Study of his life nd work maximilien Rubel and Margaret Manale



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Marx Without Myth



A CHRONOLOGICAL

STUDY OF HIS LIFE ^ND WORK



Maximilien Rubel and Margaret Manale

BASIL BLACKWELL OXFORD1975




All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the Copyright owner.

ISBN o 631 15780 8



Set in Linotype Juliana (text) and Perpetua (display) Printed in Great Britain by Northumberland Press Ltd., Gateshead and bound by Richard Clay (The Chaucer Press) Ltd., Bungay

Contents


Introduction vii

Authors’ Note xiii



Part I 1818-1843 Chronological Summary 1

Central and Western Europe • Eastern Europe and the Middle East * The Far East • Scientific and Technological Progress * Important Works Published Karl Marx, 1818-1843 10



Part II 1844-1849 Chronological Summary 32

Europe • The Revolutions of 1848-1849 * The Americas The Far East * Scientific and Technological Progress Important Works Published

Karl Marx, 1844-1849 38

Part III 1850-1856 Chronological Summary 88

Europe • The Crimean War • The Americas • The Far East • Scientific and Technological Progress Important Works Published

Karl Marx, 1850-1856 93

PartIV 1857-1863

Chronological Summary 133

Europe * The Americas • The Far East • Scientific and Technological Progress • Important Works Published Karl Marx, 1857-1863 139


vi Contents


Part V
1864-1872
Chronological Summary

Europe • The Americas • Scientific and Technological


Progress • Important Works Published
Karl Marx, 1864-1872
Part VI 1873-1883
Chronological Summary

Europe • The Americas * Asia and Africa ! Scientific


and Technological Progress • Important Works
Published

Karl Marx, 1873-1883


Selected Bibliography of Marx’s Writings
I 1835-1843
II. 1844-1849
in. 1850-1856


  1. 1857-1863

  2. 1864-1872

  3. 1873-1883

Summary of Important Dates in the Composition of
Capitol
General Bibliography
Biographical Glossary
Index

195 1 279

287 1


333 I

341

345


361

INTRODUCTION



Destroyed by silence during his lifetime, Karl Marx has been posthumously victimised by an heroic myth which has harmed his work more than did the conspiracy of silence imposed by his contemporaries. The man who could have boasted of having discovered the law of ideological mystification himself became the target of new efforts at mystification by his own school. While his personality is caricatured in extremes—from lifeless travesty to the awesome image of an intellectual monster—his words are taken to be the sibylline proclamations of an omniscient oracle and used to mask the deeds and misdeeds of modern social leaders seeking to evade personal responsibility. The doctrines Marx intended as intellectual tools for the working class in its struggle for emancipation have been transformed into political ideology to justify material exploitation and moral slavery. His postulate of the dictatorship of the proletariat, in particular, conceived of as the democratic rule of the overwhelming majority in the interests of the overwhelming majority, has been distorted into ideological legitimation for the exploitation and oppression of one social group (or class) by another and invoked as justification for the abolition of basic human rights. Under the label of ‘Marxist socialism’ the inhuman social relations of feudal and pre-capitalist society have been legitimised for today’s world. To cap this process of mystifying Marx while stunting the mental and moral development of the masses he tried to reach with his works and his political activity, the supreme ethical principle of proletarian self-emancipation through class struggle has been resolved into the moral code of a new elite—‘Marxist’ politicians and ‘Marxist’ statesmen. With the most modern techniques of




human self-destruction at its disposal, this new elite is both! partner and rival of the ruling elites in ‘imperialist countries!! their common goal the maintenance or extention of theirl supremacy. Modern history is no longer the history of class struggles, as was stated in The Communist Manifesto,
but of global wars planned and executed in defence of what are proclaimed as ‘moral', ‘human' or ‘religious’ values.

In the face of such distortion of his spiritual and theoretic® legacy, the present chronology has been conceived ?!to defend the non-legendary Marx. Its principal concern is to counter the- universal myth and misunderstandings with a portrait of the man, the revolutionary thinker, the militant. We have 'beep guided by the desire to highlight those steps and events In his career which most clearly bear witness to a life dedicated to one single goal—the emancipation of mankind through the conscious! activity of its poorest but, in mind and spirit, potentially richest members. To do justice to Marx’s central motivation'a certain selectiveness in the choice of material presented was, though®! appropriate and we were naturally compelled to neglect or condense radically many aspects which are not without significance in other contexts.

