communist manifesto - redux

rc-am rcollins at netlink.com.au
Fri Jun 25 23:16:58 PDT 1999


in order to elaborate previous comments on the list of demands toward the end of Marx & Engels _communist manifesto.

the _communist manifesto_ was written between November 1847 and January 1848, ie., on the eve of the French insurrections b/n February and June of 1848. the subsequent works of _class struggles in France, 1848 to 1850_ and the later _civil war in france_ and _18th Brumaire_, were attempts to come to terms with the new circumstances of the potentialities, expressions and limits of class struggles in the light of those events: the militancy of the working class and its defeats. they are all in many ways better works, in my view, but more importantly, revise certain questions of the CM.

notably: the affirmation of the national character of class struggles in CM is, in CSF, regarded as a key moment of reintegration. the same goes for Marx's assessment of credit, which is a slightly longer story, but related: in CM, one of the demands is for a central national bank with a monopoly on credit; in CSF and CWF, foreign debts, and their honouring, is seen as central to the restitution of bourgeois power in France.

but more specifically re the list of demand at the end of section 11 of CM, an extract from the preface to the English edition of CM of 1888:

"From our joint preface to the German edition of 1872, I quote the following: - 'However much the state of things may have changed during the last twenty-five years, the general principles laid down in this Manifesto are, on the whole, as correct today as ever. Here and there some detail might be improved. The practical application of the principles will depend, as the Manifesto itself states, everywhere and at all times, on the historical conditions for the time being existing, and for that reason, no special stress is laid on the revolutionary measures proposed at the end of Section II. That passage would, in many respects, be very differently worded today. In view of the gigantic strides of Modern Industry since 1848, and of the accompanying improved and extended organisation [reads 'party organisation' in the original preface] of the working class, in view of the practical experience gained, first in the February Revolution, and then, still more, in the Paris Commune, where the proletariat for the first time held political power for two whole months, this programme has in some details become antiquated. One thing especially was proved by the Commune, viz., that 'the working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready-made State machinery, and wield it for its own purpose'. (See _The Civil War in France..._."

Angela --- rcollins at netlink.com.au



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