Karl Marx

by Jonathan Sperber

  In The Class Struggles in France, Marx’s vision of a renewed revolution was based on the events of the 1790s—a workers’ uprising, followed by a war between a revolutionary France and the European powers—a possibility now precluded by Marx’s criticism of the idea of repeating past revolutions. A new revolution would have to break with the past rather than continue its traditions: “The social revolution of the nineteenth century cannot draw its poetry from the past but from the future. It cannot begin with itself, before it has shrugged off all superstitions from the past.”100 Marx’s refusal to offer explicit visions of a future communist society expanded to include the revolutionary transition to that future.

  If Marx was unwilling to speculate about the nature of a future communist revolution, he did seem to know where it would begin. In a passage toward the end of the work, he described how Louis Napoleon had destroyed the French legislature and the constitutional division of powers, concentrating all power of the bureaucratic French state on a dictatorial executive. Marx presented this process in Hegelian terms, as the internal logic of historical development, through which a future revolution needed only to target this one center of state power. When that revolution occurred, “all Europe will jump up from its seat and jubilantly cry out: Well grubbed old mole!”101 The phrase was from Hamlet—more precisely, from the standard German translation of Hamlet that Marx had learned as a teenager from Johann Ludwig von Westphalen. It was also an implicit invocation of Mirabeau, one of the great orators of the Revolution of 1789, whose fiery speeches caused contemporaries to exclaim, “Well roared lion!”—an observation that Marx had previously quoted in his 1842 articles on freedom of the press in the Rhineland News.102 The contrast between the powerful roar of the mighty king of the jungle and the quiet, patient preparation of the tiny mole was Marx’s way of underscoring how future revolutions would differ from previous expectations of revolution, including his own.

  The place where French state power was concentrated, and where a revolution would be so dramatic that all of Europe would be forced to jump up and take notice, was of course Paris. For all Marx’s evocation of a fundamentally different future revolution, this passage suggests that he still expected it to begin in Paris, following a pattern that had emerged in 1789, 1830, and 1848. Well into the 1860s, he continued to look to Paris for a decisive revolutionary outbreak. By the end of the decade, his doubts about the Parisian epicenter of the world revolution were emerging. When revolution finally did strike Paris in 1870–71, with the overthrow of Napoleon III and the creation, struggles, and destruction of the Paris Commune, it confirmed Marx’s developing doubts that a Parisian revolution would have continent- and worldwide galvanizing effects.

  Marx wrote The Eighteenth Brumaire as his personal and political fortunes were reaching their nadir: the 1848 revolutions had been suppressed and hopes for their resuscitation were increasingly dismal. He was isolated and broke in the midst of quarreling political refugees in London. The pamphlet expressed his hopes for a transition from a reactionary and counterrevolutionary present to a revolutionary future. It presented a failed revolution as the necessary precursor to a successful one. The unfulfilled expectations of 1850 would not be realized; instead, there would be a (mostly) new and different revolution. The current situation was dismal on the surface, but beneath that seemingly solid surface of counterrevolutionary military dictatorship, a little mole was burrowing away.

  In the long run, the piece was one of Marx’s most influential and successful works, and not just among his followers. The renowned anthropologist and philosopher Claude Lévi-Strauss, hardly an heir or disciple of Marx, admitted that “I rarely broach a new sociological problem without first stimulating my thought by reading a few pages of The 18th Brumaire. . . .”103 As a contemporary message of revolutionary hope and inspiration, the pamphlet did not get very far. Printed in New York, it sold poorly among German-Americans; few copies ever reached Europe, and Marx’s efforts to have an edition printed there were unsuccessful. The handful of readers of The Eighteenth Brumaire were profoundly impressed with Marx’s analysis, but its message never had much of an audience.104 Marx’s isolation in exile and the arrest and imprisonment of his followers in Cologne marked the end of a ten-year phase of political activism. Until the year 1859, Marx would be shut out of political activity. From a revolutionary actively intervening in events, even causing them to happen, he would be reduced to an observer, commenting incisively on current conditions, and seeking any last piece of evidence that would indicate a change for the better.

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  The Observer

  FOR MARX, THE PERIOD between the mid-1840s and the early 1850s was characterized by extensive organizing, inflammatory journalism, and insurrectionary aspirations, shot through with bitter polemics, envenomed recriminations, and personal and political rivalries. In generating a whirlwind of contentious politics, Marx reflected the broader flow of European history. Nothing dominated the era more than the continentwide revolutions of 1848, preceded by years of rising confrontation and succeeded by a phase of apocalyptic visions anticipating even more violent, drastic, and far-reaching revolution.

  The subsequent seven years that came in the wake of the revolution’s fury, the period between 1852 and 1859, proved altogether different. Authoritarian regimes, most prominently in France with the accession of Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, who now called himself Emperor Napoleon III, came as a virulent response to the rebellions that had convulsed continental Europe. Open political opposition was marginalized while radical versions of it were completely suppressed. This was, as contemporaries and later historians said, an “age of reaction.” Marx’s personal priorities followed broader historical trends in this era as well. Sheltered from repression in England, a liberal offshore haven in a reactionary era, disheartened by the results of the Cologne Communist Trial, and disgusted with exile strife, Marx withdrew from active political life. He wrote to Engels in October 1853, “At the next opportunity I intend to issue a public declaration that I have nothing to do with any party. I am no longer inclined, under the pretext of party, to allow myself to be insulted by every party jackass.” Although Marx never did issue such a declaration, he certainly lived out its principles, giving up any engagement with the German artisans and European political refugees in London—whose activities were definitely at a low ebb during this era, although not fully extinguished.1

  Marx himself was at a low ebb for most of the 1850s, his time and energy taken up with supporting his family while battling poor health and personal tragedy. His social contacts declined steadily as he retreated away from politics into private and family life. In December 1857, he wrote that “Except for the family circle, I am now quite isolated here. The few acquaintances are seldom seen, and, in general, one doesn’t lose much for it.”2

  Marx justified his political passivity by his 1850 thesis that the next revolution would only break out after an economic crisis. In the interregnum between revolutions, when political action would accomplish little, he would finally write the book on political economy he had been planning for years, and so arm himself intellectually for the next insurgent outbreak.3 But the demands of earning a living and his frequently depressed and downcast emotional state meant that he made little progress on this task. Rather, Marx’s intellectual efforts went into his steadily expanding work as a freelance journalist. At least temporarily unable to change the world, as he aspired to do in his theses on Feuerbach, he had to settle for interpreting it. In his very extensive journalism, Marx provided incisive commentary on the politics of reaction-era Europe, observed closely commercial and financial conditions, and evaluated new business developments, all the while looking for any evidence of the hoped-for economic crisis. His journalistic observations were the one time in his life when he paid close attention to conditions in Asia and thought on a global scale.

  THROUGH THE 1850s, DEATH continued to stalk the family. Jenny was forty-three when she gave birth for the last time, in
July 1857, following a difficult and painful pregnancy. The child was stillborn—a powerful blow to the mother, but one that also inspired strong feelings in Karl. Just what “circumstances immediately connected” with the birth made a “dreadful impression on my imagination,” or whatever leading to the stillbirth was a “torture” for him to remember, remains mysterious; even his close friend Engels did not understand the references.4

  Perhaps these painful memories stemmed from a much greater tragedy—not that of a child born dead, but the unexpected death of Edgar, a lively, deeply loved child, who died at the age of eight on April 6, 1855. The conditions of his illness—lasting about a month, with stomach pains, a fever, temporary improvements followed by setbacks—all suggest a ruptured appendix, although tuberculosis of the stomach cannot be ruled out. As the condition of their beloved “Musch” (“the fly”) worsened, the mood of his parents became steadily more somber. His death early in the morning, in his father’s arms, was an intolerable blow. His mother, his sisters, and Lenchen Demuth all sobbed inconsolably. Jenny could not bear to stay in the dreary Dean Street rooms in Soho; she had to get away from the site of the tragedy, but even that did not help. Months later, the least reminder of her son’s death would cause her to break out in tears. Her husband, barely able to master his emotions, felt no better:

  The house is naturally completely deserted and empty after the death of the dear child who was its enlivening soul. It is indescribable how much we miss the child, everywhere we turn. I have gone through all manner of trouble but now I know for the first time what genuine misfortune is. I feel broken down. Fortunately, since the day of the burial, I have had such severe headaches that thinking, hearing and seeing have passed me by.5

  The death of this son was the greatest tragedy in Marx’s life. At Edgar’s funeral, his friend and political associate Wilhelm Liebknecht attempted to console him, reminding him of his wife, daughter, and friends, but Marx, close to losing control, just groaned in reply: “All of you cannot give me my boy back.” Edgar’s death left Marx depressed and dispirited for the next two and a half years. If he did not give in completely to despair, it was only, as he told Engels, because of the “thought of you and your friendship . . . and the hope that together we can still do something sensible in the world.”6

  In this bleak family picture, there was one small ray of light: the birth of a daughter, Eleanor, on January 17, 1855. The first months of the little girl’s life were difficult and it seemed that she might go the way of Heinrich Guido and Franziska. But Eleanor, a precocious and energetic child, survived, the only one of the children born in London who did so. Her two sisters, a good decade older, doted on her; her parents were amused and proud. But Eleanor’s flourishing, for all the joy it brought to her family, could not compensate for Edgar’s death.7

  BY THE EARLY 1850s, Marx was an experienced journalist, who had written regularly for four newspapers and two magazines. In the years 1853–62, he put this journalistic experience to good use, writing for six different newspapers, in England, the United States, Prussia, Austria, and even South Africa. Unlike previous circumstances, this work was undertaken at the behest of newspapers neither under Marx’s control or influence nor designed for his political purposes. Marx’s editors gave him quite a bit of latitude; he could make political points, and work out theoretical issues in in his articles, but his journalism was no longer a form of political agitation.

  The bulk of Marx’s journalism appeared in the New York Tribune, then the leading newspaper in the United States, best known today for its opposition to slavery and for its chief editor, the pundit and Republican politician Horace Greeley. His associate, Charles Anderson Dana, had met Marx in Cologne in November 1848, at the very peak of a revolutionary crisis. Impressed and charmed by Marx, Dana kept in touch, and in 1851 he offered the political exile the opportunity to write a series of articles about the midcentury revolution in central Europe. Busy with polemics against his fellow refugees, and his book on political economy, still very unsure of his English, Marx turned the writing over to Engels. The latter’s ghostwritten articles have frequently been reprinted as a book under the title Germany: Revolution and Counter-Revolution.8

  The series was a big success, and Dana requested that Marx, the ostensible author, write regular pieces for the Tribune. Starting in the second half of 1852, Marx began writing the articles himself. At first his knowledge of English was insufficient, and he needed the editorial assistance of Wilhelm Pieper; but with some practice, he became comfortable writing in English, although his prose remained distinctly Teutonic all his life. Marx would dash articles off in his scrawled handwriting. Jenny would then write out a fair copy, which would be dispatched by steamer to New York. (The correspondence took place before the laying of an effective transatlantic telegraph cable in 1866.) Over the course of a decade, Marx was paid for 487 pieces, many appearing in the Tribune as lead articles. About a quarter of them were actually ghostwritten by Engels, who pitched in when Marx’s health problems made it hard for him to write, but Engels also wrote articles on military matters, which were “The General’s” specialty.9

  Marx found other outlets for his work, placing a few items in left-wing and oppositional English newspapers, some of which would be reprinted and obtain a much wider audience. He wrote briefly for a Dutch-language South African newspaper, but could not agree with its editor on payment. For nine months in 1855, he was the London correspondent of the New Oder News in Breslau, until the Prussian government forced the oppositional journal out of business. Its editor founded a Viennese newspaper, The Press (predecessor to The New Free Press, one of the great liberal newspapers of pre-1914 Europe), for which Marx wrote, more sporadically, in the early 1860s.10

  Considerable work went into these articles. To get material, Marx regularly read the major English newspapers, a large portion of the French and German press, and some selected articles from Italian and Spanish papers as well. He pored over Blue Books, the reports of the British parliamentary investigative committees, and went through volumes of Hansard, the record of parliamentary debates. Marx did do some occasional personal reporting, attending debates in the House of Commons as well as riotous demonstrations in Hyde Park, but his journalism was more like that of today’s columnist than a reporter. His substantial essays (which occupy five to ten pages when reprinted in the collections of his works) contained extensive commentary, shot through with typical ironic and satirical invective. The sheer volume of his newspaper work is impressive. Although the journalism is sparsely examined in most biographies, the extent of the newspaper articles written by Marx between 1853 and 1862 was greater than everything else he published during his lifetime put together. In the eulogy summing up the life of his friend, Engels emphasized—quite rightly—the intellectual and political significance of Marx’s journalism.11

  IF THE JOURNALISM OF the 1850s was by far the largest part of Marx’s published writings, it was equally the most lucrative. The need to support his family and pay off the debts he had accumulated was a major factor. Creditors continued to harass the family into 1852–53, as Marx began his work as a correspondent. The pawnshop remained a frequent recourse, and Engels sent Marx money as best he could. Jenny reported back to him: “Karl was enormously happy when he heard the fateful double knock of the mailman: Voilà, Frederick, £2, saved! he cried out.” However, Engels, who had financial problems of his own, could not always come through, so Marx was forced to scour the German community for loans. This was no easy task since most of its members were well aware of his bad credit record.12

  As the newspaper work continued and expanded, financial conditions began to improve. Feeling more optimistic about his prospects by the end of 1853, Marx wrote to Engels to say he regretted not having started his journalism earlier: “If we both—you and I—had only got this English correspondent business going at the right time in London, you wouldn’t be sitting in Manchester, tormented in the counting house and I wouldn’t be tormented
by my debts.”13 With more money coming in, little signs of comfort began to reappear in the family. Unlike with Heinrich Guido, Jenny was able to hire a wet-nurse for Eleanor. Starting in 1853, the family enjoyed big German Christmas celebrations, with a cornucopia of gifts for the children. Wilhelm Liebknecht, in his reminiscences of Marx, described the Sunday family picnics of the mid-1850s. In mild weather, Karl, Jenny, the children, the servant, and various guests would march for over an hour from Dean Street north and west to Hampstead Heath, with Lenchen carrying in her basket a large veal roast and fruit. On the Heath, the picnickers purchased bread and cheese, shrimps, snails and beer, consumed a substantial midday dinner, and then sat and chatted or read the Sunday papers while the children played. Trudging back, they sang folksongs, or Karl and Jenny would declaim from Shakespeare and Goethe’s Faust. It was an idyllic scene, and testament to a modest rebound from the depths of exile poverty.14

  In the fall of 1856, the family was able to move to a new home: 9 Grafton Terrace, in Kentish Town. The rent at £36 per year was relatively reasonable, although this was because the subdivision was unfinished and streets were unpaved, so the whole area became a muddy morass when it rained. Still, it was a house, much bigger than the furnished rooms in Soho. The money needed to furnish it came mostly from a small inheritance Jenny had received from an uncle who had recently died. It was the first time in over seven years that the Marxes had their own furniture, a break with the rootless existence they had been leading. The new location, a long, three-mile walk from the refugee German intellectuals in Soho or the bankers in the City, and even further from the German artisans living in the East End, was another indication of Marx’s withdrawal from exile politics and from the social life associated with it.15