Marx sacrificed not only personal success and wealth but also his health, family and friends to the self-appointed life-task of contributing intellectual support to the labouring dass for its long and arduous fight against enslaving capital. First and fore* most he wanted to partidpate in the struggle for emancipation, whose outcome would deride the fate of mankind, and did not consider himself called upon to create a new system of thought] or a universal social science. But not theory alone characterise! Marx's contribution to the working class movement} at every] promising occasion he actively associated with proletarians organisations: the international correspondence! committeesj (1846-47); the Communist League (1847-52), the workers! educational societies; and the International Working .Menjsj Association (1864-73) together with the Reform League. He did so because of a compelling belief that the truth of any theory! can be affirmed only in human practice, understood here not asj party politics but as the socio-political movement of the entire] working dass. The dialectic relationship: between scientific cognition and the practical fulfilment of the proletarian missio® did not in his opinion demand a special, highly centralised!




workers''party but rather a well-developed capitalist system of economy with its ruling bourgeoisie and its antithesis, the disinherited, impoverished, but conscious working dass. He saw a correlation between the action of the latter and the inner decay of capitalism and therefore considered his role to be that of a sodal theorist adding srientific insights to the actual proletarian movement.

Marx often spoke of his ‘bourgeois misery’ and he had every reason for doing so. His income as a writer was never suffident to support himself and his family adequately, hence they depended on the finandal generosity of his life-long friend Friedrich Engels. He spent most of his adult years in exile, a pariah from the age of 26, experiencing the tragedy of an outsider who threatens sodety’s tenuous equilibrium. Only a small part of his many writing projects were ever brought to fruition; penury, illness, family difficulties, journalistic hackwork made his life a long chain of disappointments and insoluble problems. Yet he turned a- deaf ear to generous offers tendered by government agents to collaborate on offirial publications which would have brought him to the attention of a much wider public and secured his reputation in the scholarly world. He felt nothing but disdain for the prejudices of ‘so-called public opinion’ and never cared for popularity. His attitude is typified by a quotation from Dante’s Divine Comedy which closes the Preface to Capital, Book I: ‘Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti.’

Long before be had published even the first part of his ‘Economics’, many of his friends expected him soon to head a new school of thought. His charismatic personality and quick mind fasrinated and impressed them profoundly, although few of his contemporaries recognised his genius and obstinately supported him f in face of uninterested public opinion and the slanders or polemical attacks of men such as Karl Vogt and Brentano or of the Prussian state police. In a well-meaning effort to compensate for these slanders his loyal friend Engels tried to popularise Marx’s, writings by reinterpreting them, yet he succeeded only in initiating the transformation of Marx’s social theory into a proletarian Weltanschauung. Engels’s identification of Marx with ‘sdentific socialism’ in Anti-Diihring, his graveside eulogy of his friend as the source of proletarian consciousness were unfortunate statements that unwittingly fathered the self-contained ideological system of Marxism. He




failed to respect the dialectic unity of revolutionary action by the conscious proletariat, the ethical imperative of Marxian thought, and scientific insight into the socio-economic mechanism of the historic process, replacing this subtle dualism with revolutionary phraseology. Every interpretation of Marx’s intellectual achievements which lays claim to the discovery of a new system of thought or philosophy necessarily amounts to a fundamental perversion of his actual intentions.

An impartial examination of Marx’s political career shows, however, that he was not always able to reconcile his conduct with his theoretical views, thereby furnishing his political opponents with fuel for their polemical fire. He was accused of vanity, of desiring personal power and despotic control over the working class movement; and whereas it is certain that he did possess traits which sometimes exasperated his friends and made their relations problematic, to expect a ‘full-blooded’ man like Marx to be free of human weaknesses is unreasonable and dangerous. His favourite maxim, ‘Nihil humani a me alienum puto’, is conveniently overlooked by those who wish to make him a cult figure, while his detractors too, although assiduous in their criticism, have so radically distorted the dimensions of the man that he is no longer compatible with any reality, past or present.

