Marx on Britain

[Post-Something]

Hi there, could somebody give me a source to where Marx said Britain may not need a revolution to achieve socialism? Thank you!

[Rafiq]

I wasn't aware that he said that. Such talk of avoiding a revolution did not enter Marxist discourse, if I can call it that, until Bernsteins revisions against Kautsky, long after Marx had passed. Bernstein and Kautsky had gotten into a falling out over whether the acquisition of state power was necessary, or should be desirable as an aim of the party. This was obviously before he reneged and supported the first world war.

[Fakeblock]

I suppose you mean this:



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.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1872/09/08.htm

[Post-Something]

A number of people actually helped me find what I was looking for. It turns out it was in Marx's La Liberte speech:


"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." http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1872/09/08.htm

More interesting is actually Lenin's commentary in State and Revolution:


"It is interesting to note, in particular, two points in the above-quoted argument of Marx. First, he restricts his conclusion to the Continent. This was understandable in 1871, when Britain was still the model of a purely capitalist country, but without a militarist clique and, to a considerable degree, without a bureaucracy. Marx therefore excluded Britain, where a revolution, even a people's revolution, then seemed possible, and indeed was possible, without the precondition of destroying "ready-made state machinery".

Today, in 1917, at the time of the first great imperialist war, this restriction made by Marx is no longer valid. Both Britain and America, the biggest and the last representatives — in the whole world — of Anglo-Saxon “liberty”, in the sense that they had no militarist cliques and bureaucracy, have completely sunk into the all-European filthy, bloody morass of bureaucratic-military institutions which subordinate everything to themselves, and suppress everything. Today, in Britain and America, too, "the precondition for every real people's revolution" is the smashing, the destruction of the "ready-made state machinery"" http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/ch03.htm#s1


EDIT: Yes Fakeblock! I was just typing it out when you wrote it.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

This was 150 years ago. So, as well as this being but a minor footnote in Marx's vast bibliography, it is also an out-of-date analysis of British institutions; institutions such as the House of Lords, our whole electoral system, our monarchy etc. are in no way fit to accomodate even sustained progressive change, let alone a revolutionary break. They are tied to the status quo and, if socialism is to ever be achieved, they would need to be smashed.

[Post-Something]

This was 150 years ago. So, as well as this being but a minor footnote in Marx's vast bibliography, it is also an out-of-date analysis of British institutions; institutions such as the House of Lords, our whole electoral system, our monarchy etc. are in no way fit to accomodate even sustained progressive change, let alone a revolutionary break. They are tied to the status quo and, if socialism is to ever be achieved, they would need to be smashed.

Yeah, I needed the source for an essay.