The Class Struggles in France
{"WorkMasterId":6479,"WpPageId":282470,"ParentWpPageId":189644,"Slug":"marx-class-struggles-in-france","Url":"https://chrisdeasy.com/theos/humanities/philosophy/philosophers/karl-marx/marx-class-struggles-in-france/","RelativeUrl":"theos/humanities/philosophy/philosophers/karl-marx/marx-class-struggles-in-france/","HasFullText":true,"RawHtmlLength":80253,"CleanHtmlLength":25502,"Kicker":"Philosophy Work","Title":"The Class Struggles in France","Deck":"Marx analyzes revolution, class alliances, state power, republican politics, and social struggle after 1848.","BackLink":{"Text":"Back to Karl Marx","Url":"https://chrisdeasy.com/theos/humanities/philosophy/philosophers/karl-marx/"},"AuthorCard":{"Label":"Author","Title":"Karl Marx","Url":"https://chrisdeasy.com/theos/humanities/philosophy/philosophers/karl-marx/","MediaHref":"","ImageSrc":"https://chrisdeasy.com/wp-content/uploads/karl-marx-01-mayall-1875-standard-portrait.jpg","ImageAlt":"Karl Marx, Mayall portrait, 1875","FilterTerra":"Western Europe","ClickText":"Karl Marx","ClickHref":"https://chrisdeasy.com/theos/humanities/philosophy/philosophers/karl-marx/","Copies":["1818 CE – 1883 CE","Trier, Rhine Province, Kingdom of Prussia","German philosopher of historical materialism, alienation, class struggle, ideology critique, political economy, capitalism, communism, religion critique, and social transformation."]},"ContextCards":[{"Label":"Period","Key":"Period:4","Title":"Modern History","DateText":"1800 CE – 1944 CE","Url":"https://chrisdeasy.com/theos/humanities/philosophy/eras-of-thought/philosophers-of-modern-history/"},{"Label":"Era","Key":"Era:11","Title":"Long 19th Century","DateText":"1870 CE – 1913 CE","Url":"https://chrisdeasy.com/theos/humanities/philosophy/eras-of-thought/philosophers-of-modern-history/philosophers-of-the-long-19th-century/"},{"Label":"Composition","Title":"1850 CE","Url":"","DateText":""}],"DateNote":"Displayed as 1850 CE for serial publication.","GeoCards":[{"Label":"Region","Key":"Region:1"},{"Label":"Terra Avita","Key":"TerraAvita:1"},{"Label":"Terra Avita Region","Key":"TerraAvitaRegion:3"},{"Label":"Modern Country","Key":"Country:DEU:1"}],"OriginalTitle":"Die Klassenkaempfe in Frankreich 1848 bis 1850","Language":"German / French / English","DisciplineCards":[{"Label":"Primary Discipline","Key":"Discipline:political-philosophy"},{"Label":"Secondary Discipline","Key":"Discipline:epistemology"}],"Tradition":"Historical materialism / critique of political economy","FullText":{"Title":"Full Text","Copy":"Full text from Marxists Internet Archive: The Class Struggles in France .","Url":"","Label":"","Kicker":"","Cards":[]},"CoreThesis":["Marx analyzes revolution, class alliances, state power, republican politics, and social struggle after 1848."],"Classification":{"AlternateTitles":"Class Struggles in France","KeyConcepts":"class struggle; France; revolution; republic; proletariat; bourgeoisie; state","Methodology":"Historical-materialist analysis, critique of political economy, dialectical critique, philosophical polemic, archival manuscript work, journalism, and social theory.","Structure":"The page records an approved Marx work with explicit year, source evidence, and visible coauthorship, manuscript, posthumous, or Engels-edited status where needed."},"Arguments":["Marx analyzes revolution, class alliances, state power, republican politics, and social struggle after 1848."],"Influence":{"InfluencedBy":"Hegel, Feuerbach, Adam Smith, David Ricardo, Aristotle, Epicurus, French socialism, British political economy, and nineteenth-century revolutionary politics.","InfluenceOn":""},"Significance":["Included as one of the twenty-seven direct Karl Marx work pages approved for the Karl Marx full-process repair.","The work anchors Marx\u0027s continuing relevance for capitalism, labor, alienation, class, ideology, religion critique, political economy, state power, social transformation, and historical explanation."],"EvidenceNote":["Accepted through Marxists archive, catalog, and political-history scholarship evidence; HasFullText remains false."],"MainSections":[{"Kind":"RawSection","Title":"Full Text","BodyHtml":"\u003cp class=\"dz-philo__section-copy dz-philo__full-text-source\"\u003eFull text from \u003ca href=\"https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1850/class-struggles-france/\"\u003eMarxists Internet Archive: The Class Struggles in France\u003c/a\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003carticle class=\"dz-philo__full-text-body\"\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e\r\nThe Class Struggles in France,\u003cbr\u003e\r\n1848 to 1850\r\n\u003c/h3\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003chr\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eWritten:\u003c/span\u003e by Marx, January -\r\nOctober 1850 for the \u003cem\u003eNeue Rheinische Zeitung Revue\u003c/em\u003e;\u003cbr\u003e\r\n\u003cspan\u003ePublished:\u003c/span\u003e as a booklet by Engels in 1895;\u003cbr\u003e\r\n\u003cspan\u003eSource:\u003c/span\u003e \u003cem\u003eSelected Works\u003c/em\u003e, Volume 1, Progress\r\nPublishers, Moscow 1969;\u003cbr\u003e\r\n\u003cspan\u003eProofed:\u003c/span\u003e and corrected by Matthew Carmody, 2009, Mark\r\nHarris 2010;\u003cbr\u003e\r\n\u003cspan\u003eTranscribed:\u003c/span\u003e by Louis Proyect.