SECOND LECTURE
I.
Workingmen and Workingwomen:
THE "Communist Manifesto" was now to be considered the theoretical basis upon which all future activity of the League's members had to rest: all subsequent propaganda, acts and the tactics flowing therefrom were to be evolved in accord or along the lines with the axiomatic principles and aims promulgated in this historic document. However, historic conditions soon compelled the various national groups and members to somewhat loosen their connections with the League, which gave rise to a condition of affairs that bordered upon dissolution of the young organization. Through the compelling force of social events, events which finally culminated into the various revolutionary uprisings of 1848, the workers were forced to unite with the bourgeoisie in their respective countries, and battle unitedly for constitutional government and civil liberties. This struggle of the proletariat and capitalist class against feudal prerogatives gave Marx and his followers the opportunity to propagate their principles in the open: to present for the first time in history the workers' position in this revolutionary drama before the public.
The February revolution in Paris, a revolution that deposed Louis Phillipe, the citizen-king, was the signal for a general uprising against despotism in Europe. This insurrection of the industrial capitalists of Paris against the government of the large agrarian interests (bourgeois as well as feudal) was the summons of social evolution to adapt the obsolete political organs in capitalist society to the changed economic conditions: conditions which were retarded in their growth and development by the antiquated, reactionary and abnormal character of the existing political institutions. In Germany, Austria, Hungary and Italy the smoldering fires of revolt also burst into bright flames, eating and devouring the worm-eaten and brittle social and political remnants of past ages. Everywhere the representatives of modern society vigorously fought for political recognition and rights, and everywhere, even in arch-reactionary Prussia, the so-called god-ordained ruling powers were compelled to capitulate before the united onslaughts of the workers and the bourgeoisie.
The powers in Belgium, which had not been affected by the revolutionary wave, sought to insure their tranquillity by inaugurating a most brutal and unwarranted persecution against Marx and his followers. Under the charge of being alien agitators and inflamers to riot, they were subjected to the most infamous indignities by the governmental officials and finally expelled. Marx and comrades were virtually hounded over the boundary line; the former, in the haste of the moment, being compelled to leave his young wife behind, at the tender mercies of the upholders of law and order. These chivalrous authorities, delighted with the opportunity, gratified their lust for "revenge" by craftily and brutally torturing helpless and penniless Jenny Marx.
Marx retraced his steps to Paris, having been honored by the victorious revolutionary government there with an invitation to return to do practical work. After the outbreak of the revolution, the central committee or executive offices of the Communist League had been transferred from London to Brussels. However, through the autocratic expulsion by the police, these connections were broken up and Marx was momentarily entrusted with the management of the League's affairs, being also charged with the authority to organize a new executive body in Paris. However, Marx's stay in Paris was not to be of a long duration.
As stated before, in Prussia the revolutionary wave had swept away the god-ordained, feudal despotism of the Hohenzollerns. Humiliated and trembling, the king of Prussia accepted the generous but foolish gift of his crown out of the blood-stained hands of the barricade-fighters, thereby accepting a crown which made him king not by the grace of god, as he had so haughtily contended before the revolution, but by the grace of the people—a crown that was restored to Friedrich Wilhelm IV. in return for certain constitutional guarantees, guarantees which he subsequently as readily annulled as he had conceded them.
