm and stress. Proletarian revolutions, on
the other hand, like those of the nineteenth century, are ever self-critical;
they again and again stop short in their progress; retrace their steps in
order to make a fresh start; are pitilessly scornful of the half-measures,
the weaknesses, the futility of their preliminary
essays. . . . Let us in broad outline
recapitulate the phases through which the French revolution passed between
February 24, 1848, and December 1851. . . . The first period, which began on
February 24, 1848, with the fall of Louis Philippe, and ended on May 4, 1848,
with the first meeting of the Constituent Assembly, was the genuine February
period, and may be described as the prologue to the revolution. The official
stamp was given to this phase by the way in which the improvised government
of February declared itself provisional. Everything that was broached,
attempted, or uttered during this period, was, like the government, declared
provisional. Nobody and nothing ventured to claim the right of the thing that
is, the right of actuality. The multifarious elements that had planned or
caused the revolution--dynastic opposition, republican bourgeoisie,
democratic republican, petty bourgeoisie, social democratic
working-class--one and all found "provisional" places in the
February Government. How could it have been otherwise?
The original aim of the February revolution was to bring about an electoral
reform, whereby the circle of those with political privileges among the
possessing classes was to be widened, and the exclusive dominance of the
financial aristocracy overthrown. But when the actual conflict began, when
the people had manned the barricades, when the National Guard was passive,
when the resistance of the army was half-hearted, and when the King had run
away, the proclamation of a republic seemed a matter of course. Each of the
parties concerned in the revolution interpreted this republic in its own way.
The proletariat having won it by force of arms, put the stamp of its class
upon the new creation, and proclaimed the socialist republic. Thus was indicated
the general significance of modern revolutions--a significance which was,
however, in this case, sharply contrasted with all that was immediately
practicable in view of the materials to hand, the cultural level of the
masses, extant circumstances and conditions. On the other hand, the claims of
all the other participants in the February revolution were recognized in the
lion's share allotted them in the government. In no other period, therefore,
do we find so motley a mixture of high-sounding phrases in conjunction with
actual uncertainty and embarrassment, of an eagerness for innovation in
conjunction with an essential persistence in the old routine, of an
ostensible harmony throughout society in conjunction with real estrangement
among its various elements. While the Parisian proletariat was still gloating
over the great prospects opened up by the revolution, and while the workers
were engaged in the earnest discussion of social problems, the old forces of
society had come together, had taken counsel, and had secured unexpected
support from the masses of the nation--from the peasants and the petty
bourgeois, who promptly thronged into the political arena when the barriers
set up by the July monarchy had fallen. The second period, from May 4,
1848, to the end of May 1849, is the period during which the bourgeois
republic was being established. Immediately after the February days, not only
was the dynastic opposition surprised by the republicans, not only were the
republicans surprised by the socialists, but also France as a whole was
surprised by Paris. The Constituent National Assembly, elected by universal
[manhood] suffrage on May 4, 1848, represented the nation. It was an embodied
protest against the aspirations of the February days, and its aim was to guide
the revolution back into bourgeois channels. The Parisian proletariat, quick
to understand the character of this Constituent National Assembly, attempted
on May 15th., nine days after the Assembly first
met, to deny its existence by force, to dissolve it, to disintegrate the
organic unity which the spirit of the nation had formed as a reaction against
the Parisian workers. As is well known, the only result of the demonstration
of May 15th was that Blanqui and his associates,
the real leaders of the proletarian party, were removed from the stage for
the whole period of the cycle now under consideration. The bourgeois monarchy of Louis
Philippe could only be followed by a bourgeois republic,
this meaning that whereas, in the name of the King, a restricted portion of
the bourgeoisie had ruled, now, in the name of the people, the whole
bourgeoisie was to rule. The demands of the Parisian proletariat were
regarded as utopian balderdash, and were to be swept aside. Such was the
decision of the Constituent Assembly, to which the proletariat answered by
the June insurrection, the most outstanding event in the history of European
civil wars. The bourgeois republic was victorious. There rallied to its
support the financial aristocracy, the industrial bourgeoisie, the middle
class, the petty bourgeoisie, the army, the slum proletariat [Lumpenproletariat] (organized as the Garde Mobile), the intellectuals, the clergy, and the
rural population. The Parisian proletariat stood alone. Over three thousand
of the insurgents were massacred after the victory, and fifteen thousand were
transported without trial. As a sequel of this defeat, the proletariat passed
to the back of the revolutionary stage. It made a fresh attempt to come to
the front whenever the movement seemed to be acquiring a new impetus, but
each time with less energy and with a smaller result. As soon as a
revolutionary ferment occurred in one of the higher social strata, the
proletariat joined forces with the members of this stratum, and thus became
involved in all the defeats of the various parties. One after another, the
leaders of the proletariat in the Assembly and in the journalistic world
became the victims of the law-courts, and more and more questionable figures
stepped to the front. The proletariat then had recourse to doctrinaire
experiments, to "cooperative banking" and "labour
exchange" schemes. In other words, the proletariat became associated
with a movement which had renounced the attempt to revolutionize the old
world by the strength of its united forces, hoping rather to attain
emancipation behind the back of society, privately, and within the bounds of
its own restricted vital conditions. Every such attempt is foredoomed to
failure. It seems as if the proletariat would be unable to rediscover its
revolutionary greatness, would be unable to win for itself fresh energy out
of the new alliances it has formed, until all the classes against which it
fought in June, have been laid prostrate like itself. But at least it is
defeated with the honours attaching to a great
historical struggle. Not France alone, but all Europe, was shaken by the June
earthquake; whereas the subsequent defeats, those of the upper classes, were
so cheaply purchased, that the victors have to exaggerate grossly in order to
make them pass as notable events. Furthermore, these defeats have been all
the more shameful in proportion as the defeated party was more widely removed
from the proletariat. It is true that the defeat of the
June insurgents prepared and leveled the ground for the upbuilding
of the bourgeois republic, but this defeat likewise showed that there are
other problems to solve in Europe than the problem "republic or
monarchy." It gave a plain demonstration of the fact that here in Europe
a bourgeois republic means the unbridled despotism of one class over all
others. It proved that in all civilized countries where the formation of
classes has reached an advanced stage of development, where modern conditions
of production prevail, and where, after centuries of effort, all traditional
ideas have been dissolved, the "republic" can only mean the
transformational or revolutionary political form of bourgeois society, and
not its conservative form of existence. . . . During the June days, all other
classes and parties united against the proletariat, styling themselves the
Party of Order. The proletarians were stigmatized as the party of anarchy,
socialism, communism. The Party of Order had
"saved" society from the "enemies of society." It adopted
the watchwords of the old society; Property, the Family, Religion, Order: and
made these the passwords for its army. "Under this sign you will
conquer!" said the Party to its counter-revolutionary crusaders.
Thenceforward, whenever any one of the numerous parties which had marshaled themselves
under that sign against the June insurgents, attempted a revolutionary
struggle on behalf of its own class interests, it was defeated to the
accompaniment of the cry: "Property, the Family, Religion, Order!"
Society has been "saved" again and again, and each time the circle
of its rulers has been narrowed, each time a more exclusive interest has been
successfully maintained against a more general one. Every demand for the
simplest kind of bourgeois financial reform, for the most everyday liberalism,
for the most formal republicanism, for the most commonplace democracy, is
punished as an "attack on society" and anathematized as
"socialism." |
