But Engels imagined an entirely different setting for Capital. It was a scientific work among scientific works. It should be given an honoured place in the scientific world, reviewed with respect even by its opponents, quoted, castigated, applauded – that is, the way it happened in the German academic world (which was earlier than the English and the French in assuming this modern form).
What Engels did not realize was that this German academic world on principle only reckoned with those who had a professor’s chair – preferably at a respected university – or at least were lecturers in a promising academic career. There was a merciless boundary between those who were inside and those who were outside, and Karl Marx found himself irretrievably outside. His academic credentials were worthless in this context.
Marx viewed the matter no differently. Capital was to be regarded as a scientific dissertation. The bridge to the common reader would be built later. The bridge-building he himself was busy with in the International could verbally reach the members of the Central Committee, but not the general public – not yet. Marx’s daughter Eleanor finally allowed the manuscript of both lectures to be published in 1898.
There is a small note in Marx’s letter that deserves a moment’s reflection. By publishing the lecture texts, he would come into contact with John Stuart Mill and Edward Spencer Beesly, he wrote. We know that a few years later he actually made Beesly’s acquaintance (see above, p. 527). On the other hand, he never did with John Stuart Mill. In his eyes, Beesly was an outstanding historian, despite his positivist points of departure. But Mill? Marx commented negatively – often condescendingly – about Mill as an economist quite consistently. Unlike Smith and Ricardo, Mill did not acknowledge the internal contradictions of capitalism.
But was there something else that tempted Marx into making Mill’s acquaintance? Something in Mill’s hesitation between capitalism and socialism? Or his ideas on political freedom? Or did Marx simply want Mill to be informed about the theory that supported Capital? We will never know.28
Bakunin and Marx
In the substantial letter to Engels where Marx reports on his early efforts for the International, he mentioned in passing that he had received a visit from Bakunin. Bakunin was an old acquaintance. The relationship between them had varied, but was mostly tense. Now it sounded entirely different: ‘I must say I liked him very much, more so than previously,’ Marx wrote.29
The sympathies turned out to be short-lived, however. In the battle that would ultimately tear the International to pieces, Marx and Bakunin would be the foremost combatants. Over the years, Marx had been able to put up with the disciples of Proudhon and of Blanqui. He had endured the occasional Chartist or Owenite, and even the occasional follower of Mazzini who was willing to compromise. But with Bakunin in the organization, this was impossible.
Bakunin had lived a singularly dramatic and adventurous life after the revolutionary years of 1848–49. Imprisoned by the Tsar’s police, he had been sentenced to death and pardoned, not once but twice. Instead, he was exiled to districts in Siberia that were considered escape-proof. But escape Bakunin did, living on berries and roots, and finding his way at last to the northeast coast of Russia. From there, he took a boat via Japan to the west coast of the United States, crossed the American continent, and turned up in London in 1861.
It is no wonder that he was seen as a hero in many camps, especially among liberals. During a visit to Sweden a large banquet in his honour was arranged in Stockholm, and August Blanche – at that time an extremely celebrated author in the country – gave a captivating speech for him.
Marx did not have much that could compete with Bakunin’s adventures. And now the great Russian was ready for new revolutions. He worked untiringly to stir up the people against everything to do with power and authority.30 Bakunin stayed out of the International for several years. But Marx had his eye on him; the Russian was eager to build up his base of power. ‘Mr Bakunin – in the background of his business – is condescendent enough to wish to take the workers’ movement under Russian leadership,’ Marx wrote in a letter to Engels at the end of 1868. But only a few days later, he received a letter from Bakunin professing his friendship and his support for Marx’s fundamental ideas.31 On that question, however, things were less stable. Bakunin created the Alliance de la Démocratie Socialiste (Alliance for Social Democracy) that he linked to the International. Not without reason, Marx perceived the alliance as a Trojan horse with which Bakunin intended to conquer the International from within. To his consternation, one of his warmest promoters in Switzerland, Johann Philipp Becker, also turned out to have a weakness for Bakunin. Simply put, Becker was trying to combine Marx with Bakunin – something that was not easily done. Becker himself soon realized this, and broke with Bakunin.32
Marx took action, with the Central Committee in London at his back. This was already his habit; he had become the Central Committee’s most important spokesperson. According to Wolfgang Schieder’s calculation, Marx wrote more than fifty documents totalling 200 pages over the years up to 1872.
One of the most important official documents by his hand was the decision of the Central Committee on Bakunin’s alliance. It said that the Alliance was acting simultaneously outside and inside the International, in a paradoxical manner. It was to have its own Central Committee in Geneva alongside the Central Committee of the International in London. The result would inevitably be a split and factional battles, and internationalism would give ground to nationalism. The adherence of the Alliance to the International was therefore declared null and void.33
But Bakunin did not give up so easily. He turned up at the Congress in Basel in 1869. Marx was not there; he did not generally travel to the annual congresses. He did not have enough money, nor did he want to divide his time. Nevertheless, the crucial decisions were made in the Central Committee. He came in person only to the final, dramatic 1872 congress in The Hague in order to fight the decisive battle with Bakunin.