Under such turbulent conditions, it was impossible for Marx to stay in Paris. He, who had been so often accused of treasonable motives and proclaimed as a man without a country, he, the outcast, was drawn by an irresistible passion, a feverish longing, to the fatherland. Taking the given historic conditions as a criterion, he felt and knew that at home was the field upon which he could and would fight with the greatest and most telling force for the revolution in Europe. The ship of the German bourgeois revolution had followed in the wake of the Parisian uprising, and in this revolution the proletariat for the first time had affirmed its interests as a class, unfolding the banner of the Industrial Republic. And in Germany the bourgeoisie had only shattered the absolute monarchy with the massive fists of the proletariat. It was, therefore, easily conceivable, why in the beginning the bourgeoisie watched the rapid progress of the revolution with anxiety, and saw in this progress more an element of danger than victory. This growing class-consciousness of the working-class had sent a cold chill down the spine of the capitalists, and had greatly dampened the spirit of elation over the immediate victory. However, one thing was certain: If the revolution were to run its full course in Germany, i.e., if the revolution were to develop into a full-fledged bourgeois revolution, a revolution that would sweep away the last vestige of feudal prerogatives, then all the forces of the bourgeoisie would have to be enlisted in its cause and whipped on to a determined struggle. It was clear to Marx that this revolution could only be victorious, if it downed, together with the brutal forces of reaction, also the secret fears of the bourgeoisie for the proletariat. And in this peculiar creation of history, Marx saw the duty which for the time being would tax the utmost revolutionary energies of the Communists. And that Germany was destined to be the next field of battle of the Communists, was to be found in another deduction made from a peculiar combination of historic facts. It was Marx's contention that if the achievements of the revolution were not to be eradicated by a counter-force, if the waves of the revolution were not to break on the shores of Russian despotism, then, he maintained, it would be absolutely imperative to concentrate all the revolutionary forces on the constitutional or republican development of Germany. A revolutionized Germany—revolutionized in the fullest democratic conception—he deduced, was bound to be the most massive bulwark of Democracy in Europe. And this deduction was strikingly verified by subsequent events. Not only did Russian despotism subsequently throw down and drown in seas of blood the heroic struggle of the Hungarians for independence; not only did 300,000 troops of the Russian despot shatter the revolution in Austria and save the Hapsburg dynasty; but the failure of the revolution in Germany—the failure to create that bulwark of Democracy—was bound to very materially affect the Russian people's struggle for liberty at a later date. During the Russian Revolution and after, particularly in the stormy years of 1905 to 1906, the German government viewed with open fear this gallant struggle of a people for constitutionalism, apprehending with anxiety the effect which a successful conclusion of this uprising would have upon the German people. It, therefore, sought to aid Russian despotism in every possible way to crush the revolt. In the capacity of henchman of the Czar this government, to the eternal shame of the German people, arrested thousands upon thousands of the flower of Russian Democracy in Germany; hounded thousands upon thousands of Russian students from the high-schools and universities; and, in true Russian fashion, searched houses and intimidated the people against the much-hated "reds." And for what purpose? Did the German government expel or try these undesirable residents for a breach of the law or some other valid reason? No, the imperial government was paying its debt of 1849 to the "little father"; the imperial government saw in Russian autocracy a citadel of absolutism and a bulwark, not only against political Democracy, but also against the rising tide of Socialism—the spectre of which was truly haunting Europe and particularly Germany. With fiendish glee Junkerdom and its awe-stricken capitalist lackeys surrendered thousands of Russian fugitives, who had deemed themselves safely out of the reach of the bloody monster, to the executioners of the Czar. And this identical government has today the brazen audacity to bewail and indict erstwhile Russian barbarism, calling itself a pillar of culture.
In Paris, Marx and Engels organized a communist club of German workingmen. Herwegh, the genial poet, was at that time attempting to form a battallion of German republicans for the purpose of invading Germany. Marx very emphatically discouraged this adventurous and highly spectacular and purely sentimental movement, and advised the workers to return to Germany individually and unobserved, and to there begin a revolutionary agitation amongst their fellow-workers.
In April we find Marx in Cologne, one of the most important centers of events and the heart of the highly developed and industrialized Rhine district. He had preferred Cologne to Berlin, because the Code Napoleon, a legacy of the Napoleonic era and the French Revolution, insured to him a greater field of activity and more unmolested movement. At least here political trials were not brought before professional judges of the feudal-bureaucratic state, but tried by a jury. As stated before, in the Rhineland the capitalist mode of production had revolutionized conditions more thoroughly than either in the East of Prussia or the southern part of Germany, consequently, the capitalist class was here more progressive and democratic, and more inclined to a vigorous struggle for a constitutional government. The proletariat, reared by such conditions, was, therefore, comparatively large and intensely revolutionary.
