167

M A R X ON T H E S T A T E :

T h e Events in F r a n c e b e t w e e n 1 8 4 8 - 1 8 5 0

MARTIN E. SPENCER

Marx's essays on the Eighteenth Brumaire o f Louis Bonaparte and The Class Struggles in France Between 1848-18501 represent an effort to apply theory to politics and history. I shall attempt to demonstrate that Marx's theoretical apparatus is actually irrelevant to the political interpretation of the events that he describes and that the Marxist theoretical scheme fails badly when and because it attempts to impose itself on the real facts of history. My method will be to explore the basic structure of ideas that underlies Marx's analysis in these two works, and I shall adhere closely to their theoretical schemes. Every theoretical notion that I claim to find in these works will be derived from the work itself, and my analysis will be tested by direct reference to relevant passages. In effect, I propose to excavate the theoretical "base" upon which the journalistic "superstructure" is erected. The analysis proceeds on three levels: the elementary, the paradigmatic, and the synthetic. The first comprehends the fundamental ideas of the conceptual apparatus employed in Marx's analysis. Here we find basic images of man and a conception of "history." On the paradigmatic level we find models that link "factors" and "variables" into causal relationships. On the synthetic level we find the integration of paradigms into a whole and the attempt to comprehend the concrete historical reality.

The Elementary Level: Conceptions of Human Nature and of "History" Basic to any historical analysis is a conception of social action, i.e., a historical conception of motivation which in turn implies an image of human nature. Such ideas are imbedded in Marx's analyses of the Revolution of 1848,

State University College, Oneonta, New York.

168 although not explicitly set forth. The most obvious conception is of course that of economic man: of a human nature that is sensitive to material interests. But Marx also allows for an idealistic component in human nature, although (on the paradigmatic level) this component is ultimately conditioned by overriding material factors. Marx does, however, allow for the reality of idealistic motivations, taken by themselves. This appears in his analysis of the Bourgeois Republicans, who may be taken as pure Bourgeois idealists: It was not a faction of the bourgeoisie held together by great common interests and marked off by specific conditions of production. It was a clique of republican-minded bourgeois, writers, lawyers, officers and officials that owed its influence to the personal antipathies of the country against Louis Phillipe, to memories of the old republic, to the republican faith of a number of enthusiasts, above all, however, to French nationalism, whose hatred of the Vienna treaties and of the alliance with England it stirred up perpetually. Eighteenth Brumaire 2 Note that Marx does not treat this group as a class, since they do not share "common interests marked off by specific conditions of production." They are rather a clique, and their political motivation is purely idealistic, that is nationalistic. In this instance, therefore, Marx treats idealism as an autonomous force in human affairs. More generally, however, Marx conceives of idealistic motivations as structured by the "conditions of production." Thus Marx observes: . . . . the Tories in England long imagined that they were enthusiastic about monarchy, the church and the beauties of the old English Constitution, until the day of danger wrung from them the confession that they are enthusiastic only about ground rent. Eighteenth Brumaire 3 The implication is that the Tories were disingenuous in their idealistic claims, an interpretation that veers in the direction of "vulgar Marxism," which disallows the possibility of any grounds of social action other than the purely materialistic. The more subtle interpretation is that although men take their ideas seriously, in the final analysis these ideals are structured by the material conditions of life. Thus while idealistic motivation is real it is simultaneously derivative from the material conditions of existence. Marx thus presents two models of idealistic motivation: one which is entirely independent of the material conditions of existence (the Bourgeois Republicans as a clique and not a class); the second, a model appropriate to Marxist theory in which the

169 ideals themselves are derived from the concrete, materialistic foundations of historical circumstance. The third model of human nature, which also falls outside of Marxist theory proper, is that of man as a power-seeking animal. The prototype of this model of power-seeking man is Louis Bonaparte himself, exemplar of the power-hungry adventurer whose political program is the coup d'etat and the use of the state for private interests. In attendance are the Decembrists (the society of the 10th of December) and the ministers who serve under the President. In this group we do not find "class interests" or even "class consciousness" but enter the pure realm of the private pursuit of power. The model also extends to the parliamentarians. Although Marx generally assigns economic motives to the behavior of the politicians, at one point in his analysis he makes an implicit distinction between the behavior of the parliamentary and the extra-parliamentary bourgeoisie, in which the former appear to act on the basis of pure power interests. This occurs in the period between October 9 to December 2, 1851 when a breach developed between these two sections of the haute bourgeoisie. The extra-parliamentary group was primarily interested in stability and trade; the parliamentary bourgeoisie, however, sought to make the legislative power prevail against the executive and acted as a political clique rather than a class. 4 The second basic idea in Marx's analysis is the reification of history into a metaphysical process that looms above the concrete historical events of each period. This historical entity embodies necessity and purpose: With this general prosperity, in which the productive forces of bourgeois society develop as luxuriantly as is at all possible within bourgeois relationships, there can be no talk of a real revolution. Such a revolution is only possible in the periods when these two factors, the modern productive forces and the bourgeois production forms, come in collision with one another. The various quarrels in which the representatives of the individual factions of the continental party of order now indulge and mutually compromise themselves, far from providing the occasion for new revolutions, are, on the contrary, only possible because the basis of the relationships is momentarily so secure and (what the reaction does not know) so bourgeois. From it all attempts o f the reaction to hold up bourgeois development will rebound just as lightly as all moral indignation and all enthusiastic proclamations o f the democrats. A new revolution is only possible in consequence o f a new crisis. It is, however, also just as certain as this. Class Struggles s (our emphasis)

170 Camille Desmoulins, Danton, Robespierre, Saint-Just, Napoleon, the heroes as well as the parties and the masses of the old French Revolution, performed the task of their time in Roman costume and with Roman phrases, the task of unchaining and setting up modern bourgeois society. The first ones knocked the feudal basis to pieces and mowed off the feudal heads which had grown on it. The others created inside France the conditions under which alone free competition could be developed, parcelled landed property exploited and the unchained industrial productive power of the nation employed; and beyond the French borders he everywhere swept the feudal institutions away, so far as was necessary to furnish bourgeois society in France with a suitable up-to-date environment on the European Continent. Eighteenth Brumaire 6 These passages reflect the underlying idea that history is moving on a necessary course and that this course is tending in a specific direction. These ideas stand as the fundamental assumptions of the analysis that Marx renders of this revolutionary period: they are the "primitive postulates" of the structure of Marxist thought beyond which it is not possible to go. All the historical action proceeds within the framework of these assumptions. Although Marx indicates that "men make their own history," they make it within the constraints of historical necessity and, in the final analysis, their actions can only hasten or retard the historical process. The impact of these assumptions is to give to Marx's writing the undertone of a prophetic forecast. He not only observes what is happening put peeks over the historical horizon to see the direction in which events are inevitably tending. Throughout the "class struggles" there is a vein of what might be called "revolutionary confidence" in which events are seen within the context of the inexorable historical movement towards revolution. Thus the defeat of the Proletariat in 1848 and 1849, although a defeat to the unscientific observer, was actually a step in the inevitable revolutionary process: But what succumbed in these defeats was not the revolution. It was the pre-revolutionary traditional appendages, results of social relationships, which had not yet come to the point of sharp class antagonisms - persons, allusions, conceptions, projects, from which the revolutionary party before the February Revolution was not free, from which it could be freed, not by the victory of February, but only by a series of defeats. In a word: revolutionary advance made headway not by its immediate tragi-comic achievements, but on the contrary by the creation of a powerful, united counter-revolution, by the creation of an opponent, by fighting whom the party of revolt first ripened into a real revolutionary party. Class Struggles s (Our emphasis)

171 Thus Marx observes the revolutionary immaturity of the French proletariat within the framework of an inevitably tending historical process: A class in which the revolutionary interests of society are concentrated, so soon as it has risen up, finds directly in its own situation the content and the material of its revolutionary activity: foes to be laid low, measures dictated by the needs of the struggle, to be taken; the consequences of its own deed drive it on. It makes no theoretical inquiries into its own task. The French working class had not attained this standpoint; it was still incapable of accomplishing its own revolution. The development of the industrial proletariat is, in general, conditioned by the development of the industrial bourgeoisie. Only under its rule the proletariat wins the extensive national existence, which can raise its revolution to a national one and itself creates the modern means of production, which become just so many means of its revolutionary emancipation. Only bourgeois rule turns up the roots of feudal society and levels the ground on which a proletarian revolution is alone possible. Class Struggles 9

It is on this elementary level of analysis that we find the irreducible constructions of the nature of human nature and of the intentional flow of history.