Marx’s own fate reflects in part the disheartening drama of the world’s deprived and injured working population. Living under the most uninspiring auspices and with a minimum of recognition for years of solitary study and reflection, he never imagined himself the founder of any system of thought or political movement whatsoever, nor did he presume to have discovered a universally valid or revolutionary theory of social development. Discerning enough not to place himself above those who formed him, he never forgot his debts to his predecessors and teachers. Indeed, any profound appreciation of Marx’s achievements is impossible without an awareness of the 19th- century intellectual panorama which produced such thinkers as Saint-Simon, Charles Fourier, Robert Owen, Proudhon, Lorenz von Stein, Alexis de Tocqueville and, of course, Hegel and Feuerbach. The first three in particular saw, before Marx, the actual as well as the impending dangers of technologically advanced society, and they proposed remedies to solve the crisis of modern civilisation. Marx’s study of philosophy and history, not of




economics, engendered his protest against the prevailing social system and his determination to serve the cause of what Saint- Simon called ‘la classe la plus nombreuse et la plus miserable’. He concluded that society’s ills could be overcome only through the political and social maturation of this class and then turned to concentrate on political economics in order to support his views with scientific argument. During the course of his extensive studies he absorbed impulses from many different intellectual currents, using them to create an inspiring, albeit somewhat ambiguous, vision of future society. At the centre of his writing was an ethical force: the postulate that human society or social humanity should ultimately result from technological progress, that man’s barbaric prehistory would be superseded by an era of human self-realisation. It was not because he fortuitously reread Hegel’s Logic
that Marx predicted the inevitable fall of an economic system based on profit and the simultaneous construction of a classless, stateless and moneyless society, but because he was filled with the hopes and dreams of a Saint-Simon, a Robert Owen, a Fourier. Lenin once stated that Capital is incomprehensible for the reader who is ignorant of Hegel’s Logic; yet there is even more reason to maintain that those who are unacquainted with Shakespeare’s humanity or the world of Charles Dickens cannot understand Marx, for the tenor of his real achievements lies far beyond the range of those schools which claim him as their intellectual father.

This chronology is not intended to replace the definitive biography of Marx which has yet to be written but to lay its foundation and at the same time to destroy the legendary image of the author of Capital. If in these pages the reader misses the wealth of anecdotal detail normally included in a biography, he should bear in mind that the omission is deliberate and has enabled us to treat more intensively the material selected, especially the works themselves and the correspondence. Marx’s life is divided here into six main periods, each introduced with a brief historical resume of significant world events. His essential contributions to economic theory and social analysis have been outlined by using writings from before 1867 as well as his often very explicit letters to Engels and others, a procedure which allowed us to abstain from quoting passages out of Capital itself. Principally, this volume is a forum for Marx’s own statements






concerning his troubled and turbulent life, his goals and intentions, his motivation, and should, despite its brevity, communicate an understanding of the fundamental human and scientific premises behind Marx’s social theory. Accent has been placed on the dual character of this theory: theoretical-critical comprehension of economic relations and, integrally linked to it, the ethical-practical solution to problems arising from the incessant, revolutionary social developments in the modern world.

Even though the revolutionary maturation of the working class has not kept pace with the continued expansion of the capitalist system, as Marx had hoped and postulated, the alternatives inherent in the decline of this system are becoming increasingly significant: man must either embrace a rational social order on a world-wide scale or through gradual self- destruction sink into a state of barbaric chaos. The responsibility for this fatal dilemma lies with each of us; only the personal decision of the majority of individuals can realise the rational utopia that will end the indignities of man’s inhuman past, secure the survival of all humanity and usher in an era of universal self-determination.


AUTHORS’NOTE



I. CHRONOLOGICAL SUMMARIES

The present work has been confined in part to an account of general historic and cultural events during the years 1818-1883, the span of Marx’s lifetime. Each of the six summaries which introduce distinct periods in his life and writing covers those world happenings which are echoed in some way either in his journalism or in other, more theoretical, texts. The historical summaries are followed by chronological lists of important works published and scientific advances with emphasis on the fields in which Marx was most interested.

These world events did more than simply aid Marx in illustrating his theoretical concepts—an important part of his research actually consisted in historical analysis and he carefully studied the current events which marked the destiny of post-Napoleonic Europe. For those who understand the evolutionary essence of Marx’s theoretical views and who acknowledge the presence of a rationally intelligible process recorded in the course of history, the details in our summaries will not seem superfluous.

