"Caesarism": was Marx wrong?

[Die Neue Zeit]

In the various Marxist literature before Lenin, there were musings made about "Caesarism." Here I'm assuming that Marx, Wilhelm Liebknecht and co. were referring to the elder Julius Caesar and not the obvious case of Augustus.

A not-so-recent book by Michael Parenti, The Assassination of Julius Caesar: A People's History, basically states that Caesar wanted to overthrow the power of the wealthy senators and especially the class that formed the Senate, by using the peasant recruits into his armies. For this, and not for "he's become a dictator for life" like Louis Napoleon, was Caesar assassinated.

So, if the Marxist literature before Lenin did refer to Julius Caesar as epitomizing "Caesarism," were such literature wrong?

[Misanthrope]

During Marx's time, the term dictatorship was very hand in hand with workers movements and the like. The term itself came from the ancient Roman Republic maybe even directly from the time of Caesar? So no, the literature is not wrong but you are right Caesar was most likely assassinated for threatening the political class.

[Dimentio]

In the various Marxist literature before Lenin, there were musings made about "Caesarism." Here I'm assuming that Marx, Wilhelm Liebknecht and co. were referring to the elder Julius Caesar and not the obvious case of Augustus.

A not-so-recent book by Michael Parenti, The Assassination of Julius Caesar: A People's History, basically states that Caesar wanted to overthrow the power of the wealthy senators and especially the class that formed the Senate, by using the peasant recruits into his armies. For this, and not for "he's become a dictator for life" like Louis Napoleon, was Caesar assassinated.

So, if the Marxist literature before Lenin did refer to Julius Caesar as epitomizing "Caesarism," were such literature wrong?

Caesar was more like Chàvez than Lenin. He was a populist politician utilising the disillusion the great majority of freemen had with the nobility in order to gain power. During his term, he made several popular reforms and also watered down the aristocracy.

But Caesar certainly did not envision any kind of democracy or egalitarian system! He was an opportunist. While he probably held fond feelings for the people of Rome, it seems like he himself did not have any visions on how to change society.

But we should look at the rise of Caesar from the people's perspective. For them, it was a question of a class struggle, which had begun 85 years earlier with the Gracchii.

[Dimentio]

Me and a friend has actually made a game (http://z3.invisionfree.com/Marenostrum/index.php?act=idx) exploring ancient Roman society by the way.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Well, to be fair nobody in the Roman Republic envisioned democracy of any sort (Greek democracy, in particular), so Caesar would have to be judged on, how shall I say, an "economistic" basis (the substance of his economic reforms and struggles against the Senate and the class forming the Senate). ;)

[Tower of Bebel]

Here I'm assuming that Marx, Wilhelm Liebknecht and co. were referring to the elder Julius Caesar and not the obvious case of Augustus.And where does this assumption come from? I believe, after reading Marx's 18th Brumaire, that Marx didn't refer to the name (Julius Caesar) but to the title.

[Dave B]

The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte. Karl Marx, Preface to the Second Edition (1869)





Lastly, I hope that my work will contribute toward eliminating the school-taught phrase now current, particularly in Germany, of so-called Caesarism. In this superficial historical analogy the main point is forgotten, namely, that in ancient Rome the class struggle took place only within a privileged minority, between the free rich and the free poor, while the great productive mass of the population, the slaves, formed the purely passive pedestal for these combatants. People forget Sismondi’s significant saying:

The Roman proletariat lived at the expense of society, while modern society lives at the expense of the proletariat. With so complete a difference between the material, economic conditions of the ancient and the modern class struggles, the political figures produced by them can likewise have no more in common with one another than the Archbishop of Canterbury has with the High Priest Samuel.


http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1852/18th-brumaire/preface.htm (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1852/18th-brumaire/preface.htm)

[Die Neue Zeit]

But Social-Democrats later on, like Wilhelm Liebknecht, used that term to describe a state "above" the bourgeoisie, petit-bourgeoisie, and proletariat. It morphed eventually into "Bonapartism."

[btpound]

I thought that Ceasarism and Bonapartism referred to a situation where the military class elevates itself as the dominant political class in a period where the class struggle can make no gain for either the proletariat or the bourgeoisie. Typically such a political movement utilizes the peasantry and their maluable class conciousness.

I tend to agree with Dimentio, Ceasar and Napoleon were opprotunists who rode their way to political power on a populist platform that would appeal to the peasantry. Ceaser put forward such reforms, and so did Napoleon. He created a new system of law, and even outlawed serfdom. In Napolean's case this was more obviously a reform for the bourgeois class, but the bourgeoisie was a progressive class at the time.

[Dave B]

Frederick Engels
Origins of the Family, Private Property, and the State
Chapter IX: Barbarism and Civilization


Exceptional periods, however, occur when the warring classes are so nearly equal in forces that the state power, as apparent mediator, acquires for the moment a certain independence in relation to both. This applies to the absolute monarchy of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, which balances the nobility and the bourgeoisie against one another; and to the Bonapartism of the First and particularly of the Second French Empire, which played off the proletariat against the bourgeoisie and the bourgeoisie against the proletariat. The latest achievement in this line, in which ruler and ruled look equally comic, is the new German Empire of the Bismarckian nation; here the capitalists and the workers are balanced against one another and both of them fleeced for the benefit of the decayed Prussian cabbage Junkers.


http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1884/origin-family/ch09.htm (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1884/origin-family/ch09.htm)

Jacob it took me half an hour to find that! It has a tenuous connection to ‘ceasarism’ I think but I will let you analyse that.

[Intelligitimate]

Ironically enough, I have been using Parenti's book and Marx's 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte as a mouse pad for months now.

According to Parenti's book, Engels once referred to Cicero as "the most contemptible scoundrel in history." Parenti also paints of picture of classical scholarship being divided into two broad camps, Ciceronians and Caesarians. I think it is obvious by this comment where Marx and Engels would fall on this divide.

Parenti does much to make Caesar appear much like an ancient version of Chavez, but I don't think that is giving Chavez nearly the credit he deserves. Caesar was a populist and progressive figure, but I don't think he had in mind a total reconstruction of society along egalitarian lines.

[Kléber]

The Chávez connection is a bit off, Julius Caesar was more like JFK. His attempts to woo what was left of populist sentiment were done in order to provide a stable base for conquests abroad. By attempting to restore power to the Tribal Assembly, and thus involve plebeians in the imperialist state, he is reminiscent of Andrew Jackson, not a great guy either. Caesar also conducted quite a few brutal massacres of "barbarian" peoples.

[Dimentio]

The Chávez connection is a bit off, Julius Caesar was more like JFK. His attempts to woo what was left of populist sentiment were done in order to provide a stable base for conquests abroad. By attempting to restore power to the Tribal Assembly, and thus involve plebeians in the imperialist state, he is reminiscent of Andrew Jackson, not a great guy either. Caesar also conducted quite a few brutal massacres of "barbarian" peoples.

Not really. Caesar's reforms were really threatening a part of the ruling class. But the benefactors would obviously be the plebs and the proletarii and not the slaves, who were those who were really exploited (alongside provincial farmers). But no one could doubt they benefitted the unemployable class.

[Kléber]

Caesar's reforms were really threatening a part of the ruling class.The same could be said of the "progressive" US presidents but they always acted in defense of their class. Had he survived I doubt Julius would have been any more radical than Augustus.