The Paradigmatic Level of Analysis On this level of analysis we find patterns of interaction between "factors" and "variables": models of causality, complex models of social action, models of relationship between economic and political "variables", etc. The paradigms employed by Marx fall into three major groupings: the economic, the historical, and the political. The economic and historical paradigms are related, the first being comprehended in the second. The economic and the historical paradigms together constitute the sociological framework of the analysis, or what is ordinarily called the Marxist conception of society and history, "Historical Materialism." This familiar body of ideas is the articulate "theory" - at least as it is manifested in these works - that is applied to concrete historical problems. The political paradigms, as I shall emphasize, stand outside the body of that theory and for this reason may be resisted or denied by Marxists. I shall therefore press close to the text, hoping in this way to prove that Marx's political analysis is actually ad hoe. I should note that my discussion of the economic and historical paradigms is fragmentary precisely because of the

172 limitations that I have imposed: I am explicating these paradigms as I find them in these works. 1~

The Economic Paradigms: 1) The economic basis of political action. This follows from the elementary premise of the nature of human nature and of social action. Political action can be based directly upon "interests," or can flow indirectly from such interests through ideals that conceal the true structure of interests. In the latter case the derivative nature of ideals becomes manifest when the underlying structure of interests is directly engaged. An illustration of this latter paradigm is given by Marx in his discussion of the motives of the two sections of the "party of order," the industrial and the f'mance bourgeoisie. Both of these fractions thought that they were attached to the political fortunes of the Orleanists or legitimists, but discovered, when "the chips were down," that they were primarily concerned with "class interests": But now, precisely, the two fractions of the bourgeoisie first discovered that it was not zeal for a definite royal house that divided them, but that it was rather their divided class interests that kept the two dynasties apart.

Class Struggles 11 2) The economic basis of society. This corresponds to the well-known Marxist paradigm of the relation between the "base" and the "superstructure" of society, in which the former encompasses "productive forces" and "productive relations," and the latter comprehends the by-products of this activity, i.e., ideology, and, in general, "culture." Here I focus on two aspects of this relationship: social structure and political institutions. The first of these paradigms deals with the relationship between economic activity and social structure in the form of the primary group structure of society. This implies the primacy of classes as economically-determined groups. Thus, for Marx, religious groups and national groups, to suggest two possibilities, are not the truly basic groupings in society. Their significance derives from their relationship to classes. Marx's analysis therefore focuses on classes as the primary political actors and his political analysis focuses almost exclusively on such groups. In the Class Struggles and The Eighteenth Brumaire, classes are understood to be groups that stand in a specific relationship to productive forces and productive relations. Thus we find, as classes and therefore as significant political actors, the finance bourgeoisie, the industrial bourgeoisie, the petit bourgeoisie ("shopkeepers"); the proletariat; the land-

173 owning peasantry; the lumpen-proletariat (who have no function, being outside the system of economic relationships). Thus Marx's political analysis, insofar as it rests upon his theory of society and history, understands "politics" to be equivalent to the "class struggle." The second paradigm emphasizes the derivative nature of political institutions. Here Marx treats political structures as forms of class rule. Thus he emphasizes again and again the relationship between the specific nature of bourgeois rule and the political form that corresponds to it. Marx observes that each section of the bourgeoisie rules under a specific form of monarchy but that the condition of theirjoint rule was the republic: The bourgeois class fell apart into two big factions, which, alternately, the big landed proprietors under the restored monarch and the finance aristocracy and the industrial bourgeoisie under the July monarchy, had maintained a monopoly of power. Bourbon was the royal name for the predominant influence of the interests of one faction, Orleans the royal name for the predominant influence of the interests of the other faction the nameless realm of the republic was the only one in which both factions could maintain in equal power the common class interest without giving up their mutual rivalry. If the bourgeois republic could not be anything but the perfected and clearly expressed rule of the whole bourgeois class, could it be anything but the rule of the Orleanists supplemented by the legitimists, and of the legitimists supplemented by the Orleanists, the synthesis of the restoration and the July monarchy? Class Struggles 12 The same paradigm of the correspondence between economic arrangements and political institutions is applied by Marx to the relationship between small landed holdings and the centralized, bureaucratic state: By its very nature, small-holding property forms a suitable basis for an all-powerful and innumerable bureaucracy. It creates a uniform level of relationships and persons over the whole surface of the land. Hence it also permits of uniform action from a supreme center on all points of this uniform mass. It annihilates the aristocratic intermediate grades between the mass of the people and the state power. Eighteenth Brumaire 13 Thus Marx draws an equivalence between the forms of property and the forms of domination: "big landed property" equals the domination of the Bourbons; big capital equals the domination of the Orleans Dynasty; the joint rule of

174 the bourgeosie equals the republic and small landed property equals the centralized, bureaucratic state.

3) The third major economic paradigm is the economic basis of "consciousness," using the expression "consciousness" here in the broadest sense of "word-view." Marx describes this relationship with classic succinctness: Upon the different forms of property, upon the social conditions of existence, rises an entire superstructure of distinct and peculiarly formed sentiments, illusions, modes of thought and views of life. The entire class creates and forms them out of its material foundations and out of the corresponding social relations. The single individual, who derives them through tradition and upbringing, may imagine that they form the real motives and the starting point of his activity. Eighteenth Brumaire 14 This structuring of consciousness comprehends political motives and political perceptions. With respect to motives, this more sophisticated paradigm eschews the vulgar implications of a model that attributes all political action to naked class or private interests, i.e., it allows for the reality of ideal motives in political behavior: . . . . one must not form the narrow-minded notion that the petty bourgeoisie,,on principle, wishes to enforce an egoistic class interest. Rather, it believes that the special conditions of its emancipation are the general conditions within the frame of which alone modern society can be saved and the class struggle avoided. Just as little must one imagine that the democratic representatives are indeed all shopkeepers or enthusiastic champions of shopkeepers. According to their education and their individual position they may be as far apart as heaven from earth. What makes them representatives of the petty bourgeosie is the fact that in their minds they do not get beyond the limits which the latter do not get beyond in life, that they are consequently driven, theoretically, to the same problems and solutions to which material interests and social problems drive the latter practically.

Eighteenth Brumaire is The matter of political perception or the "correct" insight into the political situation is also involved here. The paradigm of the economic determination of consciousness implies that political insight is determined, and therefore limited, by class position. Thus, the petty bourgeois, because of his class position, erroneously perceives the political struggle to be that of the "people" vs. their "oppressors" in which he stands above the class antagonism, and as the leader of the "people":

175 But the democrat, because he represents the petty bourgeoisie, that is, a transition class, in which the interests of two classes are simultaneously mutually blunted, imagines himself elevated above class antagonism generally. The democrats concede that a privileged class confronts them, but they, along with the rest of the nation, form the people. What they represent is the people's rights; what interests them is the people's interests. Accordingly, when a struggle is impending, they do not need to examine the interests and positions of the different classes. They do not need to weigh their own resources too critically. They have merely to give the signal and the people, with all its inexhaustible resources, will fall upon the oppressors.