Marx was here confronted, with the task to put the theories laid down in the "Communist Manifesto" into practice, i.e., to apply the principles of Scientific Socialism to concrete historical conditions. And how splendidly he fulfilled this difficult duty of making the workers conscious of their role and duties in this great struggle of the awakening bourgeoisie against Feudalism; how clearly he emphasized the historical necessity of constitutional government to the development of capitalism—a development which was inseparably interwoven with the growth of an independent working-class movement—can be best appreciated through a perusal of his writings of and on this period. In all the leading cities, friends and disciples of Marx and members of the Communist League agitated and worked along the lines dictated by the "Communist Manifesto." The turbulent times with their various political issues, wage struggles and strikes were thus skilfully exploited and utilized to bring home the message of Socialism and independent class action to the workers. Everywhere clubs and organizations of workingmen sprang up. After the memorable March days, a Central Committee of Workingmen with the Communist Born at the head was organized in Berlin. Through the untiring efforts of this committee, the Brotherhood of Workingmen, an organization that was to embrace and unite all the workers in Germany, was organized in August. Everywhere the workers were seen fighting in the hut ranks against the powers of absolutism; everywhere they solidly stood their ground, bravely repulsing the onslaughts of reaction; and wherever they battled most courageously and were nigh unconquerable the communist influence was most markedly recognizable.
This epoch-making phase in the development of Germany is pre—eminently the work or Marx: it is an achievement that was made possible through the intelligence shed by the rays of Historical Materialism—a philosophy which for the first time in history explained to the disinherited class its place and function in particularly the bourgeois revolution and society in general. In the "Neue Rheinische Zeitung" ("New Rhenish Gazette"), a daily newspaper, Marx sought to erect a beaconlight of the extreme democratic and communist wing of the revolution. The first number of this paper was published on June 1st, 1848, and the last issue appeared on May 19th, 1849. The short but stormy life of the paper, therefore, begins and ends with the fortune and misfortune of the revolution respectively. The paper was founded as an "Organ of Democracy"; however, under the editorship of Marx, it soon became an undaunted and fearless advocate of communist theories, viewing and criticising current events from the basic premises as formulated in the "Communist Manifesto" and conceived with the aid of Historical Materialism. Here the Materialist Conception of History was submitted to the acid test and, needless to state, the theory's application to current occurrences and the results obtained thereby furnished convincing evidence of its soundness. By the light of Historical Materialism, Marx explained the revolution as a normal and legitimate historical process, a process which was but the political reflex of an economic revolution that had but shortly preceded it. Marx, again with the aid of the Materialist Conception of History, was able to combine his passionate revolutionary temperament with a cool and well-balanced historical intellect: he appreciated and judged the present by the past, and was thus able to intelligently vision the future.
Marx was a journalist and editor in the broader conception of the term, and in this connection he was ably assisted by Frederick Engels, the two Wolffs, Ferdinand Freiligrath, the genial poet, and others. Equipped with a clear insight and creative revolutionary vitality, the "Neue Rheinische Zeitung" was able to show the way to the democratic and Socialist forces. And the "Neue Rheinische Zeitung" was a fighting organ, that engaged and grappled actively with the problems of the day. As emphasized before, these problems, and the historical conditions of which they were born, compelled the Socialists and workers to fight as the extreme radical wing in the army of Democracy. The prize of victory and object of the struggle were to save the revolution, and thereby to insure the political rights and liberties necessary to the proletariat for the preparation of its own revolution—a revolution which Marx perceived germinating in the womb of the same society that he and his class were assisting in its struggle to emancipate itself completely from the yoke of Feudalism. For these reasons the "Neue Rheinische Zeitung" was compelled to engage in democratic politics; it was compelled to fight with and for the bourgeoisie, but it discharged itself of this duty creditably, by steadily keeping the ultimate goal and things of permanent interest to the proletariat in view. In other words, the bourgeois revolution was but a means to the end, a stepping stone, to Marx and his followers; the end, the aim to be kept in mind, was—the proletarian revolution. In consequence, the "Neue Rheinische Zeitung" did not seek to enlist the support of the lukewarm democrats with the aid of compromise and flattery, but attempted to whip them on and wrest them out of their lethargy, through a biting and unmerciful criticism. To this organ, as stated before, the revolution was an imperious command of the hour; a command which the bourgeoisie could not ignore but had to follow: a command clearly formulated by the force of material conditions and the scientific knowledge of social development flowing therefrom.
