"The soil of the French Republic is a place of refuge for all
friends of freedom. Tyranny has banished you; France, the free,
opens to you her gates--to you and to all who fight for the holy
cause, the fraternal cause of every people. In this sense shall
every officer of the French Government understand his duty.
_Salut et Fraternite._
FERDINAND FLOCON,
Member of the Provisional Government."
The stay in Paris was, however, of short duration. Marx and Engels
gathered together the members of the League of Communists and procured
them the means for returning to Germany to take part in the German
revolution. They themselves travelled to the Rhineland and succeeded
in getting the establishment of the newspaper planned in Cologne into
their hands. On the first of June, 1848, the _Neue Rheinische Zeitung_
appeared for the first time. It goes without saying that the editor
was Karl Marx, and among his collaborators were Engels, Freiligrath,
Wilhelm Wolff, and Georg Weerth. Occasionally, too, Lassalle sent
contributions. It is but rarely given to a daily paper to have such an
editorial staff. In the third volume of his "Collected Papers of Marx
and Engels," Franz Mehring gives a selection of the articles which
appeared in this journal. They are still worth reading. Here are a few
examples. After the fall of Vienna he wrote an article concluding with
the following words: "With the victory of the 'Red Republic' in Paris
the armies from the inmost recesses of every land will be vomited
forth upon the boundaries and over them, and the real strength of the
combatants will clearly appear. Then we shall remember June and
October, and we too shall cry, 'Woe to the vanquished!' The fruitless
butcheries which have occurred since those June and October days ...
will convince the peoples that there is only one means of shortening,
simplifying, and concentrating the torturing death agonies of
society--only one means--revolutionary terrorism."--(_Neue Rheinische
Zeitung_, November 6, 1848.)
Or take, for example, this passage from the last article of the paper,
when on May 18, 1849, it succumbed to the "craft and cunning of the
dirty West Kalmucks" (i.e., the Prussians).
"In taking leave of our readers we remind them of the words in our
first January number: 'Revolutionary upheaval of the French working
class, general war--that is the index for the year 1849. And already
in the east a revolutionary army comprised of warriors of all
nationalities stands confronting the old Europe represented by and in
league with the Russian army, already from Paris looms the Red
Republic.'"
In reading these extracts one has only to substitute Russia for France
and Moscow for Paris and we get at one of the sources of Lenin's and
Trotsky's revolutionary policy. The articles written by Marx in 1848
and 1849 have supplied the Bolsheviks their tactics.
The censorship, Press lawsuits, and the decline of the revolution
severed the life threads of the paper after scarcely a year of its
existence. Marx sacrificed everything he had in money and
valuables--in all, 7,000 thalers--in order to satisfy creditors and to
pay the contributors and printers. Then he travelled to Paris, where
he witnessed not the triumph of the Red Republic but that of the
counter-revolution. In July, 1849, he was banished by the French
Government to the boggy country of Morbihan, in Brittany; he
preferred, however, to go over to London, where he remained to the end
of his life.
IV. DAYS OF CLOUD AND SUNSHINE IN LONDON.
Marx lived for more than a generation in London. Half of this time was
spent in a wearying struggle for existence, which, however, did not
prevent him from collecting and systematising a vast amount of
material for his life-work, "Capital," nor from taking a decisive part
in the Labour movement as soon as the opportunity presented itself, as
it did on the founding of the International. The first decade was
particularly trying. A letter written on May 20, 1851, by Marx's wife
to Weydemeyer, in America, gives an affecting picture of their poverty
during these first years of exile.--("Neue Zeit," 25th year, Vol. II.,
pp. 18-21.)