Eighteenth Brumaire 16 4) The historical paradigm is compounded of the economic paradigms to which are added the ideas of historical necessity and the stages of historical development. The economic paradigms when combined yield the notion that economy produces society and polity. Economic relations determine social groupings, political behavior, political structure, and social consciousness. The stages of economic relations necessarily follow one another in a specific, unalterable, sequence. Feudalism yields to bourgeois property relations which must achieve their full ripeness of development before they inevitably yield to the Proletarian Revolution: . . . . the different epochs of French society had to count their epochs of development in weeks where they had previously counted them in half centuries.

Class Struggles 17 . . . . the heroes as well as the parties and the masses of the old French Revolution, performed the task of their time in Roman costume and with Roman phrases, the task of unchaining and setting up modern bourgeois society. The first ones knocked the feudal basis to pieces and mowed off the feudal heads which had grown on it. The other created inside France the conditions under which alone free competition could be developed, parcelled landed property exploited and the unchained industrial productive power of the nation employed.

Eighteenth Brumaire TM

176

The Pofitical Paradigms The principal importance of these paradigms is that they are ad hoc and independent of the economic and historical paradigms. The use of these paradigms belies the Marxist claim of the systematic application of theory to concrete historical events. These paradigms are as follows:

1) The domination of society by the state: The historical and economic paradigms assert the dependence of the polity directly upon society and indirectly upon the economy. The state is seen as the political expression of class rule, and class structure itself is dependent upon economic organization. Nonetheless, Marx's analysis of the events in France between 1848-1850 slips into an analytical posture in which he recognizes the primacy of the state. This paradigm encompasses two sub-paradigms: a) the political domination of the state;b) the economic domination of the state. a) The paradigm of the political domination of the state over society involves the recognition that the state, as a sphere distinct from society, imposes its will on society and is therefore a source of political action: It is immediately obvious that in a country like France, where the executive power commands an army of officials numbering more than half a million individuals and therefore constantly maintains an immense mass of interests and livelihoods in the most absolute dependence; where the

state enmeshes, controls, regulates, superintends and tutors civil society from its most comprehensive manifestations of life down to its most insignificant stirrings, from its most general modes of being to the private existence of individuals; where through the most extraordinary centralization this parasitic body acquires a ubiquity, an omniscience, a capacity for accelerated mobility and an elasticity which finds a counterpart only in the helpless dependence, in the loose shapelessness of the actual body politic - it is obvious that in such a country the national assembly forfeits all real influence when it loses command of the ministerial posts, if it does not at the same time simplify the administration of the state, reduce the army of officials as far as possible and finally, let civil society and public opinion create organs of their own, independent of the governmental power. Eighteenth Brumaire 19 (Our emphasis) The passage here indicates Marx's recognition of the state as an autonomous sphere that looms above and dominates society, but it immediately runs afoul of theory and Marx feels compelled to reduce the political to the economic and the historical. He does this first by trying to locate the emergent power

177 of the state within the theme of historical development and secondly by denying the reality of the emergent power, which he has already admitted:

in short, he falls into a flat contradiction. We then observe Marx attempting to absorb the idea of the autonomous state, o f the state as a distinct interest above society, into his historical schema. He does this by asserting that the "task" of the French Revolution was to develop the centralized state: The first French Revolution, with its task of breaking all separate local, territorial, urban and provincial powers in order to create the civil unity of the nation, was bound to develop what the absolute monarchy had begun: centralization but at the same time the extent, the attributes and the agents of governmental power. Napoleon perfected this state machinery. The legitimist monarchy and the July monarchy added nothing but a greater division of labor . . . . Eighteenth Brumaire 2~

This state power, we are told, was progressively strengthened: All revolutions perfected this machine instead of smashing it. The parties that contended in turn for domination regarded the possession of this huge state edifice as the principal spoils of the victor. Eighteenth Brumaire 21

And finally became independent under Louis Bonaparte: Only under the second Bonaparte does the state seem to have made itself completely independent. As against civil society, the state machine has consolidated its position so thoroughly that the chief of the society of December 10 suffices for its head, an adventurer blown in from abroad, raised on the shield by a drunken soldiery, which he has bought with liquor and sausages, and which he must continually ply with sausage anew. Eighteenth Brumaire 22

Although Marx here uses the word "seem," elsewhere he leaves little doubt of his belief that the state did " . . . make itself completely independent." And an enormous bureaucracy, well-gallooned and well-fed, is the "Idee Napoleonienne" which is most congenial of all to the second Bonaparte. How could it be otherwise seeing that alongside the actual classes of society he is forced to create an artificial caste, for which the maintenance of his regime becomes a bread-and-butter question? Eighteenth Brumaire 23

178 Now Marx makes it seem as if all of this, i.e., Louis Bonaparte and the Second Empire, was a necessary phase o f the historical process: But the parody of the empire . . . was necessary to free the mass of the French Nation from the weight of tradition and to work out in pure form the opposition between the state power and society. Eighteenth Brumaire 24 And so it appears that the anomaly of the autonomous state is absorbed into the historical design. But on second glance it is not clear as to why this must happen from the perspective of the economic and the historical paradigms. If the state is a modernizing force, why is it necessary for it to be independent and not in the hands o f the bourgeoisie as a mere instrument o f a modernizing capitalist class? But we need not speculate here, since Marx himself immediately returns to his own orthodoxy. Having recognized the independence of the state from society, and the historical necessity of this in order to "work out in pure form the opposition between the state power and society," he proceeds to deny the autonomy of the state which he has just claimed to be an essential part of the historical process: But under the absolute monarchy, during the First Revolution, under Napoleon, bureaucracy was only the means of preparing the class rule of the bourgeoisie. Under the Restoration, under Louis Phillippe, under the parliamentary republic, it was the instrument of the ruling class, however much it strove for power of its own. Eighteenth Brumaire 2s And yet the state power is not suspended in midair. Bonaparte represents a class, and the most numerous class of French society at that, the smallholding (Parzellen) peasants. Just as the Bourbons were the dynasty of big landed property and just as the Orleans were the dynasty of money, so the Bonapartes are the dynasty of the peasants, that is, the mass of the French people. Eighteenth Brumaire 26 We are then back to the familiar relationship between economy, society, and the state: " . . . the state power is not suspended in m i d a i r . . ," i.e., it is the political expression o f class rule. Under the Restoration and under the parliamentary republic, the state " . . . was the instrument of the ruling class, however much it strove for power of its own." The rule of Bonaparte is now reduced to its economic basis - the small-holding peasants, who presumably exist in the same relation to state power as earlier did the bourgeoisie. We are

179 now to ignore all that Marx has said previously about the autonomy of the state personnel as a distinct bureaucratic class that is able to press its interests against society. But here Marx runs into a factual difficulty. The historical materials resist the theoretical mold into which Marx would pour them, and Marx is much too acute a political observer to gainsay these facts. The neat formula of the rule of Louis Bonaparte as the political expression of the small-holding peasant is subsequently qualified by Marx so as to make it unrecognizable: But let there be no misunderstanding. The Bonaparte dynasty represents not the revolutionary, but the conservative peasant: not the peasant that strikes out beyond the condition of his social existence, the small holding, but rather the peasant who wants to consolidate this holding . . . . Eighteenth Brumaire 27 As the executive authority which has made itself an independent power, Bonaparte feels it to be his mission to safeguard "bourgeois order." But the strength of this bourgeois order ties in the middle class. He looks on himself, therefore, as the representative of the middle class and issues decrees in this sense. Eighteenth Brumaire 2s As against the bourgeoisie Bonaparte looks on himself, at the same time, as the representative of the peasants and of the people in general, who want to make the lower classes of the people happy within the framework of bourgeois society. Eighteenth Brumaire 29 But, above all, Bonaparte looks on himself as the chief of the society of December 10, as the representative of the lumpen proletariat to which he himself, this entourage, his government and his army belong, and whose prime consideration is to benefit itself and draw California lottery prizes from the state treasury. Eighteenth Brumaire 3~ We find then that instead of Bonaparte expressing the political rule of the peasants, in actuality he represents the conservative peasants, the bourgeoisie, the "people" and the lumpen proletariat. Thus we find illustrated the irreconcilable tension between the categories of the theoretical paradigms (the economic and the historical) and historical fact. In obeisance to these facts Marx utilizes the political paradigm of the autonomy of the state although it resists absorption into the body of Marxist theory.

