Marx and Electoralism

[papaspace]

Did Marx support electoralism? How did he think that the revolution would come about, generally? Through the ballot?

What does Engels' statement here mean?:


If one thing is certain it is that our party and the working class can only come to power under the form of a democratic republic. This is even the specific form for the dictatorship of the proletariat, as the Great French Revolution has already shown.

Please provide citations if possible
papaspace

[mikelepore]

Marx, Sept. 8, 1872 speech at the Hague

"Someday the worker must seize political power in order to build up the new organization of labor; he must overthrow the old politics which sustain the old institutions, if he is not to lose Heaven on Earth, like the old Christians who neglected and despised politics. But we have not asserted that the ways to achieve that goal are everywhere the same. You know that the institutions, mores, and traditions of various countries must be taken into consideration, and we do not deny that there are countries -- such as America, England, and if I were more familiar with your institutions, I would perhaps also add Holland -- where the workers can attain their goal by peaceful means. This being the case, we must also recognize the fact that in most countries on the Continent the lever of our revolution must be force; it is force to which we must someday appeal in order to erect the rule of labor."

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Marx, The First International Working Men's Association Resolution on the Establishment of Working-Class Parties, Adopted by the Hague Congress of the International as Article 7 of the General Statutes September 1872

"Against the collective power of the propertied classes the working class cannot act, as a class, except by constituting itself into a political party, distinct from, and opposed to, all old parties formed by the propertied classes. This constitution of the working class into a political party is indispensable in order to insure the triumph of the social revolution and its ultimate end -- the abolition of classes. The combination of forces which the working class has already effected by its economical struggles ought at the same time to serve as a lever for its struggles against the political power of landlords and capitalists. The lords of the land and the lords of capital will always use their political privileges for the defense and perpetuation of their economical monopolies and for enslaving labor. To conquer political power has therefore become the great duty of the working classes."

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Marx, article in the New York Daily Tribune, Aug. 25, 1852

"Universal suffrage is the equivalent of political power for the working class of England, where the proletariat forms the large majority of society. The carrying of Universal Suffrage in England would, therefore, be a far more socialistic measure than anything which has been honoured with that name on the Continent."

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Marx and Engels, Address of the Central Committee to the Communist League, London, March 1850

"Even where there is no prospect whatever of their being elected, the workers must put up their own candidates in order to preserve their independence, to count their forces and to lay before the public their revolutionary attitude and party standpoint. In this connection they must not allow themselves to be bribed by such arguments of the democrats as, for example, that by so doing they are splitting the democratic party and giving the reactionaries the possibility of victory."

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Engels, 1895, Introduction to Marx, _The Class Struggles in France 1848 to 1850_

"And if universal suffrage had offered no other advantage than that it allowed us to count our numbers every three years; that by the regularly established, unexpectedly rapid rise in our vote it increased in equal measure the workers' certainty of victory and the dismay of their opponents, and so became our best means of propaganda; that it accurately informed us of our own strength and that of all opposing parties, and thereby provided us with a measure of proportion second to none for our actions, safeguarding us from untimely timidity as much as from untimely foolhardiness - if this had been the only advantage we gained from the suffrage, it would still have been much more than enough. But it did more than this by far. In election propaganda it provided us with a means, second to none, of getting in touch with the mass of the people where they still stand aloof from us; of forcing all parties to defend their views and actions against our attacks before all the people; and, further, it provided our representatives in the Reichstag with a platform from which they could speak to their opponents in parliament, and to the masses outside, with quite different authority and freedom than in the press or at meetings."

[ZeroNowhere]

"I do not see what violation of the social-democratic principle is necessarily involved in putting up candidates for any elective political office or in voting for these candidates, even if we are aiming at the abolition of this office itself.

"One may be of the opinion that the best way to abolish the Presidency and the Senate in America is to elect men to these offices who are pledged to effect their abolition, and then one will consistently act accordingly. Others may think that this method is inappropriate; that’s a matter of opinion. There may be circumstances under which the former mode of action would also involve a violation of revolutionary principle; I fail to see why that should always and everywhere be the case.