The attempt to continue the _Neue Rheinische Zeitung_ under the title
_Neue Rheinische Revue_ had only the negative result of swallowing up
Marx's last resources. How poor Marx then was can be judged from the
fact that he had to send his last coat to the pawnshop in order that
he might buy paper for his pamphlet on the Cologne Communist trial
(towards the end of 1852). On top of all this, lamentable differences
sprang up among the German exiles, who, deceived in their
revolutionary illusions, overwhelmed one another with recriminations;
an echo of these conflicts is heard in the pamphlet "Herr Vogt"
(1860). Marx's only regular source of income in the years 1851-60 was
his earnings as correspondent of the _New York Tribune_, which paid
him at the rate of a sovereign per article, and this hardly covered
his rent and the cost of newspapers and postage. Yet his articles were
veritable essays, the fruit of researches which cost him a good deal
of time. And in the midst of this penury the idea of writing a
Socialistic criticism of political economy burnt within him. One might
almost say that since 1845 this idea had allowed him no peace.
Freiligrath's lines are, as it were, stamped upon him:
In the clouds his goal he planted;
In the dust had he to live,
Bare existence daily granted.
Cramped, hemmed in on every side,
Pinched by poverty and urged
By want, he, of all denied,
By necessity was scourged.
Only in the sixties did his fortunes improve. Small family
inheritances, Wilhelm Wolff's legacy of over L800, and Engels' more
plentiful and regular help, which from 1869 onward amounted to about
L350 annually, enabled Marx to write his "Capital," the first volume
of which, as is well known, is dedicated to Wilhelm Wolff.
To these relatively happy times belong Paul Lafargue's
reminiscences--("Neue Zeit," 9th year, Vol. I., pp. 10-17, 37-42)--of
his intercourse with the Marx family. In particular he depicts the
personality of the author of "Capital." In the bosom of his family and
among the circle of his friends on Sunday evenings Marx was a genial
companion, full of wit and humour. "His dark black eyes sparkled with
mirth and with a playful irony whenever he heard a witty remark or a
prompt repartee." He was a tender, indulgent father, who never
asserted the parental authority. His wife was his helper and companion
in the truest sense of the word. She was four years older than he, and
notwithstanding her aristocratic connections and in spite of the great
hardships and persecutions which for years she had to suffer by the
side of her husband, she never regretted having taken the step which
linked her destiny with that of Marx. She possessed a cheerful, bright
disposition and an unfailing tact, easily winning the esteem of every
one of her husband's acquaintances, friends, and followers. "Heinrich
Heine, the relentless satirist, feared Marx's scorn; but he cherished
the greatest admiration for the keen, sensitive mind of Marx's wife.
Marx esteemed so highly the intelligence and the critical sense of his
wife that he told me in 1866 he had submitted all his manuscripts to
her and that he set a high value upon her judgment." Six children were
born to the Marxes, four girls and two boys, of whom only three of the
girls grew up--Jenny, who married Charles Longuet; Laura, who became
the wife of Paul Lafargue; and the unhappy but highly-gifted Eleanor,
who spent 14 sad years of her life by the side of Dr. Edward Aveling.
The sixties were undoubtedly the happiest years of Marx's life, and
seemed to promise an abundant harvest in his later life. But his
health soon began to fail, and did not allow him to complete his work.
The most productive years of Marx's life were between 1837 and 1847
and between 1857 and 1871. All his valuable work falls within these
years: the "Poverty of Philosophy," the Communist Manifesto, his
activity in the International, "Capital," the Civil War in France (the
Commune).
V. THE INTERNATIONAL.
The economic studies necessitated by his book "Capital" led Marx into
the study of the social history of England during the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries, and gave him an insight into the working-class
movements of those times such as but few scholars, English or foreign,
have acquired. He became familiar with the modes of thought and
expression of the working-class revolutionary movements, and
especially of the Chartist movement, with the surviving leaders and
adherents of which he was personally acquainted. Always eager to
obtain knowledge of the actual working-class movement and to take part
in it, he watched the activities of the English working class, which
in the fifties was mainly occupied with purely trade unionist
questions, being, politically, still in the Liberal camp. A change
seemed imminent, however, about the beginning of the sixties. The
London Labour leaders began to think about a Parliamentary reform
movement, about starting a campaign for universal suffrage, which was
an old Chartist demand. Likewise they manifested an interest in the
fate of Poland and in other international questions concerning
liberty.