The immediate demands of the Communist Party in Germany were, due to the above-mentioned causes, therefore, far more moderate than the so-called minimum demands formulated in the "Communist Manifesto" for the rising revolution. They were demands chiefly created by the backward conditions of the economic life in that country, and were intended to improve the social conditions of the small farmer, artisan and laborer in general. The cardinal political demands were the undivided republic and the creation of a citizen's army. As pointed out, to Marx the republic in her most developed form was the logical battleground for the settling of the differences between the capitalist class and the proletariat. He further conceived, that the struggle of the Socialists and workers would only begin in earnest, when the struggle for political enfranchisement or Democracy had ended. In the arming of the people, the citizen's army, Marx saw the victory of the revolution. To him constitutional questions were not primarily questions of right but questions of might. And time and time again the "Neue Rheinische Zeitung" underscored that the best constitution was only a scrap of paper, if not supported or backed up by the armed might of the people. And the paper emphasized that all the nicely worded paragraphs and promising clauses in the constitution would not prevent the assassination of the people's rights, as long as the feudalic governments were able to "train their cannons on the untrained people." With bitter sarcasm the "'Neue Rheinische Zeitung," therefore, criticised and chastised the garrulous politicians in the National Assembly at Frankfort, who were celebrating rhetorical orgies and entirely neglected to provide the might with which to enforce their legislative decisions. While these political clowns were philosophizing and taxing the people's patience to the utmost, the governments in Berlin and Vienna were in the meantime preparing to mow down the imperial constitution, the freedom of the press and assembly, universal suffrage, and all the gains and achievements of the revolutionary March days, together with its most energetic defenders, with volleys of grape-shot. The criticisms of the German and Prussian parliaments in Frankfort and Berlin respectively belong to the most brilliant publications of the "Neue Rheinische Zeitung." Here we recognize the superior creative power of Historical Materialism asserting itself on the field of politics; and to those narrow-minded dullards, who still think that history is made in parliaments, these angry and passionate, but nevertheless profound critical essays are even at this late date of inestimable value. This critical work of the paper is an important part of a thorough discussion having for its basic theme the principles and programs of the liberals and democrats, and here Marx once and for all and unrelentlessly settles his account with the bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie acknowledged receipt of this thorough spanking in its own peculiar way: the "liberty loving" democratic stockholders in the paper withdrawing their support from the enterprise. Thereby, however, the paper gained a firmer foothold amongst the workers.
As previously emphasized, the "Neue Rheinische Zeitung" as a beaconlight of Democracy was naturally a most consequent opponent of Feudalism. In no paper was Feudalism or feudal prerogatives fought with more vigor and intelligence than in Marx's paper. Knowing and fully appreciating the importance of the bourgeois revolution, through a thorough conception of Feudalism, Marx and his followers saw in the complete vanquishment of Feudalism a quicker and more favorable development of Capitalism, which in turn implied a quicker and more favorable development of a class-conscious Socialist movement. Therefore, Feudalism and absolutism did not have a more bitter enemy than the "Neue Rheinische Zeitung." And when the counter-revolution, the reaction, swept over Germany; when the treasonable and cowardly action of the terror-stricken bourgeoisie was everywhere perceivable; when Vienna had fallen and the troops of the king were butchering citizens in the streets of Berlin, even then Marx defied the victorious forces of reaction in his paper. And only after the insurrections had been put down in Elberfeld and Dresden, and the Rhineland had been practically turned into a veritable garrison, did the government undertake to suppress the "Neue Rheinische Zeitung." On May 18th, 1849, Marx received his order of expulsion from Germany. Certain editors of the paper were already being persecuted by the courts, and still others were, as undesirable "foreigners," sure to share Marx's fate. Therefore, the expulsion of Marx was practically the death sentence of the paper. On May 19th the last number appeared with Freiligrath's defiant poem as a leader:
May 19th, 1849.
No open blow in an open fight,
But with quips and with quirks they arraign me,
By creeping treachery's secret blight
The Western Calmucks have slain me.
The fatal shaft in the dark did fly;
I was struck by an ambushed knave;
And here in the pride of my strength I lie,
Like a corpse of a rebel brave!
With a deathless scorn in my dying breath,
In my hand the sword still cherished;
"Rebellion" still for my shout of death,
In my manhood untainted, I perished.
Oh! gladly, full gladly, the Pruss and the Czar
The grass from my grave would clear;
But Germany sends me, with Hungary far,
Three salvoes to honor my bier.