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003chr\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Great importance must be attached to one of the\r\nhistorical documents of the German labour movement: the Preface written by\r\nFredrick Engels for the 1895 re-issue of Marx\u0027s Class Struggles in France …\r\nlooking back upon the year 1848, he showed that the belief that the socialist\r\nrevolution was imminent had become obsolete … Engels demonstrated, as an\r\nexpert in military science, that it was a pure illusion to believe that the\r\nworkers could, in the existing state of military technique and of industry, and\r\nin view of the characteristics of the great towns of today, successfully bring\r\nabout a revolution by street fighting.\u0026rdquo; \u003ca\r\nhref=\"../../../../luxemburg/1918/12/30.htm\"\u003eRosa Luxemburg, 1918\u003c/a\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"../../1895/03/06.htm\"\u003e\u003cspan\r\u003eIntroduction to the 1895 Edition\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/a\u003e, Engels, \u003ca href=\"intro.htm\"\u003eAlternate translation\u003c/a\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003chr\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eWith the exception of only a few chapters, every important part\r\nof the revolutionary annals from 1848 to 1849 bear the heading: \u003ci\u003eDefeat of\r\nthe revolution!\u003c/i\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eWhat succumbed in these defeats was not the revolution. It was the\r\npre-revolutionary traditional appendages, results of social relationships which\r\nhad not yet come to the point of sharp class antagonisms \u0026mdash; persons,\r\nillusions, conceptions, projects from which the revolutionary party before the\r\nFebruary Revolution was not free, from which it could be freed not by the\r\n\u003ci\u003evictory of February\u003c/i\u003e, but only by a series of \u003ci\u003edefeats\u003c/i\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eIn a word: The revolution made progress, forged ahead, not by its immediate\r\ntragicomic achievements but, on the contrary, by the creation of a powerful,\r\nunited counterrevolution, by the creation of an opponent in combat with whom\r\nthe party of overthrow ripened into a really revolutionary party.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eTo prove this is the task of the following pages.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003ch3\u003eContents\u003c/h3\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"ch01.htm\"\u003ePart I\u003c/a\u003e: The Defeat of June, 1848\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"ch02.htm\"\u003ePart II\u003c/a\u003e: From June 1848 to June 13,\r\n1849\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"ch03.htm\"\u003ePart III\u003c/a\u003e: Consequences of June 13,\r\n1849\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"ch04.htm\"\u003ePart IV\u003c/a\u003e: The Abolition of Universal\r\nSuffrage in 1850 \u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003chr\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003eMarx\u0026rsquo;s \u003cem\u003eThe Class Struggles in France,\r\n\u003c/em\u003e1848 \u003cem\u003eto \u003c/em\u003e1850 consists of a series of articles written between\r\nJanuary and October 1850 specially for the \u003cem\u003eNeue Rheinische Zeitung.\r\nPolitisch-ökonomische Revue \u003c/em\u003eand published in it under the general title\r\n\u0026ldquo;1848-1849.\u0026rdquo; This is a most important work summing up the results\r\nof the 1848-49 revolution. In preparation for this work, Marx used French\r\nnewspaper reports, reports published in the \u003cem\u003eNeue Rheinische Zeitung,\r\n\u003c/em\u003eand accounts given by witnesses \u0026ndash; French and German revolutionary\r\nrefugees, among them Ferdinand Wolff, the \u003cem\u003eNeue Rheinische Zeitung\r\n\u003c/em\u003eParis correspondent, and another Communist League member, Sebastian\r\nSeiler, who was a stenographer to the French National Assembly in 1848 and 1849\r\nand wrote a pamphlet on the events of June 13, 1849, which he presented to\r\nMarx. Marx was also probably familiar with Ledru-Rollin\u0026rsquo;s pamphlet on the\r\nsame subject.