At the International Exhibition held in London in 1862, the Labour
leaders made the acquaintance of a deputation of French working men,
with whom they afterwards carried on a correspondence. In 1863 and
1864, in the course of this correspondence, the idea of founding an
international union of workers was mooted; and in the fourth week of
September, 1864, this idea was carried into effect. Labour delegates
from Paris and London held a conference in London from the 25th to the
28th of September, and the event was celebrated by a public gathering
in St. Martin's Hall on the evening of the 28th. Marx received an
invitation to this meeting in order that the German workers might be
represented there. This conference and meeting resulted in the
formation of the International Working Men's Association. Committees
and sub-committees were elected to draw up a declaration of principles
and outline the constitution. One of Mazzini's followers and a
Frenchman submitted schemes which were handed over to Marx to be
elaborated by him. He consigned them to the waste-paper basket and
wrote the "Inaugural Address," giving a history of the English workers
since the year 1825, and deducing the necessary conclusions. The
declaration of principles is entirely the work of Marx, and it is by
no means a subtly and diplomatically conceived composition designed to
please English and French working men; it consists essentially of
Marxian ideas expressed in terms, however, which would appeal to
English working men of that time. "It was difficult," writes Marx to
Engels--("Correspondence," Vol. III., p. 191)--"so to arrange matters
that our view should appear in a form which would prove acceptable to
the working-class movement with its present outlook.... It needs time
before the reanimated movement will allow of the old boldness of
speech. One must go _fortiter in re, suaviter in modo_ (firmly
maintaining essential principles with a pleasant manner)."
The Inaugural Address sums up the history of the English working class
from 1825 to 1864, and shows that from its struggles, as indeed from
modern social history in general, the following lessons may be learnt
by the proletariat: independent economic and political action by the
working class; the turning to account of reforms forced out of the
ruling classes by the proletariat; international co-operation of
workers in the Socialist revolution and against secret, militarist
diplomacy.
Marx devoted a great deal of his time during the years 1865 to 1871 to
the International. Its progress awoke in him the greatest hopes. In
1867 he writes to Engels: "Things are moving. And in the next
revolution, which is perhaps nearer than it seems, we (i.e., you and
I) have this powerful machinery _in our hands_."--("Correspondence of
Marx and Engels," Vol. III., p. 406.)
The International passed through three phases: from 1865 to 1867 the
followers of Proudhon held sway; from 1868 to 1870 Marxism was in the
ascendant; from 1871 to its collapse it was dominated and ultimately
broken up by the Bakunists. The followers of Proudhon, like those of
Bakunin, were against political action and in favour of the federative
economic form of social organisation, only the Bakunists were also
Communists, whereas the followers of Proudhon had an antipathy to
Communism. Both groups were in agreement with Marx only on the one
point--that he made economics the basis of the working-class movement.
Both groups, however, accused him of being dictatorial, of attempting
to concentrate the whole power of the International in his own hands.
Besides insurmountable theoretical differences, racial and national
prejudices crept into the International as disintegrating factors. The
Romance and Russian Anarchists looked upon Marx as a pan-German, and
conversely, some Marxians considered Bakunin a pan-Slav. Even as late
as 1914, in the first months of the war, Professor James Guillaume,
the last of the Bakunists, wrote a pamphlet entitled "Karl Marx,
Pangermaniste" (Paris).
Michael Bakunin (b. 1814, near Twer, in Russia; d. 1876, in Berne)
lived and studied in Germany during the forties. In 1848 and 1849 he
took part in the revolution, was arrested, then handed over to Russia
and banished to Siberia, whence he escaped in 1856, afterwards living
in various countries of Western Europe. He was an indifferent
theorist, and contributed little to the enrichment of philosophical
Anarchism, but he distinguished himself by his immense revolutionary
activity and his capacity for sacrifice. The influence which he
exercised sprang from his character. He had been acquainted with the
Young Hegelians as well as with Marx, Engels, and Wilhelm Wolff since
the beginning of the forties. Until the end of 1868 he acknowledged
Marx as his intellectual leader, as is evident from the following
letter which he addressed to Marx:
"123, Montbrillant, Geneva,
"December 22, 1868.