And the tattered poor man takes his stand,
On my head the cold sods heaving;
He casts them down with a diligent hand,
Where the glory of toil is cleaving.
And a garland of flowers and May he brought
On my burning wounds to cast;
His wife and his daughters the wreath had wrought
When the work of the day was past.
Farewell! farewell! thou turbulent life!
Farewell to ye! armies engaging!
Farewell! cloud canopied fields of strife,
Where the greatness of war is raging!
Farewell! but not forever farewell!
They can not kill the spirit, my brother!
In thunder I'll rise on the field where I fell,
More boldly to fight out another.
When the last of crowns like glass shall break,
On the scene our sorrows have haunted,
And the People the last dread "guilty" shall speak,
On your side ye shall find me undaunted.
On Rhine, Or on Danube, in word and deed,
Ye shall witness, true to his vow,
On the wrecks of thrones, in the midst of the freed,
The rebel who greets you now!
II.
The "Neue Rheinische Zeitung" had been a piece of political revolutionary practice. The "Neue Rheinische Zeitung," however, was Karl Marx. To speak somewhat with Engels: the editorial policy or course of the paper was "the dictatorship of Marx."
Marx's revolutionary activity in this tumultuous period, however, did not confine itself solely to literary or editorial work. He was also chairman of one of the three large democratic organization's in Cologne. And when we compare the courageous and unified stand of the Rhenish Democracy against the threatening onslaughts of reaction with the irresolute and in many cases cowardly manifestations of the bourgeoisie in other localities, then we begin to perceive not only the effects of a higher industrial and social development, but also the effects of the propaganda resulting therefrom—Marx's propaganda. To illustrate: In Cologne a gigantic mass meeting declared itself for the Socialist Republic, and when a false report was received that the military forces of the reactionary government were advancing to take possession of the city, barricades seemed to shoot like mushrooms out of the earth. In contradistinction to the loud-mouthed but cowardly bourgeoisie of Berlin, the Rhenish and Westphalian Democracy in the eventful November days was willing to support any opposition of the Prussian National Assembly with the utmost development of strength. And when this parliament called upon the people to answer the infamous usurpations of the so-called "god-ordained" autocracy with the refusal to pay taxes, i.e., with an economic strike of the bourgeoisie against the feudal polity, the provincial committee in Cologne, constituted out of Marx, Schapper and Becker, issued an order requesting all democratic unions to adhere to the decision of parliament. The committee, furthermore, instructed the citizens to resist the forceful collection of taxes with all means of opposition at their disposal; to organize the citizen's army everywhere; to supply those without means with arms and ammunition out of the communal funds or with the aid of voluntary contributions; to, if necessary, appoint committees of safety, in order to be effectively prepared to meet force with force. The subsequent despicable and cowardly conduct of the Prussian National Assembly broke this magnificent revolutionary spirit in the bud. However, Marx, Schapper and Becker were indicted before the grand-jury in Cologne on the charge of having incited the citizens to armed resistance against the civil officials and the army. Of greater importance than their acquittal was Marx's masterful speech of defense.
After a year of unceasing struggle, Marx was finally convinced by the inexorable facts of history that the revolution was for the time being at an end; that the bourgeoisie had obtained in the form of social and political reforms all it desired and was able to obtain with its limited vitality; and that the bourgeoisie—the same bourgeoisie which had been until a few days ago fighting shoulder to shoulder with the workers against the junkers and their lackeys—would seek henceforth to ally itself with the remnants of feudality against the workers. The bourgeois class-interests dictated such an alliance with the limited feudal government, an alliance which was bound to end with the peaceful conquest of the government by the bourgeoisie and the permeation of the remaining remnants of feudalism with the principles and ideas of capitalist production. As an eye-opener, pathfinder and pioneer, the revolution had brought to the capitalists all they were able to demand under the existing conditions, always taking the fear-inspiring Communist workingmen as an ominous signpost into consideration. What the force of arms was unable to accomplish in the stormy year of 1848–49, without also endangering the existence of capitalist society, economic evolution and its social and political creatures were bound to realize slowly step by step. Marx clearly foresaw these logical effects of an abortive revolution, and also saw therein a dictate to revise the tactics of the Communists. He fully appreciated that henceforth the workers would have to organize as a class; that the capitalist class would, as indicated before, quickly overshadow and absorb all other minor ruling classes in Germany, including the junkers; and that, therefore, in the future no pact or compromise with the "democratically inclined" bourgeois elements would be advisable. In the middle of April, 1849, Marx and his Communist friends laid down their offices in the provincial committee. The Workingmen's Club of Cologne severed its connection with the Democratic Union of the Rhineland, and advocated participation of all radical organizations in a general congress of workingmen which the Brotherhood of Workers, organized by the Communist Born in Berlin, was organizing.