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eAccording to the original plan the work was to consist\r\nof four articles: \u0026ldquo;The Defeat of June 1848,\u0026rdquo; \u0026ldquo;June 13,\r\n1849,\u0026rdquo; \u0026ldquo;Repercussions of June 13 on the Continent\u0026rdquo; and\r\n\u0026ldquo;Current Situation; England.\u0026rdquo; However, in Nos. 1, 2 and 3 of the\r\njournal only three articles were published: \u0026ldquo;The Defeat of June\r\n1848,\u0026rdquo; \u0026ldquo;June 13, 1849\u0026rdquo; and \u0026ldquo;Consequences of June 13,\r\n1849.\u0026rdquo; The influence of the June 1849 events on the Continent and the\r\nsituation in England were treated in other items of the journal. particularly\r\nin the international reviews written jointly by Marx and Engels.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eThe work was not reprinted in full during Marx\u0026rsquo;s\r\nlifetime. In 1895 it came out in book form in Berlin, with an Introduction by\r\nEngels. The title \u003cem\u003eThe Class Struggles in France, 1848 to 1850 \u003c/em\u003ewas\r\ngiven by Engels and the work has since appeared under this title in various\r\nlanguages. In the 1895 edition, Engels added the fourth chapter, which included\r\nthe sections of the third international review dealing with events in France.\r\nEngels entitled this chapter \u0026ldquo;The Abolition of Universal Suffrage in\r\n1850.\u0026rdquo; Engels wrote to Richard Fischer on February 13, 1895, that the\r\nfourth chapter \u0026ldquo;will serve as a factual conclusion to the work as a\r\nwhole, without which it would have remained a fragment.\u0026rdquo; At the same\r\ntime, the headings of the first three chapters were changed: I. \u0026ldquo;From\r\nFebruary to June 1848,\u0026rdquo; II. \u0026ldquo;From June 1848 to June 13,\r\n1849,\u0026rdquo; III. \u0026ldquo;From June 13, 1849, to March 10, 1850.\u0026rdquo; In the\r\npresent edition, the headings of the first three chapters are given according\r\nto the journal, while the heading of the fourth chapter is given as in the 1895\r\nedition.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eThe publication of the series of Marx\u0026rsquo;s articles\r\ndrew the attention of the press. A short announcement of No. 1 of the \u003cem\u003eNeue\r\nRheinische Zeitung. Politisch-ökonomische Revue \u003c/em\u003eand quotations from\r\nMarx\u0026rsquo;s work were published in the \u003cem\u003eFreischütz. \u003c/em\u003eHamburg, No. 40,\r\nApril 2, 1850; a review in the \u003cem\u003eWochenblatt der Hornisse, \u003c/em\u003eCassel, No.\r\n3, April 15, 1850~ The preface and the first article were reprinted in the\r\n\u003cem\u003eDeutsche Londoner Zeitung Nos. \u003c/em\u003e262, 263 and 264, April 5, 12 arid 19,\r\n1850. On January 1, 1852, the \u003cem\u003eTurn-Zeitung, \u003c/em\u003epublished by German\r\nsocialist emigrants in the USA, carried an article by Joseph Weydemeyer\r\n\u0026ldquo;On the Dictatorship of the Proletariat,\u0026rdquo; written under the direct\r\ninfluence of Marx\u0026rsquo;s work, the first work by Marx and Engels in which the\r\nterm \u0026ldquo;the dictatorship of the proletariat\u0026rdquo; was used. On the other\r\nhand, the idea of the dictatorship of the proletariat brought criticism of the\r\nauthor from the petty-bourgeois democrats. The \u003cem\u003eNeue Deutsche Zeitung,\r\n\u003c/em\u003ewhose editor was a former \u0026ldquo;true socialist,\u0026rdquo; Otto Luning,\r\npublished a review (Nos. 148-51, June 22-23, 25 and 26. 1850) of the four\r\nnumbers of the \u003cem\u003eNeue Rheinische Zeitung. Politisch-ökonomische Revue\r\n\u003c/em\u003ewith unfavourable comments on this proposition and an incorrect\r\ninterpretation of it. Marx was obliged to write Lüning a special letter\r\nrebuffing attempts to distort and dispute the idea of the dictatorship of the\r\nproletariat.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eMarx and Engels attached great importance to the\r\npopularisation of the ideas contained in \u003cem\u003eThe Class Struggles in France\r\n\u003c/em\u003eamong the English workers. Engels used this work in his \u003cem\u003eLetters from\r\nFrance \u003c/em\u003epublished in \u003cem\u003eThe Democratic Review\u003c/em\u003e and, on the basis of\r\nthe first article in the series, wrote \u003cem\u003eTwo Years of a Revolution,\r\n\u003c/em\u003ewhich was published in the same journal. Excerpts from Marx\u0026rsquo;s work\r\nwere cited by his contemporaries (Hermann Becker, Proudhon).\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eExcerpts from \u003cem\u003eThe Class Struggles in France\r\n\u003c/em\u003ewere first published in English in the journal \u003cem\u003eThe Marxian, \u003c/em\u003eNew\r\nYork, 1921, Vol. 1, No. 2, and it appeared in full as a separate edition by\r\nLabour News Company, New York, 1924.