180 b) The paradigm o f the economic role o f the state can also be broken down into two sub-paradigms. The first concerns the economic domination of the state as a form of political capitalism. In this view capitalist activity derives its major nutriment not from the market, but from the state: But it is precisely with the maintenance of that extensive state machine in its numerous ramifications that the material interests of the French bourgeoisie are interwoven in the closest fashion. Here it finds posts for its surplus population and makes up in the form of state salaries for what it cannot pocket in the form of profit, interest, rents and honorariums. Eighteenth Brumaire 31 By the aristocracy of finance must here be understood not merely the great loan promoters and speculators in public funds, in regard to whom it is immediately obvious that their interests coincide with the interests of the state power. All modern finance, the whole of the banking business, is interwoven in the closest fashion with public credit. A part of their business capital is necessarily invested and put out at interest in quickly convertible public funds. Their deposits, the capital placed at their disposal and distributed by them among merchants and industrialists, are partly derived from the dividends of holders of government securities. Eighteenth Brumaire 32 These passages suggest that the state is the major economic force in midnineteenth century France and that the finance aristocracy - the most powerful section of the bourgeoisie - are defined by their relationship to public credit and not by their position with respect to the "productive forces" and "productive relations." This contradicts the economic paradigm that regards the state as an epiphenomenon of economic forces. This paramountcy of the state in the economic life of France could in no way be derived from the economic paradigm, and to all appearances is not easily reconciled with it, but Marx takes no note of this and seems content to leave this observation as a dangling ad hoc formulation. The second paradigm of the economic role of the state is touched upon only briefly by Marx but is extremely significant because it invokes a principle of political action quite distinct from that of "class interest." In the Class Struggles 33 Marx describes the relationships of the provisional government to the aristocracy of finance and observes the efforts of this government to placate the bourgeoisie. Marx claims that these were undertaken because the provisional government was concerned " . . . only to adapt itself to the relations of bourgeois society,''34 but nowhere does Marx make clear why this government should have lost its revolutionary elan. If one reads carefully a

181 reason does appear, but which is not explicitly stated by Marx although the implicit structure of reasoning is inescapable: the provisional government conciliated the bourgeoisie for reasons o f state. The credit of the new government was in jeopardy and in order to bolster this credit the provisional government sought to win over those who could provide it with the necessary funds. This, of course, does not mean that this was the only program of action available, but it does indicate the role of state necessity in governmental action. We find then that the institutional needs o f the state imposed constraints on the governing class, i.e., that class was compelled to service the financial needs of the state. This again violates the economic paradigm which holds the state to be the instrument of classes, and that the state would therefore be used to implement class interests. Instead of political action springing from the economic needs of classes, it here derives from the economic needs of the state: Our whole exposition has shown how the republic, from the first day of its existence, did not overthrow the finance aristocracy, but consolidated it. But the concessions that were made to it were a fate to which submission was made without the desire to bring it about. Class Struggles 3s

2) The paradigm o f legitimacy. The content of this paradigm is the recognition of the relationship between political power and moral principles, i.e., that the former is dependent upon the latter: Thus, whereas the Constitution assigns actual power to the President, it seeks to secure moral power for the National Assembly. Apart from the fact that it is impossible to create a moral power by paragraphs of law, the Constitution here abrogates itself once more by having the President elected by all Frenchmen through direct suffrage. While the votes of France are split up among the seven hundred and fifty members of the National Assembly, they are here, on the contrary, concentrated on a single individual. While each separate representative of the people represents only this or that party, this or that town, this or that bridgehead, or even only the mere necessity o f electing some one as the seven hundred and fiftieth, without examining too closely either the cause or the man, he is the elect of the nation and the act of his election is the trump that the sovereign people plays once every four years. The elected National Assembly stands in a metaphysical relation, but the elected President in a personal relation to the nation . . . . As against the Assembly he possesses a sort of divine right: he is President by the grace of the people. Eighteenth Brumaire 36

182 Here is the clear recognition of the role of consent and representation in politics. The "moral power" of the President exceeds that of the assembly by the measure of his total representation of the nation as opposed to the particulate representation of the national assembly. When one encounters the phrases "moral power," "divine right," and " . . . the grace of the people," one would imagine that it was still Hegel "standing on his head" who was speaking. But this is Marx himself and there is no question of these "metaphysical" entities being reduced to "reifications" by a materialistic analysis. Thus here again the political paradigm jumps the rails of the orthodox economic-historical paradigms. 37

3) The paradigm of the interplay between polity and society. According to the economic and historical paradigms the relationship between polity and society is clear-cut in that politics is the interplay of economically-defined social groups, i.e., politics is the class struggle. But, in the works under consideration, Marx introduces a more subtle political paradigm in which constitutional arrangements determine polities: The most comprehensive contradiction of this constitution, however, consisted .in the following: the classes whose social slavery the constitution is to perpetuate, proletariat, peasants, petty bourgeois, it puts in possession of political power through universal suffrage. And from the class whose old social power it sanctions, the bourgeoisie, it withdraws the political guarantees of this power. It forces its political rule into democratic conditions, which at every moment help the hostile classes to victory and jeopardize the very foundations of bourgeois society. From the former classes it demands that they should not go forward from political to social emancipation; from the others that they should not go back from social to political restoration.

Class Struggles 3a The clear implication here is that "democratic conditions," i.e., political forms and institutional arrangements, generate political power, in this case the power of the under classes of society. This position is again stated in the

Eighteenth Brumaire: If in every stirring of life in society it saw "tranquillity" imperilled, how could it want to maintain at the head of society a regime of unrest, its own regime, the parliamentary regime, this regime that, according to the expression of one of its spokesmen, lives in struggle and by struggle? The parliamentary regime lives by discussion; how shall it forbid discussion? Every interest, every social institution, is here transformed into general ideas, debated as ideas; how shall any interest, any institution, sustain itself above

183 thought and impose itself as an article of faith? The struggle of the orators on the platform evokes the struggle of the scribblers of the press: the debating club in parliament is necessarily supplemented by debating clubs in the salons and the pothouses; the representatives, who constantly appeal to public opinion, give public opinion the right to speak its real mind in petitions. The parliamentary regime leaves everything to the decisions of majorities; how shall the great majorities outside parliament not want to decide? When you play the fiddle at the top of the state, what else is to be expected but that those down below shall dance? Thus the form of the polity, i.e., the "parliamentary regime," conditions the political activity of society. The relationship between society and polity as contained in the economic paradigm is explicitly reversed; it is not that the polity corresponds to the economic organization of society, but that society responds to the organization of the state. Not only this, but any simple formulation of the republic as the political form of the rule of the bourgeosie is flatly repudiated. Here, in his political paradigm, Marx observes that the parliamentary regime is unsafe for bourgeois rule because it stimulates the political activity of society.