With the publication of Marx's "Wage-Labor and Capital," the "Neue Rheinische Zeitung" gave expression to these new tactics. In this keen analysis of capitalist production, the class distinctions between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie were heavily underscored, and thereby removed out of the shadow into which the great historical epoch, the revolution, had for the moment placed them.
Exiled from his fatherland, Marx returned to Paris, where turbulent events seemed to be in the making. Here the capitalist class, living in constant fear of the proletariat, was preparing its coup d'état. Of course, to the intriguing and conspiring government of Louis Napoleon this clear-headed, discerning and uncompromising revolutionist was a most unwelcome visitor. Therefore, as early as July, Marx was exiled, this time by a bourgeois republic, to take up residence in the Department Morbihan, which is situated somewhere in an obscure corner of the Bretagne. Here Marx would have been condemned to political as well as scholarly inactivity—a thing which Louis Napoleon sought to accomplish by this move. Instead Marx, stripped of all means of subsistence and with no future prospects anywhere in sight, decided to go to London. He was certain that the revolution was only temporarily suppressed, that it was bound to rise again; and he, a stranded outcast with a family dependent upon him, started to work with renewed vigor to make the coming revolution a class-conscious proletarian revolution, as far as the material conditions of that period permitted and made such a distinct class movement possible. His first task was the reorganization of the Communist League whose leading men were now practically all in London, but whose activity was henceforth mainly confined to Germany. In the "Neue Rheinische Revue" ("New Rhenish Review"), he sought to provide a fighting organ for the revolutionary forces in Germany. The "Neue Rheinische Revue" was published in Hamburg, and, of course, in close collaboration with Frederick Engels and other friends. Marx desired this periodical to be a continuation of the "Neue Rheinische Zeitung," and quite positively hoped to turn this unpretentious monthly into a semimonthly and then into a weekly on a large scale. And with a fresh outbreak of the revolution, which he anticipated would be the logical product of the reaction ruling with an iron hand in Germany, the review was to be turned into a powerful daily newspaper. As stated in the foregoing, however, Marx's plans were not to materialize. The tidal wave of the revolution, which had carried the "Neue Rheinische Zeitung," was gradually breaking upon the rocks of a luke-warm bourgeois liberalism. The fears of the capitalist class for the thorough measures and class-aspirations of the proletariat were quickly turning their course into the less dangerous avenue of a parliamentary struggle against feudal prerogatives, a struggle in which the workers as a class were destined to play a historical role, but which forever separated them from the contaminating influence of bourgeois liberalism. But four numbers of the "Neue Rheinische Revue" were published and those under the most ungratifying pecuniary difficulties. Three copies appeared somewhat regularly up to April, 1850, and then after a lapse of four months, the review with a double-number had to definitely suspend publication.
In this periodical Marx and Engels labored to prepare the ground for the anticipated approaching revolution. By subjecting the struggles of the preceding years, struggles in which they had so actively participated, to a critical examination, they sought to accomplish this task. Truly in accord with their Historical Materialistic Philosophy, they attempted to find the connecting causes of these historical and social manifestations and upheavals in the existing class antagonisms, thereby stripping these events of their ideological cloak and exposing the class war in all its nakedness. Aside from distinctly German and in the broader aspect local subjects, Engels wrote a treatise on the Peasant War, and Marx contributed his masterly work, so well known to all Marxian students, "The Class-Struggles in France 1848-1850." This study found its continuation in the profound and brilliant essay entitled "The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon," published in 1852, and its completion in the Manifesto or Address of the Executive Committee of the International Workingmen's Association on the Paris Commune, and better known under the title of "The Civil War in France."
