Abstract
The question of class struggle in bourgeois society took root in the literature of socialism as an object of dispute on the basis of the theory laid down by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in the Manifesto of the Communist Party. This piece of writing, which Marx and Engels elaborated at the end of 1847 and which appeared at the start of 1848, attained a great significance in the Social Democracy of all countries. It has been translated into countless languages, and has the reputation of a kind of catechism for the socialist movement, and it is also in any case extraordinarily worth reading—already because of its wonderfully succinct language, but at the same time also because of the great influence that it exercised and still exercises on socialist thinking. It should only be recalled that the Bolshevists, who call themselves communists everywhere, appeal primarily to this work.
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Notes
- 1.
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, ‘Manifesto of the Communist Party’, in Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Collected Works, vol. 6: Marx and Engels 1845–1848 (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1996), p. 482.
- 2.
Jérôme-Adolphe Blanqui (1798–1854), French economic historian and philologist, political economist in the tradition of Jean-Baptiste Say with a Saint-Simonian edge, brother of Louis-Auguste Blanqui. Varlam Cherkezov/Cherkezishvili (1846–1925), Georgian aristocrat and journalist, strongly involved in anarcho-communist and Georgian nationalist movements, ally of Peter Kropotkin and Rudolf Rocker.
- 3.
Jérôme-Adolphe Blanqui, Histoire de la civilisation industrielle des nations européennes (Paris: Rignoux, 1825).
- 4.
Georg Ritter von Schanz (1853–1931), German jurist and political scientist, economic historian and financial economist.
- 5.
Bruno Schönlank (1859–1901), German social-democratic politician and journalist, collaborating editor of Vorwärts (1892–1894), editor-in-chief of the Leipziger Volkszeitung (1894–1901), one of Bernstein’s predecessors as SPD Reichstag deputy for Breslau.
- 6.
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, ‘Manifesto of the Communist Party’, in Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Collected Works, vol. 6: Marx and Engels 1845–1848 (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1996), p. 485.
- 7.
Ibid.
- 8.
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Collected Works, vol. 37: Karl Marx—Capital, Volume III (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1996), p. 870.
- 9.
Ibid., p. 871.
- 10.
Pro-militarist social democrats, especially those associated with the revisionist periodical Sozialistische Monatshefte, sought to integrate nationalism into socialist ideology by presenting tensions between nations and diplomatic alliances as equivalent to contradictions between “global classes”.
- 11.
Wojciech Korfanty (1873–1939), Polish journalist and politician, opponent of Germanisation and anti-Polish discrimination policies, paramilitary leader during the 1919–1921 Silesian civil uprisings.
- 12.
A plebiscite was carried out on 20 March 1921 to determine a section of the border between Germany and Poland in the ethnically-mixed region of Upper Silesia. 40.6% of eligible voters opted for secession from Germany, leading to over 700 towns and villages becoming part of Poland.
- 13.
The Prussian three-class franchise was an indirect election system used to elect deputies to the Prussian Abgeordnetenhaus [House of Representatives] from 1849 to 1918. Voters were classed into three tiers based on the amount of tax they paid, so that the aggregate tax revenue of each class was equal. Each class elected one-third of the electors [Wahlmänner] who voted for the deputies, producing a system of apportionment by economic class rather than geographic area or population.
- 14.
Johann Baptist von Schweitzer (1833–1875), German dramatist and social-democratic activist, Lassalle’s longest-serving successor as president of the ADAV (1867–1871).
- 15.
Charles Kingsley (1819–1875), English historian, Anglican priest, poet, and social reformer, associated with the Christian socialist and cooperative movements. John Frederick Denison Maurice (1805–1872), English Anglican theologian and author, founding figure of Christian socialism and promoter of cooperative societies and working men’s associations.
- 16.
Max Hirsch (1832–1905), German publisher, educator, and social-reformist politician, long-standing Reichstag deputy (1869–1893) and member of the Prussian House of Representatives (1898–1905) for the German Progress Party [Deutsche Fortschrittspartei], German Free-Minded Party [Deutsche Freisinnige Partei], and Free-Minded People’s Party [Freisinnige Volkspartei], co-founder of the liberalGewerkvereine [industrial associations].
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Ostrowski, M.S. (2021). Socialism and the Theory of Class Struggle. In: Eduard Bernstein on Socialism Past and Present. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-50484-7_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-50484-7_7
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