"For the immediate goal of the labor movement is the conquest of political power for and by the working class. If we agree on that, the difference of opinion regarding the ways and means of struggle to be employed therein can scarcely lead to differences of principle among sincere people who have their wits about them. In my opinion those tactics are the best in each country that lead to the goal most certainly and in the shortest time."

- Engels, letter to F. Wiesen, attached to letter to Sorge.

"Someday the worker must seize political power in order to build up the new organization of labor; he must overthrow the old politics which sustain the old institutions, if he is not to lose Heaven on Earth, like the old Christians who neglected and despised politics.

"But we have not asserted that the ways to achieve that goal are everywhere the same.

"You know that the institutions, mores, and traditions of various countries must be taken into consideration, and we do not deny that there are countries -- such as America, England, and if I were more familiar with your institutions, I would perhaps also add Holland -- where the workers can attain their goal by peaceful means. This being the case, we must also recognize the fact that in most countries on the Continent the lever of our revolution must be force; it is force to which we must some day appeal in order to erect the rule of labor."

- Marx, speech from 1872.

Their general view seems to have been, "Well, it depends." Essentially, the emancipation of the working class is necessarily the task of the working class itself, the aim is therefore the coming of the working class to political power, but the rest is primarily a matter of tactics more than principle, and is to be debated for each specific case rather than one method being proclaimed as the true method for all time.

[Zanthorus]

The statement by Engels cites the 'Great French revolution' as showing how the 'Democratic Republic' is specific form for the emancipation of the proletariat. Given that he could not have been talking about 1789, since that was regarded as a 'bourgeois revolution', the most obvious point is that he is referring to the Paris Commune when he talks about a 'Democratic Republic'.

[papaspace]

How does that settle with them "coming to power" under the form of a "democratic republic", though? How could the Parisian proletariat come to power under a form that was not yet created?

[Die Neue Zeit]

The statement by Engels cites the 'Great French revolution' as showing how the 'Democratic Republic' is specific form for the emancipation of the proletariat. Given that he could not have been talking about 1789, since that was regarded as a 'bourgeois revolution', the most obvious point is that he is referring to the Paris Commune when he talks about a 'Democratic Republic'.

That's a very important distinction to make there.

[Zanthorus]

How does that settle with them "coming to power" under the form of a "democratic republic", though? How could the Parisian proletariat come to power under a form that was not yet created?

I'm not sure exactly what is being asked here. Clearly the Parisian proletariat from March to May 1871 had taken power in the form of a state organised along Democratic Republican lines. Identifying support for the Democratic Republic as advocacy of an electoral road to socialism is to cater to the bourgeois conception according to which our modern parliamentary systems are 'democratic'. Clearly if we compared modern parliamentary democracy with the democracy which existed in the Commune, we would have to conclude that the latter had more right to the name 'Democratic Republic' than the former.

[ZeroNowhere]

The statement by Engels cites the 'Great French revolution' as showing how the 'Democratic Republic' is specific form for the emancipation of the proletariat. Given that he could not have been talking about 1789, since that was regarded as a 'bourgeois revolution', the most obvious point is that he is referring to the Paris Commune when he talks about a 'Democratic Republic'.
"The Great French Revolution was the third uprising of the bourgeoisie, but the first that had entirely cast off the religious cloak, and was fought out on undisguised political lines; it was the first, too, that was really fought out up to the destruction of one of the combatants, the aristocracy, and the complete triumph of the other, the bourgeoisie. In England, the continuity of pre-revolutionary and post-revolutionary institutions, and the compromise between landlords and capitalists, found its expression in the continuity of judicial precedents and in the religious preservation of the feudal forms of the law. In France, the Revolution constituted a complete breach with the traditions of the past; it cleared out the very last vestiges of feudalism, and created in the Code Civil a masterly adaptation of the old Roman law – that almost perfect expression of the juridical relations corresponding to the economic stage called by Marx the production of commodities – to modern capitalist conditions; so masterly that this French revolutionary code still serves as a model for reforms of the law of property in all other countries, not excepting England. Let us, however, not forget that if English law continues to express the economic relations of capitalist society in that barbarous feudal language which corresponds to the thing expressed, just as English spelling corresponds to English pronunciation –vous ecrivez Londres et vous prononcez Constantinople, said a Frenchman – that same English law is the only one which has preserved through ages, and transmitted to America and the Colonies, the best part of that old Germanic personal freedom, local self-government, and independence from all interference (but that of the law courts), which on the Continent has been lost during the period of absolute monarchy, and has nowhere been as yet fully recovered."