However, the rejuvenated revolution which Marx and his associates so confidently looked forward to, was, as stated before, not to materialize. Subsequent economic and historical studies now showed Marx that the revolutionary year of 1848 had been but the legitimate child of the terrific industrial panic of 1847. And as prosperity gradually surged in upon the troubled sea of European social and political conditions, the revolutionary vitality born by industrial depression ebbed out. An economic era of expansion and plenty had set in, more so intensified by the discovery of gold in California. The anticipation of a rich harvest of profits exterminated the last spark of rebellion in the bourgeoisie. As already dwelled upon above, henceforth the capitalist class was to be guided by only one precept in its political conduct, namely: to harmonize and compromise with feudality and absolutism, in order to jointly exploit the proletariat. The proletariat, however, was as yet weak in numbers, or, to be more exact, weak in organization, and practically entirely lacking in the conscious perception of its historic mission as a class. The collapse of Chartism in England, the June massacre in Paris, the fall of Vienna, the results of the revolutions and struggles in Germany, Hungary and Italy had so physically and morally weakened the workers that for the moment no revolutionary action was to be expected of them. However, the interminable circle of capitalist production, the anarchical features of this production, already foreshadowed the advance of another economic crisis: a crisis that was but the natural child of an economic system based upon the appropriation of surplus-value, and a crisis which in its multiplied form actually portended the inevitable downfall of the capitalist system and the expropriation of the expropriators. These facts Marx conceived with the as yet relatively limited knowledge at his disposal. He also was aware that the workers were only powerful against the exploiters when organized upon class lines—a form and spirit of organization which presupposed class-consciousness. In order to awaken and generate this class-consciousness in the international proletariat, the individual worker had first to recognize his economic status. i.e., to conceive that he was but a commodity under capitalism. Animated, yes whipped on by the compelling command of the hour, Marx set to work to provide the intellectual weapons for the working class in its struggle for emancipation.
III.
Buried amongst the dusty tomes and intellectual treasures of the British Museum, years passed in which Marx once more devoted himself exclusively to investigation and study. They were years of intellectual joys but material privations to Marx and his family. The press as well as the publishers in Germany had instituted a tentative boycott against Marx, and this meant bitter poverty to him and his beloved ones. For example, his brilliant essay "The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon" had to be published in New York in a periodical issued by his friend Weydemeyer. Also the brochure dealing with the trial of some of Marx's comrades before the jury in Cologne and entitled "Enthüllungen über den Kölner Kommunistenprozess" ("Revelations on the Communists' Trial in Cologne") had to be published in America, 1852. During this year, Marx also accepted an offer of the "New York Tribune" to act as its London correspondent; he was expected to contribute an article every week, for which he received the flat rate of five dollars. This meagre but welcome income was practically for years the only regular source of revenue of the Marx family. In the "New York Tribune" Marx published various reviews and criticisms of social and, political conditions in Europe, and also a series of articles which afterwards appeared in pamphlet form under the name of "Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Germany." This series of articles was up to a few years ago credited to Marx; the publication of the correspondence between Marx and Engels, however, shows without a doubt that they were written by Engels. "Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Germany" is but a continuation of the historical work commenced in "The Rhenish Review," and its purpose was to show the inner connection, or as Buckle is so fond of saying, "the logical connection," i.e., the historical mechanism of the struggles in the first half of the nineteenth century.
As you will recollect, in his studies, Marx had gone from philosophy to history, and from history to political economy. It is, therefore, quite logical to deduce that a close study of the political class struggles, which since the seventeenth century had swept furiously over Europe as revolutions, brought him in contact with the power or driving forces behind and responsible for these upheavals. According to the Historical Materialism of Marx and Engels, in order to intelligently explain the social and political life of capitalist society, the economy or industrial structure of that society must be first investigated and its origin, motive forces, laws and course of development explained. To this task Marx devoted himself during the years of his exile in London, an exile which lasted until his death, with an industry, enthusiasm and disinterestedness truly unparalleled in the history of modern science. As Klara Zetkin so symbolically states: "He devoted himself to this task with the bee-like industry and the patience of the scientist and the revolutionary fervour of the Socialist." The first fruits of his labor were contained in his "Zur Kritik der politischen Oekonomie" ("Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy"), published in 1859, a book which was but a preliminary study of or an introduction to his greatest work "Das Kapital" ("Capital").