The Synthetic Level What we here call the "synthetic level" of analysis is the manifest substance of historical analysis and writing. The elemental and paradigmatic levels of analysis are imbedded in this material and have to be made manifest by an act of abstraction. The synthetic level is thus compounded of the elemental and paradigmatic levels: it is the aggregation and synthesis of these premises and paradigms into theoretical wholes and images. It appears in two major forms: historical images the concatenation of events and paradigms into "snapshots" of the historical process, and the historical whole - the analysis of the period under scrutiny in its entirety. In discussing this superordinate level of analysis we are again interested to follow the two strands of Marx's conceptualization: the economic-historical and the political.

Historical images. History is translated into theory and it is the latter that then becomes the historical reality; historical moments become theoretical fragments." With the exception of a few short chapters, every important part of the annals of the revolution from 1848 to 1849 carries the heading: defeat of the revolution!

184 But what succumbed in these defeats was not the revolution. It was the pre-revolutionary traditional appendages, results of social relationships, which had not yet come to the point of sharp class antagonisms - persons, illusions, conceptions, projects, from which the revolutionary party before the February Revolution was not free, from which it could be freed, not by the victory of February, but only by a series of defeats. In a word: revolutionary advance made headway not by its immediate tragi-comic achievements, but on the contrary by the creation of a powerful, united counter-revolution, by the creation of an opponent, by fighting when the party of revolt first ripened into a real revolutionary party. Class Struggles a9 In this passage Marx does not merely summarize the events of 1848-1849, but imposes upon them a "correct" historical meaning. The events are thus translated into the historical paradigm, in the course of which two significant transformations occur: 1) the concrete historical actors become theoretical categories and thus lose their historical specificity and actuality; 2) the events become part of a historical design that tends towards a consummation. Thus the relationships between the actual groups on the historical stage in mid-nineteenth century France become absorbed into the category of "class antagonisms." The actual groups involved in the political struggles, i.e., the workers and journeymen of Paris, become the "Revolutionary Party." The events of this period become, not a fortuitous chronicle of struggle, but part of a sighted historical process that is moving towards a revolutionary culmination: thus we speak of historical necessity, " . . . it could be freed, not by the victory of Feburary, but only by a series of defeats"; and purpose, "revolutionary advance made headway." In this fashion the historical reality of this period is absorbed by the theoretical reality of the paradigmatic analysis. We no longer contemplate the workers, shopkeepers, bankers, and parliamentarians of France, but the emerged theoretical categories and majestic historical flow of the Marxist thought-world. But to illuminate the nature of this shift of reality-perspective let us contrast history as a theoretical fragment with the analysis of history in the ad hoc language of the political paradigm. The historical image presented in political terms focuses on the concrete historical reality as reality, i.e., it does not impose an explicit theoretical design on it. Witness Marx's account of events in 1850: The constitutional solution, the retirement of Bonaparte in May 1852, the simultaneous election of a new president by all the electors of the land, the revision of the constitution by a chamber of revision in the first months of

185 the new presidency, is utterly inadmissable for the ruling class. The day of the newpresidential electionwould be the dayof the rendezvous for all the hostile parties, the legitimists, the Orleanists, the bourgeois republicans, the revolutionaries. It must come to a violent decision between the different factions. Even if the Party of Order should succeed in uniting round the candidature of a neutral person outside the dynastic families, he would still be opposed by Bonaparte. In its struggle with the people, the Party of Order is compelled constantly to increase the power of the executive. Every increase of the executive's power increases the power of its bearer, Bonaparte. In the same measure, therefore, as the Party of Order strengthens its joint might, it strengthens the fighting resources of Bonaparte's dynastic pretensions, it strengthens his chance of frustrating the constitutional solution by force on the day of the decision. He will then have, as against the Party of Order, no more scruples about the one pillar of the constitution than the party had, as against the people, about the other pillar in the matter of election law. Class Struggles 4~

This is a description based upon the political paradigms of a power-oriented human nature and the role of political institutions in structuring the behavior of social groups. The composite portrait, or historical image, presents the political situation - the political relationships between the contending political factions and the executive. It will be noted that this rendering of the political situation is free of the explicit theoretical presumption of the preceding analysis. The HistoricalAnalysis. Marx presents two analyses of the events of 1848-

1850, interwoven in the final section of The Eighteenth Brumaire: an economic-historical and a political analysis. In the economic-historical analysis the historical events are presented in terms of economic causation and historical design. The movement of "spirit" in this historical period is analyzed thusly: But the revolution is thoroughgoing. It is still journeying through purgatory. It does its work methodically. By December 2, 1851, it had completed one half of its preparatory work; it is now completing the other half. First it perfected the parliamentary power, in order to be able to overthrow it. Now that it has attained this, it perfects the executive power, reduces it to its purest expression, isolates it, sets it up against itself as the sole target, in order to concentrate all its forces of destruction against it. And when it has done this second half of its preliminary work, Europe will leap from its seat and exultantly exclaim: well grubbed, old mole. Eighteenth Brumaire 4a

186 The various steps of this historical movement are presented as follows: The "task" of the first French Revolution was to complete the process of centralization begun under the absolute monarchy, and "Napoleon perfected this machinery." This state apparatus was destined to become the instrument of bourgeois rule: But under the absolute monarchy, during the first revolution, under Napoleon, bureaucracy was only the means of preparing the class rule of the bourgeoisie. Under the restoration, under Louis Phillipe, under the parliamentary republic, it was the instrument of the ruling class, however much it strove for power of its own. Eighteenth Brumaire 42

Under Louis Bonaparte the state became the representative of the smallholding peasants, thus small-holding property created the state: But its very nature, small-holding property forms a suitable basis for an allpowerful and innumerable bureaucracy. It creates a uniform level of relationships and persons over the whole surface of the land. Hence it also permits of uniform action from a supreme center on all points of this uniform mass. It annihilates the aristocratic intermediate grades between the mass of the people and the state power. On all sides, therefore, it calls forth the direct interference of this state power and the interposition of its immediate organs. Eighteenth Brumaire 43

The consequent course of the revolution and the reaction is treated in terms of the fate of the peasant small-holder: the vicissitudes of this group becomes the key that explains the fate of the aborted revolution. The small-property holder created by the first revolution and certified by the first Napoleon was originally tied to the bourgeois revolution: The roots that small holding property stuck in French soil deprived feudalism of all nutriment. Its landmarks formed the natural fortifications of the bourgeoisie against any surprise attack on the part of its old overlords. Eighteenth Brumaire 44

But, subsequently, these small peasant holdings became the victims of the bourgeois order: But in the course of the nineteenth century the feudal lords were replaced by urban usurers: the feudal obligation that went with the land was replaced

187 by the mortgage; aristocratic landed property was replaced by bourgeois capital9 The small holding of the peasant is now only the pretext that allows the capitalist to draw profits, interest and rent from the soil, while leaving it to the tiller of the soil himself to see how he can extract his wages. Eighteenth Brumaire 45

The retrograde consciousness of the peasants, a class that because of its isolation is described as a "sack of potatoes," is responsible for the emergence of Louis Bonaparte and the elevation of the state over society9 But this step was necessary in order: to free the mass of the French nation from the weight of tradition and to work out in pure form the opposition between the state power and society. 9

.

