Question about Marx

[citizen_snips]

Basically one thing I saw on the "Revolutionary France" section of www.marxists.org says that Marx had a personal dislike of Frenchmen. I just wanted to ask if someone could verify it or provide a source backing this up?

And personal dislike in particular, rather than just criticism of French political/social theories, of which I know there is plenty.

Before anyone gets the wrong idea, I'm not having a go at Marx! I just need more information on Marx's involvement with/opinion on 19th century French socialism for my dissertation (obviously I can't just trust the website is correct and quote off it without evidence!).

[Amusing Scrotum]

Marx did suffer from quite a few of the "petty prejudices" of the 19th century and I'm pretty sure one of them was that the French were "naturally flamboyant" and it's quite possible he had something of a dislike for the "French" -- French culture -- in particular.

I'd imagine that if you searched his personal correspondence in particular, you'd find a few "nasty comments" about people from all different countries, and the "famous" Police chase around London Marx was involved in was because he was taking the piss out of a few "Englishmen" in a Pub, boasting that the English were "too backward to produce a Bach" -- or something along similar lines.

He also despised the German burghers. In The German Ideology he lambastes them for being to "petty" and "divided" to understand Kant and at times he directed his "venom" at the English bourgeois.

He also hated "Proudhonists", most of which were French -- so perhaps there is an odd reference somewhere from Marx where he says something like "only in France could you find the stupidity of Proudhon".

However, if memory serves me correctly, there are also a few passages in Marx's work where he praises the French for being "naturally revolutionary" or something like that.

One thing about Marx was that he was really blunt and by todays standards, extremely offencive.

He didn't "back off" and he was prepared to "go low" to make a point.

It wouldn't surprise me if he "disliked the French", but I think if there was any Nationality you could say Marx really despised, it was Russian. After a Russian Ambassador got him sacked in his twenties, he developed some strange -- to put it lightly! -- notions about "Russian conspiracies" and so on.

Indeed, one particularly reactionary English MP did pay him to write a few articles on the subject and, if memory serves me correctly, one of the absurd notions about Russian actions did turn out to be right.

Hope this heps. :)

[ComradeOm]

So old Karl was the perfect equalitarian - he hated everyone equally? :lol:

[Severian]

Yeah - you can probably find something uncomplimentary in Marx about most of the nationalities in Europe. Including Germans. Maybe especially Germans.

Product of his time, in tending to make sweeping generalizations about the "national character".

Marx didn't especially hate Russians, or promote conspiracy theories about Russia - he correctly argued that the Russian Empire was the main support of counterrevolution across Europe in his time.

[Jadan ja]

Someone told me Marx hated Croatians (told me, never seen it written anywhere and that person was unable to give me a source). No matter what I put into Google I cannot find anything about that.

If you know anything about this, please tell me.

[Scars]

Marx's biggest hatred was of Slavs, as already mentioned, particularly Russians. Some of his comments boarder on open racism, while with the French it's more cultural contempt most likely stemming from the very old rivalry between the Germanic states and France. Slavs, pretty much to this day, are seen as being uncivilised, dirty, barbaric, backwards and horrible in a general sense in Western Europe.

Marx was most certainly not free from or 'above' the predjudices of his day. In addition he strikes me as an exceedingly rude, arrogant and contemptous man. I'd rather meet Engels than Marx.

[Vanguard1917]

As long as such personal prejudices did not affect his political ideas, i don't see how they're relevant to anything. Marxism is the most internationalist and universalist product of the Enlightenment tradition. Concentrate on that - and not on the petty aspects of a man's personal character traits.

[dislatino]

Originally posted by [email protected] 18 2006, 11:39 PM
So old Karl was the perfect equalitarian - he hated everyone equally? :lol:
Yeah that's funny, it really does make me think how far Karls self-employed oppinions went, as in what sort of hate and to what level.

[ChemicalBrother]

Don't forget the 18th Brumiere....


He lets Louis Bonaparte Have it.

[Lamanov]

His contempt for the French was of political nature. He disliked their political tradition which had great proudhonist and bakuninist influence. In one letter shortly after Franco-Prussian war started he argues that they would have nothing against the military defeat of France, for their defeat would mean the penetration of German ideas too, including the German revolutionary ideas which would replace backward proudhonist ones.

True, he saw Slaws as backward (I don't see that he "hated" them... us ;) ), and I don't see how he could have been wrong. We were backward.

He considered Russians still far away from the "center of the planet", the Western Europe. But his view was indeed slowly "melting off". (Check out the 1882 Communist Manifesto Russian edition Introduction.)