Bakunin had already reaped successes back in Basel. Among other things, he got a majority of the participants to support the demand to abolish the right of inheritance. This was actually what Marx had written back in the Manifesto, despite Engels being satisfied with heavy taxation in the proposal (the catechism) that formed the basis for the final text. What was the reason that Marx did not welcome Bakunin’s initiative? Inheritance, as we know, had played an important role for his own finances.
In an article in Becker’s periodical Der Vorbote, which Marx also wrote in the name of the Central Committee, he raised up the question of the right of inheritance to a level of principle. The issue of inheritance was part of the legal superstructure, and could not be regarded as a principal question. By doing so, cause and effect were being confused. As long as the private ownership of the means of production remained, the right of inheritance was a natural consequence. Removing it without doing something about the fundamental conditions of ownership would be ineffective. Until then, people could work for things such as taxation of inheritance.
The article indicates that Marx himself had changed his understanding as his social theory developed from the Manifesto to the first volume of Capital.34 But this issue was in no way crucial for the continued fate of the International. It got worse when, during the autumn, Bakunin started attacking the Central Committee in London in a few articles, above all in his own periodical L’Égalité. He said that the Central Committee was not meeting the requirements of the statutes to carry out the decisions of the Congress. Marx wrote the Central Committee’s response. His words were still marked by the conciliatory spirit that characterized almost everything he had written in the name of the International up to that point. But the response was essentially sharp. There was nothing in the statutes that said that the Central Committee was obligated to engage in polemics with L’Égalité or other newspapers. They were only responding to contributions from the regional council in the French-speaking region of Switzerland. But nothing would be publici
zed from either one side or the other.
Bakunin and his followers were deeply dissatisfied with the dominant role that London, and Great Britain in general, had in the International. Marx responded that the Central Committee was in the happy situation of holding the lever of proletarian revolution in its hand. The English had all the necessary material conditions for a social revolution at their disposal. What was missing was just the ability to see the situation in broad outline (l’esprit généralisateur), and revolutionary passion (la passion révolutionnaire). It was the business of the Central Committee to help bring out both the one and the other. He went on: our significance is especially vouched for by the leading newspapers in the country that represent the opposite interests, to say nothing of those who support our cause. But to succeed, it is important that we really act as a Central Committee. Diverse other organizations cannot then act as independent units.
Marx accused his opponents of a naïve understanding of the relationship between social and political movements. The statutes said clearly that the main question was the economic liberation of the workers, to which the political movement relates as a means. Unfortunately, the phrase ‘as a means’ was left out of the French translation, something that had to do with the differences of opinion in the French section.
It can be noted that in the letter, Marx did not respond directly to Bakunin’s main accusation that the decision of the Congress on the right of inheritance had not been implemented by the Central Committee. It is easy to conclude that the silence was due to Marx believing that the decision of the Congress was against the International’s fundamental thesis on the relationship between social and political conditions. As we know, this is precisely what he had emphasized in the article in Der Vorbote.35
The conflict between Bakunin and ‘the Marx party’ entered a new phase when war between France and Prussia broke out in July 1870. At the outbreak of war Marx was unhesitatingly on the side of the Prussians; a Prussian victory would mean the end of the hateful regime of Napoleon III. At the request of the Central Committee, he wrote an initial address in which he spoke for the entire International. Napoleon III – or Louis Bonaparte, as Marx called him throughout – was a sworn enemy of the International, alleging that it was an underground organization with plans to murder the emperor himself. It was a bizarre misjudgement; terror and assassination was not the path the International wanted to take. On the other hand, the organization insistently encouraged its members to vote no in Bonaparte’s constant referendums. Bonaparte depended on support from the rural masses in the countryside, and got it. His support was weak in the cities, and weakest in Paris. In the referendum of May 1870 that indirectly opened the way for war with Prussia, five of every six votes were ‘yes’ to the emperor. But in Paris, 139,538 votes were on his side and 184,236 were against him.36
The address that Marx authored as soon as war broke out starts with a quote from the Inaugural Address itself on the significance of international collaboration among workers, especially to counteract war. It is therefore no wonder, he continued, that Louis Bonaparte hated the International and made it the subject of various senseless accusations. The plotting for war now underway was simply an improved version of the coup that brought Bonaparte to power.
For the time being, Prussia was fighting a war of defence. But Prussia was also an accessory to a conspiracy against Louis Bonaparte (this concerned succession to the Spanish throne). And who knew when the Prussians’ appetite would be satisfied? If Bismarck turned it into a war of aggression, the workers in Germany would turn against the enterprise.
Finally, Marx – and through him the entire International – held out the prospect of the alliance between workers one day putting an end to all war. A new society would arise, in which peace would prevail and labour would be the common affair of all.37
It was this beautiful horizon that the workers’ movement worked towards up until the First World War. Marx’s address was disseminated in newspapers and flyers in many languages. But in 1914 there were few who remembered the message. Nearly everyone was gripped by the martial frenzy that would cost nine million people their lives.