"Serno has shown me the portion of your letter which concerns
me. You ask him whether I am still your friend. Yes, more than
ever, my dear Marx, for now I understand better than ever how
truly right you are when you advance along the high road of
economic revolution and invite us to follow, and when you set
those below us who stray into the side-tracks either of national
or exclusively political enterprises. I am now doing the same
thing that you have been doing for more than twenty years. Since
my solemn public leave-taking from the bourgeois of the Berne
Congress, I no longer know any other society, any other milieu,
than the world of the workers. Henceforth my country is the
'International,' of which you are one of the most illustrious
founders. Yon see, my dear friend, that I am your disciple--and
I am proud of it. That will be enough to make clear my attitude
and my feelings toward you."--("Neue Zeit," 19th year, Vol. I.,
p. 6.)
Nevertheless, this discipleship did not hinder Bakunin from secretly
forming a separate organisation which contributed to the break-up of
the International. Moreover, the International was only a kind of
school for Socialist officers who had yet to create their armies, but
it proved even more successful than Marx himself could have expected.
The fundamental principles of Marxism ousted every other social
revolutionary system which had made itself prominent within the
working-class movement.
VI. THE PARIS COMMUNE.
On September 1, 1870, a part of the French Army was defeated near
Sedan and compelled to capitulate on the following day. Among the
prisoners was Louis Bonaparte, the French Emperor. The Empire fell on
September 4, and France was proclaimed a Republic. On September 6 Marx
wrote to Engels: "The French section of the International travelled
from London to Paris in order to do foolish things in the name of the
International. They want to overthrow the Provisional Government and
set up a _Commune de Paris_."--("Correspondence," Vol. IV., p. 330).
Although the Provisional Government of the newly-baked French Republic
was in no wise made up of friends of the democracy, Marx and Engels
expressed themselves _against_ any revolutionary action by the Paris
working class. In the second Address (or declaration) of the General
Council of the International, written on September 9, and composed by
Marx, the question is discussed as follows:
"Thus the French working class finds itself placed in extremely
difficult circumstances. Any attempt to overthrow the new
Government, when the enemy is already knocking at the gates of
Paris, would be a hopeless piece of folly. The French workers
must do their duty as citizens; but they must not let themselves
be overcome by the national reminiscences of 1792.... They have
not to repeat the past but to build the future. Let them quietly
and with determination make the most of the republican freedom
granted to them, in order to carry out thoroughly the
organisation of their own class. That will give them new,
Herculean strength for the rebirth of France and for our common
task--the emancipation of the proletariat."--("Civil War in
France," Second Address.)
Marx then urged the French workers not to do anything foolish, not to
set up a revolutionary Commune of Paris, but to make use of their
republican liberties to create proletarian organisations and to save
and discipline their forces for future tasks. Circumstances, however,
proved much stronger than any words of wisdom. Goaded by the
anti-democratic moves of the Government supporters, deeply humiliated
by the defeats of the French army, burning with patriotism and whipped
up into fury against the "capitulards," the Paris working men cast
Marx's words to the winds and rose in revolution on March 18, 1871,
proclaiming the Paris Commune. Paris was to be the capital of a
Socialist Republic. In seven weeks the Paris Revolution was
overthrown--and "Vae victis!" (Woe to the vanquished!) Marx afterwards
wrote the pamphlet on "The Civil War in France, 1871," which is one of
the most mature of his writings. He did not cut himself entirely
adrift from the revolutionaries--the Bolsheviks of that time--but
defended them with unsurpassable energy. It is the swan song of Marx
and of the first International.
VII. THE EVENING OF LIFE.
During the last twelve years of his life Marx had to fight almost
uninterruptedly against various bodily ailments, all of which had
their origin in his chronic liver complaint and over-exertion. His
work, for which he had sacrificed, as he wrote to an American friend,
"health, happiness and family," remained unfinished. He devoted his
enforced leisure to making a study of American agriculture and of
rural conditions in Russia, for which purpose he learnt Russian; he
likewise occupied himself with studies of the Stock Exchange, banking,
geology, physiology, and higher mathematics. In 1875 he wrote his
"Criticism of the Gotha Program"--("Neue Zeit," 9th year, Vol. I., No.