I don't think that it's at all clear that Engels was not referring to the Great French Revolution when he said that he was.


Incidentally, if the bourgeoisie is politically, that is, by its state power, “maintaining injustice in property relations”, it is not creating it. The “injustice in property relations” which is determined by the modern division of labour, the modern form of exchange, competition, concentration, etc., by no means arises from the political rule of the bourgeois class, but vice versa, the political rule of the bourgeois class arises from these modern relations of production which bourgeois economists proclaim to be necessary and eternal laws. If therefore the proletariat overthrows the political rule of the bourgeoisie, its victory will only be temporary, only an element in the service of the bourgeois revolution itself, as in the year 1794, as long as in the course of history, in its “movement”, the material conditions have not yet been created which make necessary the abolition of the bourgeois mode of production and therefore also the definitive overthrow of the political rule of the bourgeoisie. The terror in France could thus by its mighty hammer-blows only serve to spirit away, as it were, the ruins of feudalism from French soil. The timidly considerate bourgeoisie would not have accomplished this task in decades. The bloody action of the people thus only prepared the way for it. In the same way, the overthrow of the absolute monarchy would be merely temporary if the economic conditions for the rule of the bourgeois class had not yet become ripe. Men build a new world for themselves, not from the “treasures of this earth”, as grobian superstition imagines, but from the historical achievements of their declining world. In the course of their development they first have to produce the material conditions of a new society itself, and no exertion of mind or will can free them from this fate.- Marx.

In fact, he specifically differentiated between the two:
Does that mean that in the future the street fight will play no further role? Certainly not. It only means that the conditions since 1848 have become far more unfavorable for civil fights, far more favorable for the military. A future street fight can therefore only be victorious when this unfavorable situation is compensated by other factors. Accordingly, it will occur more seldom in the beginning of a great revolution than in its further progress, and will have to be undertaken with greater forces. These, however, may then well prefer, as in the whole Great French Revolution on September 4 and October 31, 1870, in Paris, the open attack to the passive barricade tactics.Whichever French revolution he was referring to, then, I think it's certainly not the Paris Commune. Marx seems to have used the term in reference to the earlier one, as in Value, Price and Profit, and Engels also used it in reference to Babeuf, etc, as well as here:


The study of political economy and of the history of the Great French Revolution still allowed Marx time enough for occasional attacks on the Prussian Government; the latter revenged itself in the spring of 1845 by securing from the Guizot ministry — Herr Alexander von Humboldt is said to have acted as intermediary — his expulsion from France.
Identifying support for the Democratic Republic as advocacy of an electoral road to socialism is to cater to the bourgeois conception according to which our modern parliamentary systems are 'democratic'.Wait, let's look at the context of that quote:
First. If one thing is certain it is that our party and the working class can only come to power under the form of a democratic republic. This is even the specific form for the dictatorship of the proletariat, as the Great French Revolution has already shown. It would be inconceivable for our best people to become ministers under an emperor, as Miquel. It would seem that from a legal point of view it is inadvisable to include the demand for a republic directly in the programme, although this was possible even under Louis Phillippe in France, and is now in Italy.Of course, a republican program was illegal at the time in Germany. Nonetheless, it's hardly alien to Marx and Engels to advocate winning the battle of (ie. for) democracy, and indeed I believe that I had discussed this a while ago as regards the petit-bourgeoisie. I think that Marx and Engels generally weren't afraid of calling bourgeois democracy 'democracy', and indeed did so a fair amount of times. Finally, Engels certainly didn't view an electoral road to socialism as against principles. In fact, if you want something which you may view as rather egregious, from the same text:
One can conceive that the old society may develop peacefully into the new one in countries where the representatives of the people concentrate all power in their hands, where, if one has the support of the majority of the people, one can do as one sees fit in a constitutional way: in democratic republics such as France and the U.S.A., in monarchies such as Britain, where the imminent abdication of the dynasty in return for financial compensation is discussed in the press daily and where this dynasty is powerless against the people. But in Germany where the government is almost omnipotent and the Reichstag and all other representative bodies have no real power, to advocate such a thing in Germany, when, moreover, there is no need to do so, means removing the fig-leaf from absolutism and becoming oneself a screen for its nakedness.