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Eighteenth Brumaire 46

The future of the revolution is, however, assured by the future development of this class: The interests of the peasants, therefore, are no longer, as under Napoleon, in accord with, but in opposition to the interests of the bourgeoisie, to capital. Hence the peasants find their natural ally and leader in the urban proletariat, whose task is the overthrow of the bourgeois order9 Eighteenth Brumaire 47

And thus the absorption of the historical events into the analytical framework of the economic-historical paradigm is achieved. The first revolution accomplished the centralization of power in the state which was perfected under Napoleon9 This state power became the instrument of bourgeois domination under the restoration, the July monarchy and the parliamentary republic9 The state power, however, became independent of society because of the conservative consciousness of the small-holding peasants who brought Louis Bonaparte into power. The further task of the revolution is to smash this state which having achieved its historical mission of modernization is scheduled to be swept into the "dustbin of history" by the revolutionary alliance of the peasants and the proletariat9 So reads the revolutionary agenda9 In evaluating this instance of theory and practice we shall examine three sets of "contradictions;" the internal contradictions of the analysis; the theoretical contradictions of the analysis, i.e., its contradictions with the orthodox historical paradigm, and finally the contradictions of the Marxist account with the facts, as these are cited by Marx himself9

188 The internal contradictions concem principally the relationships between state and society. In his final theoretical discussion in the Eighteenth Brumaire Marx presents two distinct accounts of the relationship between state and society which conflict when it comes to an explanation of the historical events. In one account the state is seen as the creation of small-holdings4s and in this form the state becomes independent of society in the form of Louis Bonaparte, the adventurers who surround him, and the political class of bureaucrats. In the second account the state is the creation o f the French Revolution and was created in order to facilitate the rule of the bourgeoisie.49 As they stand, these explanations diverge, but with some theoretical surgery might be reconciled. Even, however, if this were to be accomplished the accounts would still yield divergent predictions for the course o f politics where they result in a hopeless contradiction. Following Marx, how are we now to understand the course of the revolution in its actual political trajectory? Shall we say that the state was perfected by the first Napoleon, basing his domination on the small-holding peasants? Shall we say then that this state apparatus was captured by the bourgeoisie to facilitate the revolution of productive forces and productive relations? What happens now? The bourgeoisie lose control of the state - why? Have the bourgeoisie become weaker; have the peasants become stronger? Has the political consciousness of the peasants changed? All such suppositions contradict Marx's own statements, towit that bourgeois development continued and that the peasants remained politically isolated as "sacks of potatoes." If the economic explanation of politics is pursued, it becomes impossible to explain politics. Marx's theoretical paradigm cannot in fact explain why the bourgeoisie shouM have lost the state to an adventurer who based his appeal on the conservative peasantry. However, once Marx abandons the seduction of theory he manages to explain things quite nicely in purely political terms. The major theoretical contradiction o f Marx's analysis concerns the role o f the state in the march o f history. In the orthodox economic-historical paradigm the state is an epiphenomenon of economy and society, but, as we have seen earlier, Marx is compelled by the facts of history to revise his assessment. The awkward fact for Marxist theory is that the state becomes a force that looms above society. Marx's solution to the problem is first to re-assert the genesis of the state from society and second to declare the historical necessity of the development of the state power in "pure form" and the consequent "working out" of the opposition between state and society. In retrospect Marx now declares that this had to happen. But, it is perfectly legitimate to ask if this was the only historical possibility. Is it not conceivable that the economic-historical paradigm could be twisted

189 into other ad hoc formulations that would absorb the phenomenon of the state into a specious historical necessity? We can cite at least three such alternative formulations: 1) The state would be taken over by the Revolutionary Party and used as an instrument to implement the revolution. 2) The state would "wither away" with the decline of the bourgeois order. 3) The state would be destroyed in the course of the revolution as a bourgeois institution and not as an independent power. If any of these possibilities had occurred in 1848-1850 in France we can well imagine Marx declaiming in retrospect, with the same assurance that it had to happen that way. As it turns out the fruits of theory in this case yield little. In Russia, the state was not destroyed, but was taken over; in China it was fought as a bourgeois institution. In no historical case was the conflict between state and society worked out in the "pure form" that Marx describes. Ironically, the possibility of such a development appears in the "socialist" states for reasons that have little to do with the Marxist conception of history. The factual contradictions of the theoretical analysis are the most significant since they test the explanatory power of that analysis. Here we find the most serious shortcomings of the economic-historical paradigm in its failure to account for the historical facts. We are not referring to facts that are omitted from Marx's account, but to those that Marx himself cites and that contradict his theoretical explanation. One such contradiction concerns the relationship between economy, society, and state. The theoretical analysis, as has already been noted, asserts the necessity of the parliamentary republic as the political form of bourgeois rule. The bourgeois class fell apart into two big factions, which, alternately, the big landed proprietors under the restored monarchy and the finance aristocracy and the industrial bourgeoisie under the July monarchy, had maintained a monopoly of power. Bourbon was the royal name for the predominant influence of one faction, Orleans the royal name for the predominant influence of the interests of the other faction - the nameless realm of the republic was the only one in which both factions could maintain in equal power the common class interest without giving up their mutual rivalry. Class Struggles so This, is, of course, perfectly congruent with the general outlines of the economic-historical paradigm which equates a specific form of political domina-

190 tion with every stage of economic development. In this scheme liberal democracy is the appropriate form of domination for the bourgeoisie. So far all is well: here the general theoretical formulation demonstrates its "cutting edge" by illuminating this stretch of history, so that we find in the concrete historical case the bourgeoisie advancing behind the shield of parliamentary democracy. But no sooner have we arrived at this satisfying theoretical resolution than we are confronted with a factual contradiction - to wit, a haute bourgeoisie who theoretically should be the exponents of the parliamentary regime are actually its deadly enemies: In the matter of the concordats ~ l'amiable, tricolor republicans had actually sacrificed the petty bourgeoisie to the big bourgeoisie. They elevated this isolated fact to a principle by the legal prohibition of the progressive tax. They put bourgeois reform on the same level as the proletarian revolution. But what class then remained as the mainstay of their republic? The big bourgeoisie and its mass was anti-republican. If it exploited the republicans of the national in order to re-establish the old relations of economic life, it thought, on the other hand, of exploiting the reestablished social relations in order to restore the political forms that corresponded to them. Class Struggles sl Meanwhile, the Party of Order celebrated the reconquest of a power that seemed lost in 1848 only to be found again, freed from its restraints, in 1849, celebrated by means of invectives against the republic and the constitution, of curses on all future, present and past revolutions, including that which its own leaders had made, and in laws by which the press was muzzled, association destroyed and the state of siege regulated as an organic institution. Eighteenth Brumaire s2 Marx recognizes the historical fact but does not treat it as a theoretical contradiction. He subsequently claims to absorb this fact into the framework of theory, but this resolution is achieved by an ad hoc political construction that has nothing to do with the economic-historical paradigm. The second contradiction between theory and fact has been discussed above: this is the theoretical assertion that the independent state under Louis Bonaparte was based on the peasant small-holders, vs. the fact that Bonaparte based his support on a spectrum of social groups, including the lumpen proletariat and the middle classes.

