“The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte” is one of Karl Marx’ most
profound and most brilliant monographs. It may be considered the best
work extant on the philosophy of history, with an eye especially upon
the history of the Movement of the Proletariat, together with the
bourgeois and other manifestations that accompany the same, and the
tactics that such conditions dictate.
The recent populist uprising; the more recent “Debs Movement”; the
thousand and one utopian and chimerical notions that are flaring up;
the capitalist manoeuvres; the hopeless, helpless grasping after
straws, that characterize the conduct of the bulk of the working
class; all of these, together with the empty-headed, ominous figures
that are springing into notoriety for a time and have their day, mark
the present period of the Labor Movement in the nation a critical
one. The best information acquirable, the best mental training
obtainable are requisite to steer through the existing chaos that the
death-tainted social system of today creates all around us. To aid in
this needed information and mental training, this instructive work is
now made accessible to English readers, and is commended to the
serious study of the serious.
The teachings contained in this work are hung on an episode in recent
French history. With some this fact may detract of its value. A
pedantic, supercilious notion is extensively abroad among us that we
are an “Anglo-Saxon” nation; and an equally pedantic, supercilious
habit causes many to look to England for inspiration, as from a racial
birthplace. Nevertheless, for weal or for woe, there is no such thing
extant as “Anglo-Saxon”—of all nations, said to be “Anglo-Saxon,” in
the United States least. What we still have from England, much as
appearances may seem to point the other way, is not of our
bone-and-marrow, so to speak, but rather partakes of the nature of
“importations.” We are no more English on account of them than we are
Chinese because we all drink tea.
Of all European nations, France is the one to which we come
nearest. Besides its republican form of government—the directness of
its history, the unity of its actions, the sharpness that marks its
internal development, are all characteristics that find their parallel
here best, and vice versa. In all essentials the study of modern
French history, particularly when sketched by such a master hand as
Marx’, is the most valuable one for the acquisition of that historic,
social and biologic insight that our country stands particularly in
need of, and that will be inestimable during the approaching critical
days.
For the assistance of those who, unfamiliar with the history of
France, may be confused by some of the terms used by Marx, the
following explanations may prove aidful:
On the 18th Brumaire (Nov. 9th), the post-revolutionary development of
affairs in France enabled the first Napoleon to take a step that led
with inevitable certainty to the imperial throne. The circumstance
that fifty and odd years later similar events aided his nephew, Louis
Bonaparte, to take a similar step with a similar result, gives the
name to this work—“The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.”
As to the other terms and allusions that occur, the following sketch
will suffice:
Upon the overthrow of the first Napoleon came the restoration of the
Bourbon throne (Louis XVIII, succeeded by Charles X). In July, 1830,
an uprising of the upper tier of the bourgeoisie, or capitalist
class—the aristocracy of finance—overthrew the Bourbon throne, or
landed aristocracy, and set up the throne of Orleans, a younger branch
of the house of Bourbon, with Louis Philippe as king. From the month
in which this revolution occurred, Louis Philippe’s monarchy is called
the “July Monarchy.” In February, 1848, a revolt of a lower tier of
the capitalist class—the industrial bourgeoisie—against the
aristocracy of finance, in turn dethroned Louis Philippe. This affair,
also named from the month in which it took place, is the “February
Revolution.” The “Eighteenth Brumaire” starts with that event.
Despite the inapplicableness to our own affairs of the political names
and political leadership herein described, both these names and
leaderships are to such an extent the products of an economic-social
development that has here too taken place with even greater sharpness,
and they have their present or threatened counterparts here so
completely, that, by the light of this work of Marx’, we are best
enabled to understand our own history, to know whence we come, whither
we are going and how to conduct ourselves.
D. D. L.
New York, Sept. 12, 1897.
THE EIGHTEENTH BRUMAIRE
OF
LOUIS BONAPARTE