Материал: Karl Marx_ A Biography ( PDFDrive )

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legislative power, but in the framework of a medieval system of estates! It is the worst sort of syncretism.'28

Since the whole problem arose, in Hegel's view, from the separation of the state from civil society, Marx saw two possibilities: if the state and civil society continued to be separate, then all as individuals could not participate in the legislature except through deputies, the 'expression of the separation and merely a dualistic unity'.29 Secondly, if civil society became political society, then the significance of legislative power as representative disappeared, for it depended on a theological kind of separation of the state from civil society. Hence, what the people should aim for was not legislative power but governmental power. Marx ended his discussion with a passage which makes clear how, in the summer of 1843, he envisaged future political developments:

. . . It is not a question of whether civil society should exercise legislative power through deputies or through all as individuals. Rather it is the question of the extent and greatest possible extension of the franchise, of active as well as passive suffrage. This is the real bone of contention of political reform, in France as well as in England.. . .

Voting is the actual relationship of actual civil society to the civil society of the legislative power, to the representative element. Or, voting is the immediate, direct relationship of civil society to the political state, not only in appearance but in reality.. .. Only with universal suffrage, active as well as passive, does civil society actually rise to an abstraction of itself, to political existence as its true universal and essential existence. But the realisation of this abstraction is also the transcendence of the abstraction. By making its political existence actual as its true existence, civil society also makes its civil existence unessential in contrast to its political existence. And with the one thing separated, the other - its opposite - falls. Within the abstract political state the reform of voting is a dissolution of the state, but likewise the dissolution of civil society.50

Thus Marx arrived here at the same conclusion as in his discussion of 'true democracy'. Democracy implied universal suffrage, and universal suffrage would lead to the dissolution of the state.

It is clear from this manuscript that Marx was adopting the fundamental humanism of Feuerbach and with it Feuerbach's reversal of subject and predicate in the Hegelian dialectic. Marx considered it evident that any future development was going to involve man's recovery of the social dimension that had been lost ever since the French Revolution levelled all citizens in the political state and thus accentuated the individualism of bourgeois society. Although he was convinced that social organisation had no longer to be based on private property, he was not here explicitly

6 8 K A RL M A R X : A B I O G R A P H Y

arguing for its abolition, nor did he make clear the various roles of classes in the social evolution. The imprecision of his positive ideas is not at all surprising since Marx's manuscript represented no more than a preliminary survey of Hegel's text; and it was written at a very transient stage in the intellectual evolution of both Marx and his colleagues. Moreover, the surviving manuscript is incomplete and there are references to projected elaborations either never undertaken or now lost.31

A letter from Marx to Ruge, written in September 1843 and later published in the Deutsch-Franzosische Jahrbiicher, gives a good impression of Marx's intellectual and political position immediately before leaving Germany, and of how much importance he attached to what he called the 'reform of consciousness'. The situation might not be very clear, he wrote, but 'that is just the advantage of the new line: that we do not dogmatically anticipate events but seek to discover the new world by criticism of the old'.52 What was clear was that all dogmatism was unacceptable, and that included the various communist systems:

Communism in particular is a dogmatic abstraction, though by this I do not mean any imaginable and possible communism but the really existing communism taught by Cabet, Dezamy, etc. This communism is itself only a peculiar presentation of the humanist principle infected by its opposite: private individualism. The abolition of private property is therefore by no means identical to communism; and it is no accident that communism has seen other socialist doctrines like those of Fourier, Proudhon, etc., necessarily arise in opposition to it, since it is itself only a particular, one-sided realisation of the socialist principle. Moreover, the whole socialist principle is only one facet of the true reality of the human essence.55

In Germany, the fulfiment of this human nature depended above all on a critique of religion and politics, for there it was these that were the focal points of interest; ready-made systems were no use; criticism had to take as its starting-point contemporary attitudes. In terms that recall Hegel's account of the progress of Reason in history, Marx asserted: 'Reason has always existed, but not always in rational form.'54 In any form of practical or theoretical consciousness rational goals were already inherent and awaited the critic who would reveal them.

Thus Marx saw no objection to starting from actual political struggles and explaining why they took place. The point was to demystify religious and political problems by instilling an awareness of their exclusively human dimensions. He ended his letter:

So our slogan must be: reform of consciousness not through dogmas, but through the analysis of mystical consciousness that is not clear to

itself, whether it appears in a religious or political form. It will then be clear that the world has long dreamt of something of which it only needs a fully developed consciousness in order really to possess it. Clearly, the problem does not lie in filling some great void between past ideas and those of the future but in the completion of ideas of the past. Finally, it will be clear that humanity is not beginning a new work, but consciously bringing its old work to completion.

So we can summarise the purpose of our journal in one word: selfunderstanding (meaning critical philosophy) by our age of its struggles and desires. This is a task for the world and for us. It can only be achieved by united forces. What is at stake is a confession, nothing

more. To have its sins forgiven, humanity needs only to recognise them as they are.55

1'his notion of salvation through a 'reform of consciousness' was, of course, very idealistic. But this was merely typical of German philosophy at this time. Marx himself was very mindful of the intellectual disarray among the radicals, and wrote to Ruge soon after finishing his critique of Hegel: 'even though the "whence" is not in doubt, yet all the more confusion reigns over the "whither". It is not only that a general anarchy has pervaded the reformers. Everyone will have to admit to himself that he has no exact view of what should happen'.36 It was the intellectual climate of Paris that finally led Marx to make the transition from the realm of pure theory to the world of immediate, practical politics.