18)--which contains some very important data as to Marx's attitude to
the State, to the revolutionary period of transition from Capitalism
to Socialism, and lastly to Socialist society itself.
He went to Karlsbad for the purpose of recovering his health. In 1877
and 1878 he was in some measure capable of carrying on his work, and
set about arranging his manuscripts and getting the second volume of
"Capital" ready for the press; it soon appeared, however, that his
capacity for work had gone. The decline in body and mind could no
longer be checked; even visits to French and Algerian watering-places
proved ineffective. It was just at this time that Marx began to find
recognition both in France and in England: Jules Guesde, Henry M.
Hyndman, Belfort Bax set about spreading Marxian doctrines, and
Marxian and anti-Marxian parties were formed. But the man to whom this
recognition had come was already a ruin. Bronchial catarrh,
inflammation of the lungs, spasmodic asthma, together with the loss of
his wife on December 2, 1881, and of his eldest daughter (Mme.
Longuet) in January, 1883, gave the finishing stroke to his enfeebled
body. On March 14, 1883, Marx breathed his last. Engels gives an
account of the last moments in a letter to his American friend Sorge,
dated March 15, 1883:
"Yesterday, at half-past two in the afternoon, the best time for
visiting him, I went down to see him; everybody was in tears; it
looked as if the end had come. I made inquiries, trying to get
at the truth of the matter and to offer consolation. There had
been a slight haemorrhage, but a sudden collapse had supervened.
Our good old Lena, who had tended him better than any mother
does her child, went up, came down. He was half asleep, she
said; I could go up. As we went in, he lay there, sleeping,
never to wake again. Pulse and breathing had ceased. In those
two minutes he had gone painlessly and peacefully to sleep....
Mankind is less by a head, and indeed by the most important head
it had to-day. The working-class movement will pursue its
course, but its central point, to which French, Russians,
Americans, and Germans turned of their own accord in decisive
moments, always to receive that clear, unambiguous counsel which
genius and perfect mastery alone can give--is gone."
On Saturday, March 17, he was buried in the Highgate Cemetery, London.
Among those who spoke at the graveside were Friedrich Engels and
Wilhelm Liebknecht. The former gave a brief account of his
revolutionary struggles, in which he said:
"Just as Darwin discovered the law of the evolution of organic
nature, so Marx discovered the evolutionary law of human
history--the simple fact, hitherto hidden under ideological
overgrowths, that above all things men must eat, drink, dress,
and find shelter before they can give themselves to politics,
science, art, religion, or anything else, and that therefore the
production of the material necessaries of life and the
corresponding stage of economic evolution of a people or a
period provides the foundation upon which the national
institutions, legal systems, art, and even religious ideas of
the people in question have been built, and upon which,
therefore, their explanation must be based, a procedure the
reverse of that which has hitherto been adopted. Marx discovered
also the special law of motion for the modern capitalist mode of
production and for the middle-class society which it begets.
With the discovery of surplus value light was at once thrown
upon a subject, all the earlier investigations of which, whether
by middle-class economists or by Socialist critics, had been
gropings in the dark...."
After him spoke Liebknecht, who had hastened from Germany to pay a
last tribute to his friend and master:
"The dead one, whose loss we mourn, was great in his love and in
his hate. His hate sprang from his love. He had a great heart,
as he had a great intellect. He has raised social democracy from
a sect, from a school, to a party, which now already fights
unconquered, and in the end will win the victory."
Engels, who outlived him by twelve years, edited the two last volumes
of "Capital," while Karl Kautsky, the disciple and successor of Engels
and the real disseminator of Marxian doctrines, edited the three
volumes of Marx's historical studies on surplus value. The latter work
is not far short of being a great history of political economy.
FOOTNOTES:
[6] By democratic parties were then understood working-class political
movements, such as Chartism, etc.
IV.
THE MARXIAN SYSTEM.
I. THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY.