“Very soon, however, differences began to spring up. The controversy came to a head on the following question: Even at the beginning of 1850, Marx and Engels thought that it would not be long ere the revolution would be resuscitated. It was precisely at his time that two famous circulars were released by the Communist League. Lenin, who knew them by heart, used to delight in quoting them. In these circulars – and they can only be understood if we recall the errors made by Marx and Engels during the Revolution of 1848 – we find that besides mercilessly criticising bourgeois liberalism, we must also attack the democratic elements. We must muster all our strength to create a workingmen’s party in opposition to the democratic organisation. The democrats must be lashed and flayed. If they demand a ten-hour workday, we should demand an eight-hour day. I f they demand expropriation of large estates with just compensation, then we must demand confiscation without compensation. We must use every possible means to goad on the revolution, to make it permanent, and not to let it lapse into desuetude. We cannot afford to be satisfied with the immediate conquests. Each bit of conquered territory must serve as a step for further conquests. Every attempt to declare the revolution consummated is treason to its cause. We must exert our strength, to the last bit, to undermine and destroy the social and political fabric in which we live, until the last vestiges of the old class antagonisms are eradicated forever. Differences of opinion arose about the evaluation of the existing conditions. In contradistinction to his opponents, the most important among whom were Schapper and Willich, Marx, true to his method, insisted that every political revolution was the effect of definite economic causes, of a certain economic revolution. The Revolution of 1848 was preceded by the economic crisis of 1847 which had held all of Europe, except the Far East, in its grip. Having studied in London the prevailing economic conditions, the state of the world market, Marx came to the conclusion that the new situation was not favourable to a revolutionary eruption, and that the absence of the new revolutionary upheaval, which he and his friends had been anticipating, might be explained otherwise than by the lack of revolutionary initiative and revolutionary energy on the part of the revolutionists. On the basis of his detailed analysis of the existing conditions, he reached the conclusion, at the end of 1850, that in the face of such economic efflorescence any attempt to force a revolution, to induce an uprising, was doomed to fruitless defeat. And conditions were the particularly conducive to the development of European capital. Fabulously rich gold mines were discovered in California and in Australia; vast hosts of workers rushed into these countries. The deluge of European emigration started in 1848 and reached tremendous proportions in 1850. Thus, a study of economic conditions brought Marx to the conviction that the revolutionary wave was receding and that there would be no renewal of the revolutionary movement until another economic crisis arose and created more favourable conditions. Some of the members of the Communist league did not subscribe to these views” [David Riazanov, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. An Introduction to Their Lives and Work, Monthly Review Press, 1973]
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- Articolo pubblicato:8 Dicembre 2013