II. T H E D E U T S C H - F R A N Z O S I S C H E J A H R B U C H E R

While Marx was in Kreuznach writing his commentary on Hegel's politics, Ruge had been busy organising the administration of the Deutsch-Franz- tisische Jahrbiicher. To finance it, he tried to float a large loan in Germany: when this failed completely he bore virtually the whole cost of publication himself. As a place of publication Strasbourg (which they had previously favoured) was rejected, and Froebel proposed that he and Ruge together go to Brussels and Paris to see which city would be more suitable. At the end of July Ruge travelled west, stopped at Kreuznach to see Marx, and then, joining forces with Hess and Froebel at Cologne, went on to Belgium. Brussels also proved unsatisfactory, for - though its Press enjoyed comparative freedom - the city was too small and not politicallyminded. So in August (1843) Hess and Ruge moved on to Paris with a view to establishing the Deutsch-Franzosische Jahrbiicher there.

It proved difficult to attract contributors - especially ones with a common viewpoint: both Ruge and Froebel were very active in trying to

get German participation but the liberal writers refused, and of the Berlin Young Hegelians only Bruno Bauer agreed (and in the end even he contributed nothing). So the contributors were reduced to those already associated with Froebel through his Ziirich publications: Hess, Engels, Bakunin and Herwegh. Their views were diverse: Hess and Bakunin proclaimed their own brand of eclectic anarcho-communism, whereas Froebel, Herwegh and Ruge vaguely called themselves democrats and emphasised the importance of popular education. As French influence increased the political awareness of the Young Hegelians, the slogan 'radicalism' began to give way to the more specifically political term 'democracy'. But the unity of Ruge's group amounted to little more than a wish to further the political application of Feuerbach's philosophy; and their favourite term was 'humanism'. But Feuerbach himself was unwilling to co-operate. Marx considered that Schelling was enjoying a quite unjustified reputation among the French: just before leaving Kreuznach for Paris, he accordingly wrote to Feuerbach suggesting that he contribute a critique of him:

These sincere youthful ideas which, with Schelling, remained an imaginative dream of his youth, have with you become truth, reality, and virile earnestness. Schelling is therefore an anticipatory caricature of you, and as soon as the reality appears opposite the caricature it must dissolve into dust or fog. Thus I consider you the necessary and natural opponent of Schelling - summoned by their majesties, Nature and History. Your struggle with him is the struggle of an imaginary philosophy with philosophy itself...

Feuerbach, however, replied that in his opinion the time was not yet ripe for a transition from theory to practice, for the theory had still to be perfected; he told Marx and Ruge bluntly: they were too impatient for action.

All the contributors to the Deutsch-FranzSsische Jahrbiicher were at least united in regarding Paris as both a haven and an inspiration. Their expectations were justified in so far as the revolutions of 1789 and 1830 had made Paris the undisputed centre of socialist thought. The 'bourgeois monarchy' of Louis-Philippe was drawing to its close and becoming more conservative; the censorship laws had been tightened in 1835, and from 1840 onwards the anti-liberal Guizot dominated the Government. But political activity was none the less lively for being semi-clandestine, and there was a bewildering variety of every conceivable kind of sect, salon and newspaper each proclaiming some form of socialism.'8 As soon as he had arrived in Paris Ruge set out to make contacts, guided by Hess who was familiar with the political scene from his days as French corres-

pondent of the Rheinische Zeitung. Ruge's account of his tour of the salons is a catalogue of one misunderstanding after another.'9 Each group thought the other a century out of date. Amazed that he appeared so little versed in communism, the French were equally surprised by his being an advocate of atheism and materialism, watchwords of pre-1789 French thought. For his part, Ruge could not understand how the French could be so attached to religion, which German philosophy had spent such long and involved efforts in neutralising.

Lamartine at first described the conception of the Deutsch-Franzosische Jahrbiicher as 'holy' and sublime, but later declined to contribute on learning of its revolutionary nature. Leroux was occupied with inventing a new printing machine. Cabet was shocked by Ruge's atheism and lack of commitment to communism. Considerant was also alienated, suspecting that the review would advocate violence. Proudhon was not in Paris. Thus in spite of every effort the Deutsch-Franzosische Jahrbiiche appeared without a single French contribution. By November, Ruge began to be anxious even about the number of his German contributors: Herwegh was honeymooning; and Bakunin was leading an errant life after expulsion from Zurich. Their absence was offset by Heine who (having been increasingly sympathetic to socialist ideas during his stay in Paris) agreed to contribute some poems, and also by Ferdinand Bernays (recently expelled from Bavaria after being the editor of the Mannheimer Abend-Zeitung).

Marx himself arrived in Paris at the end of October 1843. Jenny, already four months pregnant, came with him. They first lodged at 23 rue Vaneau, a quiet side-street in the St Germain area of the Left Bank where many other German immigrants were concentrated. The 'office' of the Deutsch-Franzosische Jahrbiicher was on the ground floor of No. 22 and Ruge had rented two floors of No. 23 where Germain Maurer, a leading German socialist writer, was already living. Ruge had written to Marx outlining his project of a 'phalanstery' along Fourierist lines: he invited the Marxes, the Herweghs and the Maurers to join him and his wife in an experiment in community living. Each family would have separate living quarters, but there would be a shared kitchen and dining room; the women would take turns with the domestic duties.40 Emma I lerwegh summed up the situation at a glance and refused immediately: 'I low could Ruge's wife, a little Saxon woman, nice but characterless, hit it off with Mrs Marx who was very intelligent and still more ambitious and far more knowledgeable than she? How could Mrs Herwegh, the youngest of the three women and so recently married, take to this communal life?'41 Marx and Jenny did not stay long either: within two weeks they had moved to No. 31 and then in December finally settled at 38 rue Vaneau where they stayed for the rest of their time in Paris.