The first volume of "Capital" appeared in 1867. It would be the height of folly to even attempt to give a somewhat comprehensive review of this monumental work in these lectures. I will, however, as a conclusion of this lecture, attempt to present to you a rough but in no form exhaustive resumé of this masterwork, embracing the fundamental or quintessential principles upon which the theoretical structure of "Capital" is predicated, and which to-day are acclaimed as axiomatic truths of the Socialist philosophy. A knowledge of these philosophical and economic principles is absolutely indispensable and imperative to an intelligent understanding and appreciation of "Capital," and certainly a substantial aid in the study of the work. In the last half of my next and last lecture, I will endeavor to present to you an outline of a reading and Study course for the works of Marx, and let me emphasize here that a methodical and well-directed study of writings about and by Marx is also essential for a proper comprehension of "Capital."
To recapitulate part of my first lecture, in "Capital" Marx, in his search for the basic and causal conditions underlying the production and exchange of wealth in capitalist society, continued the labors started by the classics of bourgeois political economy, of whom Wm. Petty, Adam Smith and Ricardo are distinguished representatives, by dissecting the prevailing mode of production into its most elementary parts. He found that private property in the means of production is the cornerstone and historic peculiarity of capitalist society. With the aid of the Materialist Conception of History, he analyzed the social and historical position of the proletariat society, and was able to formulate the principles and tactics for this class in its struggle against the bourgeoisie. By fixing the status of the worker in present society and also exposing the surplus-value creating faculties of labor-power; by classifying the worker as a commodity—a living commodity that produces more than it consumes—Marx laid bare the source and magnitude of capitalist exploitation, and the social and historical function and significance of capital. By thus uncovering the origin of capitalist society and defining the nature of its economic laws; by pointing out and underscoring the transitoriness of and ever changing forms in the structure of the mode of production, and the inevitable consequences of competition and surplus-value appropriation, he entered an indictment of fact against capitalist society and proclaimed the ultimate collapse of this most "perfect" of all systems. Marx significantly and with the aid of his dialectical method, a method which you will recollect he had taken over from Hegel, pointed out that a system which originally started with private individual property had rapidly developed into a system of private social property, and was bound—through the dynamic force of class-antagonisms—to culminate into a system of collective social property. In other words, he was forced to conclude that the social character of production was bound to be supplemented by a social system of distribution, and this change was only possible through the abolition of the cornerstone and bedrock of capitalist exploitation—private property in the means of production. The negation or antithesis of private property Marx found in social property or—Socialism; and the negation or contradiction of the class struggle he located in the abolition of all classes and class prerogatives based on any form of property. To illustrate these philosophical deductions: Just as day implies the approach of night, and life portends death; just as truth is born by the lie, and virtue is but the creature of sin; just as morality is measured with the yardstick of immorality, and the law is but the product of an unlawful act; just as the city or town foreshadowed the province, and the province the nation; so the nation implies the inter-nation; capitalism finds its contradiction in Socalism; and private property, in its growing social aspects, must culminate into social property: thus ending the class struggle with the inauguration of a social peace based on economic equality. In the past the class struggle found its culmination in the victory and supremacy of various economic classes, however, these classes were always swept into power by virtue of certain economic might and holdings, and always asserted their victory to the detriment of a subject class. The victory of the proletariat is the first victory in which the vanquished class will at the same time become part of the victor class, because this victory is the last phase of the class struggle and announces the victory of society over class rule. Different from all previous struggles in the evolution of mankind, the battle of the proletariat is not a battle for proletarian supremacy over capitalist supremacy—a supremacy which is to be asserted at the expense and subjugation of another economic class; the victory of the proletariat does not imply the rule of the proletariat over a subject class, because the victory of the proletariat implies the emancipation of the lowest class in society, the abolition of all property prerogatives, and spells the victory, not of a class, but of society,
With "Capital" "Marx rendered an analysis of capitalist production unequalled in profundity and thoroughness by any previous or subsequent economist. To the true scientist "Capital" very quickly came to be considered a treasure island of political economy; and to the working class it was and is to this day the intellectual compass, with which the capitalist mode of production through its unique exponent, Karl Marx, has equipped the proletariat in its fight for the liberation of society from class rule.