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eIn this volume, the work is published after the \u003cem\u003eNeue\r\nRheinische Zeitung. Politisch-ökonomische Revue \u003c/em\u003etext, checked with that of\r\nthe 1895 edition prepared by Engels. The \u003cem\u003eRevue \u003c/em\u003epublished it from the\r\nmanuscript and since Marx\u0026rsquo;s handwriting was difficult to decipher,\r\nmistakes cropped up. In the present edition, all changes in style, spelling,\r\npunctuation and other corrections made by Engels have been taken into account,\r\nas well as errata printed in the \u003cem\u003eNeue Rheinische Zeitung.\r\nPolitisch-ökonomische Revue \u003c/em\u003e(to the first number in the second, and to the\r\nsecond and third in the fourth).\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eAccount has also been taken of the analysis, carried out\r\nby the editorial commission working on the Marx/EngeIs, \u003cem\u003eGesamtausgabe\u003c/em\u003e\r\n(MEGA), erste Abteilung, 10. Bd. and kindly made available to us, of the marks\r\nand corrections made by Marx and Engels in their copies of the journal.\r\nEngels\u0026rsquo; corrections apparently date f torn 1895 when he republished\r\n\u003cem\u003eThe Class Struggles \u003c/em\u003e(in the 1895 edition, however, they were only\r\npartly taken into account). It is also probable that Engels intended to\r\nrepublish the \u003cem\u003eRevue \u003c/em\u003ein full. Some corrections by Marx and Engels\r\ncoinciding with the errata printed in the \u003cem\u003eRevue \u003c/em\u003ehave been silently\r\ninserted in the text of the present edition. Changes in meaning are indicated\r\nin footnotes.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eBesides this, obviously inaccurate dates and factual\r\ndata, including those in the 1850 and 1895 editions, have also been silently\r\ncorrected. Comments are not usually made on Marx\u0026rsquo;s free translation of\r\nquotations, except when the words Marx puts in quotation marks are not true\r\nquotations but convey the general meaning of the cited passages. \u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003chr\u003e\r\n\n \u003c/article\u003e"},{"Kind":"TextSection","Title":"Core Thesis","Paragraphs":["Marx analyzes revolution, class alliances, state power, republican politics, and social struggle after 1848."]},{"Kind":"FieldSection","Title":"Classification","Fields":[{"Label":"Alternate Titles","Value":"Class Struggles in France"},{"Label":"Key Concepts","Value":"class struggle; France; revolution; republic; proletariat; bourgeoisie; state"},{"Label":"Methodology","Value":"Historical-materialist analysis, critique of political economy, dialectical critique, philosophical polemic, archival manuscript work, journalism, and social theory."},{"Label":"Structure","Value":"The page records an approved Marx work with explicit year, source evidence, and visible coauthorship, manuscript, posthumous, or Engels-edited status where needed."}]},{"Kind":"TextSection","Title":"Arguments","Paragraphs":["Marx analyzes revolution, class alliances, state power, republican politics, and social struggle after 1848."]},{"Kind":"FieldSection","Title":"Influence","Fields":[{"Label":"Influenced By","Value":"Hegel, Feuerbach, Adam Smith, David Ricardo, Aristotle, Epicurus, French socialism, British political economy, and nineteenth-century revolutionary politics."},{"Label":"Influence On","Value":"Marxism, socialism, communism, critical theory, labor movements, political economy, sociology, social philosophy, philosophy of history, and twentieth-century continental thought."}]},{"Kind":"TextSection","Title":"Significance","Paragraphs":["Included as one of the twenty-seven direct Karl Marx work pages approved for the Karl Marx full-process repair.","The work anchors Marx\u0027s continuing relevance for capitalism, labor, alienation, class, ideology, religion critique, political economy, state power, social transformation, and historical explanation."]},{"Kind":"TextSection","Title":"Evidence Note","Paragraphs":["Accepted through Marxists archive, catalog, and political-history scholarship evidence; HasFullText remains false."]}],"SectionSequence":["Back Link","Work Title","Deck","Author","Period","Era","Composition","Date Note","Region","Terra Avita","Terra Avita Region","Modern Country","Original Title","Language","Primary Discipline","Secondary Discipline","Tradition","Full Text","Core Thesis","Classification","Arguments","Influence","Significance","Evidence Note"],"Counts":{"ContextCards":3,"GeoCards":4,"DisciplineCards":2,"Links":11,"Sections":24,"Styles":2,"Scripts":1}}