191 The third contradiction is basic. The essential claim of Marxist theory is that it can explain and predict political behavior. This explanation and prediction is based on the model of social action: political behavior is based upon consciousness, which in turn is structured by class position. We have already seen that this model is violated by the actual behavior of the Party of Order. As bourgeoisie, their ideals (or "consciousness") should reflect bourgeois liberalism, but instead they treat "bourgeois" democratic ideals as "socialistic." The model also fails to explain the political behavior of the bourgeois republicans. As noted above, this group cannot be described in terms of a common class position although they behave as a recognizable political faction. The political behavior and the consciousness of this clique is therefore not explained by their economic situation. The model fails once more when it is applied to the peasants, not withstanding Marx's famous evocation of the consciousness of the peasants as a product of their class position given in the Eighteenth Brumaire. 53 Marx describes two forms of political consciousness among the small-holding peasants: The Bonaparte dynasty represents not the revolutionary, but the conservative peasant; not the peasant that strikes out beyond the condition of his social existence, the small holding, but rather the peasant who wants to consolidate this holding, not the country folk who, linked up with the towns, want to overthrow the old order through their own energies, but on the contrary those who, in stupefied seclusion within this old order, want to see themselves and their small holdings saved and favoured by the ghost of the empire. It represents not the enlightenment, but the superstition of the peasant; not his judgment, but his prejudice; not his future, but his past; not his modern Cevennes, but his modern Vend6e. Eighteenth Brumaire s4 But the conservative and the revolutionary peasant spring from the same class position. If social circumstance produces social consciousness how is it that the same circumstance produces two divergent forms of consciousness? How is it that some peasants come to strike "beyond the condition" of the small holding while others remain mired in conservative torpor. The answer is not immediately forthcoming from the economic-historical paradigm and the problem is of the same order as that described for the cases of the bourgeois republicans and the haute bourgeoisie. The political behavior of these social groups, as a matter o f historical fact, does not correspond to what is predicted

192 for them on the basis of a class-focused theory. Theory is not commensurate with fact. But Marx goes beyond theory in his analysis of this period to practice a straight-forward, ad hoc, political analysis. As we consider Marx in this mode we shall observe the superiority of his intelligent political journalism to systematic theory.ss

The Political Analysis. The basic outline of the political analysis is presented in the Eighteenth Brumaire as follows: Let us recapitulate in general outline the phases that the French Revolution went through from February 24, 1848, to December 1851. Three main periods are unmistakable: the February period; May 4, 1848, to May 28, 1849; the period of the constitution of the republic, or of the constituent national assembly; May 28, 1849 to December 2, 1851; the period of the constitutional republic or the legislative national assembly,s6 In the first period, February 24 to May 4, 1848, all parties were united in the overthrow of the monarchy and the establishment of the provisional government. The second period, May 4, 1848 to May 28, 1849 marked the rise and fall of the bourgeois republicans. From May 4 to June, 1848 the original fusion of all classes behind the revolution dissolved, precipitating all the "old powers" of society against the proletariat who were destroyed as an independent political force in the "June Days" of 1848. The period from June 25 to December 10, 1848, is described by Marx as the "dictatorship of the pure bourgeois republicans. ''sT The election of Bonaparte on December 10 precipitates a new struggle: that of the bourgeois republicans vs Bonaparte and the Party of Order (the United Haute Bourgeoisie). This period ends with the passing of the constituent assembly, following which the Party of Order and Bonaparte crush the petty bourgeoisie in the June Days of 1849. From this point (June 13, 1849) to May 31, 1850 is the period of "parliamentary dictatorship of the Party of Order, ''s8 i.e., the rule of the United Haute Bourgeoisie. From May 31, 1850 to December 2, 1851, is the period of the struggle between the Party of Order and Bonaparte. The Party of Order loses control of the army and the ministry. It attempts a coalition with the republicans and the petty bourgeoisie against Bonaparte, but is finally deserted by " . its own class, by the army and by all remaining classes; passing of the parliamentary regime and the bourgeois rule; victory of Bonaparte, parody of restoration of empire."s9 .

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The above analysis eschews the explicit categories of Marxist theory. The analysis is political in that it rests on political paradigms. The political behavior

193 of the various social groups is interpreted as a power-oriented behavior, characterized by shifting patterns of class coalitions - all directed to the power-seeking opportunism of the moment. The role of political institutions is also comprehended within this political analysis as Marx considers the significance of electoral arrangements and the power struggle between the executive and the assembly. Finally, the political analysis utilizes the paradigm of the total historical or political situation: the conceptualization of the totality of factors that enter into the historical moment. This political analysis does not suffer from stultifying preconceptions and is more clear-sighted than the explicit theoretical analysis. To see this, let us consider how Marx's political analysis deals with the historical facts that resisted absorption into the theoretical schema. We have seen above the problem posed for Marx by the political attitudes of the haute bourgeoisie. According to this theory, these groups should have favored a parliamentary republic as the appropriate form of bourgeois rule. This would follow the theoretical design that asserts a proper correspondence between economic organization and political institutions. But, as we have observed, the historical facts contradict the theoretical presumption: the haute bourgeoisie were anti-republican in mood and action. If we concern ourselves with the political rather than the theoretical Marx, the difficulties vanish. We learn, first of all, that the bourgeois support for the republic was a matter of pure political expediency rather than theoretical necessity .6o This is a purely ad hoc political analysis. Its categories are those of social groups struggling for power - and it is this power struggle and not the inexorable march of history that leads the royalist factions of the bourgeoisie to coalesce in the republic. The question remains then: why, in purely political terms, should the bourgeoisie have been led to oppose the republic? For Marx the answer is, once again, political necessity. The republic, as it turns out, was not a congenial political form because it politicized society, and thus threatened bourgeois domination. 6a In effect, the political problem of the haute bourgeoisie was that they were forced to increase the repressive power of the state, and thus destroy the parliamentary republic in order to preserve their material interests. Every threat from below drove them further into the arms of Bonaparte. Their material and political interests were in conflict, a situation which manifested itself in the final sprit between the parliamentary and the extraparliamentary

194 bourgeoisie. Thus, when Marx perceives the situation in its concrete historical reality - as a complex political struggle - the "contradictions" vanish. We can then understand why the haute bourgeoisie should have been led to oppose the republic, and can understand, in purely political terms, why they went into the republic in the first place. They supported the republic initially because it represented the neutral form of government in which both royalist factions could coexist. This is the ad hoc political explanation, as opposed to the explicit theoretical explanation that the republic was the political form that corresponded to the bourgeois stage of economic development. Once in the republic, the political situation of the bourgeoisie was such that they were driven to destroy the republic: they needed an alliance with a strong state power in order to guarantee their material interests. If we stop at this point we are leftwith a partial political explanation which is still redolent of theoretical necessity: it does not satisfactorily account for the rise of Bonaparte. Was it necessary for the haute bourgeoisie to oppose the parliamentary republic, or were there additional, fortuitous factors that account for the triumph of Bonaparte. This brings us to the next contradiction between theory and fact: the destruction of the republic by the second Bonaparte. Above, we have seen how Marx attempted to explain the rise of Bonaparte in theoretical terms as a consequence of small-holdings. 62 But this theoretical explanation ran up against the historical fact that Bonaparte drew this support from several different sources, which included the lumpen proletariat, and the bourgeoisie, as well as the peasants. We have also observed the problems that arise when Marx insists that the rise of Bonaparte was inevitable in order to work out in "pure form" the opposition between state and society. All of these difficulties vanish once we dispense with the theoretical Marx and replace him with the straightforward, political Marx. In this vein the rise of Bonaparte is to be treated as a specific historical event, made possible by a specific conjunction of political forces. The first phase of Bonaparte's ascent came about with the electoral victory of December 10, 1848, and this was accomplished because Bonaparte, with the mystique and ambiguity of the historical associations attached to his name was able to appeal to the peasants and to all other classes: December 10 was the coup d'etat of the peasants, which overthrew the existing government . . . . The other classes helped to complete the election victory of the peasants. The election of Napoleon, for the proletariat, meant the deposition of

195 Cavaignac, the overthrow of the Constituent Assembly, the dismissal of bourgeois republicanism, the rescinding of the June victory. For the petty bourgeoisie, Napoleon meant the rule of the debtors over the creditors. For the majority of the big bourgeoisie the election of Napoleon meant an open breach with the fraction of which it had had to make use, for a moment, against the revolution, but which became intolerable to it as soon as this fraction sought to consolidate the position of the moment into the constitutional position. Napoleon in place of Cavaignac, for the majority of the big bourgeoisie, meant the monarchy in place of the republic, the beginning of the royalist restoration, a shy hint at Orleans, the lilly hidden beneath the violet. Finally, the army voted for Napoleon against the mobile guard, against the peace idyll, for war. Thus it happened, as the Neue Rheinische Zeitung stated, that the most simple-minded man in France acquired the most multifarious significance. Just because he was nothing, he could signify everything save himself. Class Struggles 63

