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KARL MARX The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte
KARL MARX The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte
Rahul Foundation Lucknow
ISBN 978-81-906235-2-0
First Edition: January, 2008 This Edition: 2021 Published by: Rahul Foundation 69 A-1, Baba ka Purwa, Paper Mill Road, Nishatgunj, Lucknow-226006 Cover Design: Rambabu Typesetting: Computer Division, Rahul Foundation
Main Distributor: Janchetna, D-68, Nirala Nagar, Lucknow-226020 Phone: 0522-4108495, Email:
[email protected] Website: janchetnabooks.org The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte by Karl Marx
PUBLISHER’S NOTE The present English edition of Karl Marx’s The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte is reprinted from the first edition published by the Foreign Languages Press, Peking in 1978. It substantially follows previous English translations. Certain adjustments of wording and style based on a check with the original have been made by the FLP. The footnotes and notes at the end of the book are based on those in the Chinese and previous English editions and have been compiled by the FLP. —Rahul Foundation 25.12.2007
CONTENTS AUTHOR’S PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION
13
F. ENGELS’ PREFACE TO THE THIRD GERMAN EDITION
17
THE EIGHTEENTH BRUMAIRE OF LOUIS BONAPARTE
19
I
19
II
28
III
40
IV
54
V
65
VI
82
VII
102
NOTES
117
THE EIGHTEENTH BRUMAIRE OF LOUIS BONAPARTE1
Written between December 1851 and March 1852 Published as the first issue of the magazine Die Revolution, New York, 1852
Original in German
AUTHOR’S PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION My friend Joseph Weydemeyer,* whose death was so untimely, intended to publish a political weekly in New York starting from January 1, 1852. He invited me to provide this magazine with a history of the coup d’état. So, until the middle of February, I wrote him weekly articles under the title: The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte. Meanwhile Weydemeyer’s original plan had fallen through. Instead, in the spring of 1852 he began to publish a monthly, Die Revolution, the first number of which consists of my Eighteenth Brumaire. A few hundred copies of this found their way into Germany at that time, without, however, getting into the actual book trade. A German bookseller of extremely radical pretensions whom I approached for sales was filled with righteous horror at such an “illtimed proposition.” From the above facts it will be seen that the present work took shape under the immediate pressure of events and its historical material does not extend beyond the month of February (1852). Its republication now is due partly to the demand of the book trade, and partly to the urgent requests of my friends in Germany. Among the writings dealing with the same subject at * Military commandant of the St. Louis district during the American Civil War. [Note by Marx.]
Author’s Precace to the Second Edition / 13
approximately the same time as mine, there are only two which deserve notice: Victor Hugo’s Napoléon le Petit [Napoleon the Little] and Proudhon’s Coup d’État. Victor Hugo confines himself to bitter and witty invective against the man who was responsible for the coup d’état. The event itself appears in his work like a bolt from the blue. He sees in it only the violent act of a single individual. He does not notice that he makes this individual great instead of little by ascribing to him a personal power of initiative, which would be unparalleled in world history. Proudhon, for his part, seeks to represent the coup d’état as the result of the preceding historical development. Unnoticeably, however, his historical construction of the coup d’état becomes a historical apologia for its hero. Thus he falls into the error of our so-called objective historians. I, on the contrary, demonstrate how the class struggle in France created circumstances and relationships that made it possible for a grotesque and mediocre personality to play a hero’s part. A revision of the present work would have robbed it of its peculiar colouring. I have therefore confined myself to the mere correction of printer’s errors and to striking out allusions now no longer intelligible. The concluding words of my work: “But when the imperial mantle finally falls on the shoulders of Louis Bonaparte, the bronze statue of Napoleon will crash from the top of the Vendôme Column,” have already been fulfilled. Colonel Charras opened the attack on the Napoleon cult in his work on the campaign of 1815.2 Subsequently, particularly in the last few years, French literature has put an end to the Napoleon legend with the weapons of historical research, criticism, satire and wit. Outside France this violent breach with traditional popular belief, this tremendous mental revolution, has hardly been noticed and still less understood. Lastly, I hope that my work will contribute towards eliminating the school-taught phrase now current, particularly in Germany, of so-called Caesarism. In this superficial historical analogy the main point is forgotten, namely, that in ancient Rome the class struggle took place only within a privileged minority, between the free rich and the free poor, while the great productive mass of the population, 14 / The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte
the slaves, was merely the passive pedestal for these combatants. People forget Sismondi’s significant saying: The Roman proletariat lived at the expense of society, while modern society lives at the expense of the proletariat.3 The difference between the material, economic conditions of the ancient and the modern class struggles is so complete that the political figures produced by them can likewise have no more in common with one another than the Archbishop of Canterbury has with the High Priest Samuel. Karl Marx
London, June 23, 1869 Published in the second edition of Marx’s The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, Hamburg, July 1869
Original in German
Author’s Precace to the Second Edition / 15
ISBN 819062352-4
9 788190 623520