The Franco-Prussian war was, of course, also discussed in Marx’s and Engels’s correspondence. Their words there are just as roguishly nonchalant as they usually are. But there was seriousness, and hope as well, under the jargon. Both hoped that Louis Bonaparte would lose quickly. The Prussians were not only militarily stronger; German workers were also superior to the French ‘both in theory and organization’, Marx said. ‘Its predominance over the French on the international stage would also mean the predominance of our party over Proudhon’s, etc.’38
Engels was not in disagreement. But he had a completely different interest in the course of the war itself than his friend did. He had become a real expert in military enterprises through his training and his own experiences, and he published a long series of articles in the evening newspaper Pall Mall Gazette that attracted a great deal of attention. In them, he could quickly inform his readers that the plans of Napoleon III to cross the Rhine and then go carefree all the way to Berlin were entirely unrealistic. It was instead the German troops who would be able to advance. Engels admired the German count Moltke and his strategic capability. According to Engels, the seventy-year-old Moltke was youthfully energetic and could lead the Germans to a quick victory. By 2 September – just over a month after the outbreak of war – the French army was crushed at the battle of Sedan. The emperor was captured, and the French government proclaimed the Third Republic.
But the war was not finished. A new French army was set on its feet. This turned out, however, to be just as incapable as the previous one of effective resistance, and during the autumn and winter the German troops advanced towards Paris. Engels and Marx could now see that what had initially seemed as a war of defence had indeed developed into a large-scale war of conquest. Paris would be opened to the German troops; Alsace and Lorraine would become Elsass and Lothringen, incorporated into the new German Reich which – fittingly – would be proclaimed in Versailles, where King Wilhelm would simultaneously be crowned Emperor Wilhelm I. In fact, it was above all the arch-conservative Otto von Bismarck who thus drastically expanded his powers.39
Unrest and confusion prevailed in France. The government capitulated, but parts of the army refused to accept the surrender, and revolts broke out in several cities.
Marx’s attitude towards the events was split. He was definitely against an anarchistic coup that would lead to spontaneous formation of local governments. He wrote in a letter to Engels only a few days after the battle of Sedan that one of his faithful followers, Auguste Serraillier, was on the way to Paris to see to it that the French division of the International did not commit ‘all sorts of follies there in the name of the International’. The plans were namely to ‘bring down the Provisional Government, establish a commune de Paris’ and other similar things.40
In the name of the Central Committee, he laid down similar thoughts in a ‘Second Address on the Franco-Prussian War’. It is a highly complex document of almost ten pages. A longer exposition on the military and strategic consequences of the German conquest of Alsace and Lorraine was based directly on material Engels had sent him. A passage on the ideal attitude of the German workers – peace, and no war of conquest – is certainly his own. The same applies to the most important parts of the address, on the French situation. In itself, the provisional government promised nothing good; it was an unsightly mix of followers of the former royal house of Orléans (which King Louis Philippe had belonged to) and typical bourgeois Republicans. The working class had been put into a difficult situation. ‘Any attempt at upsetting the new Government in the present crisis, when the enemy is almost knocking at the doors of Paris, would be a desperate folly. The French workmen must perform their duties as citizens; but, at the same time, they must not allow themselves to be deluded by the national souvenirs of 1792.’41
1792 was the year of the
Paris Commune. Marx’s warning, which the entire Central Committee stood behind, could not have been more unequivocal: no Paris Commune! But however plain his words may have been, he was nonetheless more uncertain in the face of what was actually happening in France. This can be seen in a letter that he wrote just over a month later to his newfound friend, the positivist historian Edward Spencer Beesly. In it, Marx said that a revolutionary commune had been proclaimed in Lyon by a coalition of workers linked to the International and radical bourgeois republicans. ‘But the asses, Bakunin and Cluseret, arrived at Lyons and spoiled everything. Belonging both to the “International”, they had, unfortunately, influence enough to misled our friends. The Hotel de Ville was seized – for a short time – and the most foolish decrees on the abolition de l’état and similar nonsense were issued.’ People’s sympathies immediately shifted, and nothing came of the commune.
Marx was describing the events at a distance, and probably according to information from some of his sympathizers. By all appearances, the anarchistic elements were stronger from the beginning than his words hinted at. Incidentally, Bakunin’s fellow thinker Gustave-Paul Cluseret was a battle-scarred military man with experiences from both Garibaldi’s war of liberation in Italy and the American Civil War. But Marx dismissed him as ‘a fool and a coward’.42
The main thing in his reaction was nonetheless that he did not condemn the attempt itself to establish a commune, but only the approach. In other words, his attitude was extremely flexible. Before revolutionary communes were established, he warned against them. Once they had been proclaimed, however, he supported them in principle but could criticize their direction. In this light, his reactions to the Paris Commune are understandable.
The Paris Commune of 1871
A World to Win Page 65