There is nothing of historical or theoretical necessity in all of this. Bonaparte's political position was a specific historical circumstance. The subsequent phases of Bonaparte's career are treated in the same way. In the struggle between Bonaparte and the national assembly the factors that are taken into account are the political resources available to each, even though, as usual, Marx cannot refrain from giving a superflous and speciously profound theoretical analysis at the same time .64 But it is the political situation that suffices to explain the result - the coup d~tat of Louis Bonaparte. The President was the elect of the entire nation; the national assembly represented only particular sections of the electorate. The Party of Order, caught between the restless masses and the ambitious President, was forced to aggrandize his power in order to preserve its material interests# Bonaparte's victory was the outcome of this specific concatenation of historical circumstance, and once it is treated in this manner there is no contradiction in the nature of the support he found in society. To interpret the rise of Bonaparte as the outcome of an inevitable historical process is to give a reading to these events that results in the contradictions cited above. If Bonaparte had failed, and the republic had emerged victorious Marx would have had little difficulty in "proving" that the triumph of "bourgeois democracy" was inevitable. A theory that cannot be disproven is no theory at all; the Marxist interpretation of history can never be embarassed by actual events. This concludes my demonstration of the inadequacy of systematic theory as practiced by Marx with respect to the French Revolution of 1848-1850.

196

I have attempted here to reveal the basic thought structures used by Marx the assumptions and paradigms that are implicit in the Class Struggles and the Eighteenth Brumaire. I have discerned in these studies a double aspect: a theoretical, economic-historical analysis, and an ad hoc political analysis. Of these, the political analysis is far superior. The theoretical Marx, in imposing a comprehensive design on history, runs afoul of embarrassing theoretical and factual contradictions. The political Marx brilliantly resolves these contradictions by utilizing political paradigms of which he is unaware, and that are to this day unrecognized in Marxism whose theory is essentially devoid of a systematic politics.

NOTES 1. Karl Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire o f Louis Bonaparte (New York: International Publishers, 1964), and The Class Struggles in France, 1848-1850 (New York: International Publishers, 1964). 2. Marx,Eighteenth Brumaire, p. 27. 3. Ibid., p. 48. 4. Ibid., pp. 102-117. 5. Marx, Class Struggles, p. 135. 6. Marx,Eighteenth Brumaire, p. 10. 7. Ibid., p. 15. 8. Marx, Class Struggles, p. 33. 9. Ibid., pp. 4 2 - 3 . 10. To do otherwise would change the nature of my enterprise into a fuUscale interpretation of the Marxist theoretical opus, with all of the difficulties that implies. My methodological position is that any intellectual product can be analyzed in itself and the thought-structures upon which it rests can be investigated from this starting point. The analysis of the intellectual world-view of a writer by way of his entire opus is a quite different undertaking. 11. ClassStruggles, p. 142. 12. lbid.,p.88. 13. Eighteenth Brumaire, p. 129. 14. Ibid., p. 47. 15. Ibid., pp. 5 0 - 1 . 16. Ibid., p. 54. 17. ClassStruggles, p. 91. 18. Eighteenth Brumaire, p. 16. See also the quote from Class Struggles, Note 5 above. 19. Ibid., pp. 6 1 - 2 . From the Eighteenth Brumaire, see also: "On December 2, the February Revolution is conjured away by a card sharper's trick, and what seems overthrown is no longer the monarchy but the liberal concessions that were wrung from it by centuries of struggle. Instead of society having conquered a new contract for itself, it seems that the state only returned to its oldest form, to the shamelessly simple domination of the sabre and the cowl" (p. 18). And also, "This executive power with its enormous bureaucratic and military organization, with its ingenious state machinery, embracing wide strata, with a host of officials numbering half a million, besides an army of another half million, this appalling parasitic body, which enmeshes the body of French society like a net and

197

20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32.

33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55.

chokes all its pores, spring up in the days of the absolute monarchy, with the decay of the feudal system, which it helped to hasten" (p. 18). Ibid., p. 122. 1bid., p. 122. Ibid., pp. 122-3. Ibid., p. 129. Ibid., pp. 130-1. Ibid., p. 122. Ibid., p. 123. Ibid., p. 125.

Ibid.,p. 131. Ibid., p. 132. Ibid., p. 132. Ibid., p.62. Ibid., p. 104. Also: "Rather the fraction of the bourgeoisie that ruled and legislated through the chambers had a direct interest in state indebtedness. The state deficit was even the main object of its speculation and played the chief role in its enrichment. In the same way as the ruling class exploited state expenditure in general and state loans, they exploited the building of railways. The chambers piled the main burdens on the state and secured the golden fruits to the speculating finance aristocracy." (Class Struggles, pp. 35-6.) Class Struggles, pp. 4 6 - 5 0 . Ibid., p . 4 6 . Ibid., p. 111. Eighteenth Brumaire, pp. 3 2 - 3 . For other instances, see Ibid., p. 45, 120-21. Class Struggles, pp. 69-70. 1bid., p. 38. Ibid., p. 143. Eighteenth Brumaire, p. 121. Ibid., p. 122. Ibid., pp. 128-9. Ibid., p. 127. Ibid., p. 127. Ibid., p. 131. Ibid., p. 128. Ibid., pp. 128-9. Ibid., p. 122. Class Struggles, p. 88. Ibid., p.69. Eighteenth Brumaire, p. 52. Ibid., pp. 123-24. Ibid., p. 125. The problem here is intrinsic to the theoretical posture which inclines toward reification: it tends to treat its categories as realities. Weber cogently pointed out the pitfalls of this procedure: "In the interest of the concrete demonstration of an ideal-type or of an ideal-typical developmental sequence, one seeks to make it clear by the use of concrete illustrative material drawn from empirical-historical reality. The danger of this procedure which in itself is entirely legitimate lies in the fact that historical knowledge here appears as a servant of theory instead of the opposite role. It is a great temptation for the theorist to regard this relationship either as t h e normal one or, for worse, to mix theory with history and indeed to confuse them with eachother . . . . The logical classification of analytical concepts on the one hand and the empirical arrangements of the events thus conceptualized in space,

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56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65.

time, and causal relationship, on the other, appear to be so bound up together that there is an almost irrestible temptation to do violence to reality in order to prove the real validity of the construct." Max Weber, The Methodology of the Social Sciences (Free Press, 1949), pp. 1 0 2 - 3 . The danger that Weber cites is illustrated by Nisbet in his Social Change and History, where he notes the tendency to reify evolutionary concepts ("The Abuses of Metaphor"). This tendency is common among the theoretically inclined, and particularly among those who practice grand systematic theory in the style of Parsons, Easton, and Etzioni. The theory, the realm of the universal, becomes the reality of which concrete historical reality becomes an exemplar. My position is that Marx has fallen victim to this tendency here. For an analysis of how Weber avoided this trap in his concrete historical work see Martin E. Spencer, "History and Sociology: An Analysis of Weber's The City," Sociology, Vol. 11, No. 3, 1977, pp. 5 0 7 - 2 5 . Eighteenth Brumaire, p. 21. 1bid., p. 116. Ibid., p. 117. Ibid., p. 117. Class Struggles, p. 89. Eighteenth Brumaire, pp. 6 6 - 7 . Ibid., p. 123. Class Struggles, pp. 7 1 - 2 . Ibid., pp. 7 6 - 7 . 1bid., p. 109.

Theory and Society 7 (1979) 167-198 9 Elsevier Scientific Publishing Company, Amsterdam - Printed in the Netherlands