That's a very important distinction to make there.I'm not convinced that it's even an accurate distinction to make. 'Engels refers to the 'Great French Revolution' a fair amount of times elsewhere, never in reference to the Commune de Paris, but here he suddenly decides to use it to refer to the Commune de Paris and hopes that people get what he means.' Engels wasn't one for coining neologisms on a whim and then throwing them around indiscriminately.

[Zanthorus]

The second quote you posted refers to the 'Great French Revolution' as occuring on September 4th and October 31st in Paris. And forgive me if my French history is a little rough, but what exactly happened in 1794 that brought the working-class to power? Engels remarks that the 'Great French Revolution' showed that the 'Democratic Republic' was the specific form of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Given Marx's comments that the Commune was the political form at last found for the emancipation of the proletariat, I'm not sure how he could be referring to anything other than the Commune.

[ZeroNowhere]

I believe that September 4-5 was around the beginning of the Reign of Terror to preserve the Republic, which seems to have been what was being referred to above.


Already in his Geneva letters, Saint-Simon lays down the proposition that “all men ought to work”. In the same work he recognizes also that the Reign of Terror was the reign of the non-possessing masses.
The propertyless masses of Paris, during the Reign of Terror, were able for a moment to gain the mastery. But, in doing so, they only proved how impossible it was for their domination to last under the conditions then obtaining.October 31 in Paris was, of course, the setting up of the Committee of Public Safety headed by Blanqui.

Anyhow, I think that the quote actually refers to the Great French Revolution on September 4 as well as October 31, 1870, in Paris; they seem quite separate referents, at least. This would be more consistent with his general usage of the term, especially the reference to the 'whole' of the Great French Revolution. Nonetheless, even a reference to September 4th in 1870 would be in no way a reference to the Commune, as all that was established around then was the GND, due to Napoleon's capture, which was forced to resign by the uprising on October 31st. So, perhaps Thiers or Trochu in the Third Republic?

[syndicat]

In the 19th century "the Great French Revolution" was a phrase that always referred to the revolution of 1789-94. there is a book with that title by Kropotkin. that revolution was highly conflicted and complex in that the changes that took place were generally driven from below, by the sans-collottes (artisans, workers) and poor peasants. particularly important was the direct democracy of the Parisian "sections" -- neighborhood assemblies that became a kind of dual power. They seized...against the wishes of the national legislature (controlled by lawers and capitalists)...the right to control the National Guard battalians (militia), elect justices of the peace, carry out many social welfare functions, etc.

One of the major issues in the revolution was the destruction of the old feudal rights and fees...the basis of the aristocracy. The peasantry had been driven into poverty by the heavy burden of maintaining a parasitic aristocracy. The capitalists refused to go along with this because many of them were investing in buying out feudal estates from debt-plagued aristocrats. They wanted to buy up the lands of the aristocracy and keep the fees intact for their own profits. The national legislature was forced to finally eliminate all feudal dues and fees without compensation as the result of mass insurrection by the working people of Paris, planned and carried out by the sections, in May-June 1793.

But the "dual power" situation was finally resolved in favor of the bourgeois liberals by way of the Jacobin dictatorship, which suppressed the sections and the Paris Commune (which had been taken over by the sections and converted into a mere delegate democracy, not a conventional city council, at one point, and was controlled by the more radical wing of Jacobins, the Hebertists, until the attack on the sections by the Jacobins, who also turned against their own left wing).

thus it's somewhat misleading to call the French revolution a "bourgeois revolution." Yes, the capitalists ended up in control of the government, but the real changes were driven from below by the artisans and poor peasants.