The most obvious reason for Marx’s preoccupation with current events was of course his journalism, pursued out of financial necessity. Yet would it be unjustified to assert that this preoccupation also corresponded with his intellectual needs ? His unfulfilled desire for discussion with his contemporaries gave rise to a permanent interest in the daily realities of 19th-century society. His readings for the ‘Economics’ corroborate the fact that he had no constitution for a steady diet of theory alone but sought concrete evidence of capital’s advances in the factory,






in parliament, on the battlefields. Marx was no stranger to belles-lettres either. In addition to his passion for certain classic authors—Shakespeare and Moliere at their head—his favourite contemporary author was undoubtedly Charles Dickens, as may be seen from the chronologies of books which follow. A number of works have been deliberately included which escaped Marx's attention or interest. Certain of these may perhaps account for particular limits or insufficiencies in his general theoretical knowledge. Since he was also profoundly interested in signs of cultural progress and his letters abound in comments on inventions and scientific experiments, we illustrate this progress with a selection of the key discoveries leading to the development of modern industries and with well-known milestones in technological achievement.

Should our readers find the Chronology at times too succinct or too abrupt, we refer them to the glossary of dramatis personae and to the list of secondary sources in the bibliography, many of which may be effectively used to supplement the present representation of Marx’s era, his life and his thought.



n. ABBREVIATIONS

References to original sources are made only for the literary - works; letters and for the most part articles as well have been designated with the date of their composition (for letters) or publication (articles). Volume and pagination are given thusi| MEW 2:2i7=Marx, Engels Werke, volume 2, page 217.

IISH refers to the source of as yet unpublished letters in the Marx-Engels Nachla/3 at the International Institute of Social g History, Amsterdam.

IRSH International Review of Social History, published by ? the DSH, Assen, The Netherlands.

MEW Marx, Engels Werke. Berlin, Dietz, 1957-72- 39 vols*j MEGA Marx, Engels Gesamtausgabe. Berlin and Moscowf!

1927-35. ii vols.



EB Marx, Engels Werke. Erganzungsband. 2 vols.

SW Marx, Engels Selected Works. Moscow, 1950. 2 vols. i~|9 Documents 1 The General Council of the First InternattofflK 1864-1866. The London Conference, 1865. Minutes. Moscow»| no date (also abbrev.: Minutes).


Authors’ Note xv

Documcnteji-f Documents of the First International 1866- 1872. Moscow, no date (also abbrev.: Minutes).

Freymond La Premilre Internationale. Recueil de documents publie sous la direction de Jacques Freymond. Geneva, 1962. 2 vols.- * i



Oeuvres i Karl Marx Oeuvres. Economie 1.1 & t. 2. Paris, 1965, 1968. Edition etablie par M. Rubel. 2 vols.

The names of newspapers and reviews to which Marx frequently contributed have been abbreviated as follows:



RhZ=Rheinische Zeitung fur Politik, Handel und Gewerbe.

Cologne, 1842-43,



NRhZ=Neue Rheinische Zeitung. Cologne, 1848-49. NRhZ-RevutMNeue Rheinische Zeitung. Palitische-dkonomische Revue. Hamburg, 1850:

DBrZ8=Deutsch-Briisseler Zeitung. Brussels, 1847-48. NOZ=Neue Oder-Zeitung. Breslau, 1852-53.

NYDT=New-York Daily Tribune. New York, 1851-62.



DP=Die Presse. Vienna, 1861-62.


I8I8-I843



CENTRAL AND WESTERN EUROPE

  1. At the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle the four powers of the Holy Alliance (Russia, Britain, Prussia and Austria) sign a convention committing themselves to joint action to prevent a revival of Jacobinism in France. During the Congress the British socialist Robert Owen petitions the assembled heads of state to adopt his plan of agricultural-industrial co-operative communities, arguing that growing industrial production is bound to lead to social and economic disaster.

— The German Lander
of Baden and Bavaria grant

constitutional forms of representation to their populations.



  1. At the Conference of Karlsbad (Austria) the delegates of the German Confederation (Bund) ratify a series of measures the purpose of which is to suppress revolutionary turmoil, especially that generated by the patriotic student societies, and to enforce rigid censorship of the press.

—- A peaceable demonstration is held at St Peter’s Fields,

Manchester, England, in protest against the insufferable conditions of the industrial working class. The unarmed demonstrators are brutally attacked by yeomanry and reserve cavalry. Later in the year the policy thus initiated by these police measures is reconfirmed in the passage of the Six Acts, directed against sedition and radicalism.



I8I8-I843



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