Marx as the Historical Materialist: Re-reading The Eighteenth Brumaire*
In: Historical MaterialismSearch for other papers by Massimiliano Tomba in
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Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to re-read Marx’s Eighteenth Brumaire by highlighting the political meaning of a materialist historiography. In the first part, I consider Marx’s historiographical and political intention to represent the history of the aftermath of the revolution of ’48 as a farce in order to liquidate ‘any faith in the superstitious past’. In the second part I analyse the theatrical register chosen by Marx in order to represent the Second Empire as a society without a body, a phantasmagoria in which the Constitution, the National Assembly and law – in short, everything that the middle class had put up as essential principles of modern democracy – disappear. In the third part I argue that Marx does not elaborate a theory of revolution that is good for every occasion. What interests him is a historiography capable of grasping, in the various temporalities of the revolution, the chance for a true liberation.
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Cowling Mark & Martin James Marx’s Eighteenth Brumaire: (Post)Modern Interpretations 2002 London Pluto Press
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de Certeau Michel La scrittura dell’altro 2005 Milan Raffaello Cortina Editore
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Fietkau Wolfgang Schwanengesang auf 1848. Ein Rendezvous am Louvre: Baudelaire, Marx, Proudhon und Victor Hugo 1978 Hamburg Rowohlt
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James Cyril Lionel Robert Austin David ‘Marx’s The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte and the Caribbean’ You Don’t Play with Revolution 2009 Oakland AK Press
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Kouvelakis Stathis Goshgarian G.M. Philosophy and Revolution: From Kant to Marx 2003 London Verso
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Martin James Cowling & Martin ‘Performing Politics: Class, Ideology and Discourse in Marx’s Eighteenth Brumaire’ 2002 2002
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1.
Marx 1975, p. 115; English translation in Marx 1974a, p. 146. See also the new German edition with a commentary by Hauke Brunkhorst: Marx 2007a. On the formula tragedy-farce and comedy, see Marx 2007a, pp. 207–11.
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7.
See Marx and Engels 1985, Apparat, p. 679.
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8.
The term was born in July 1850, the year of publication of the work by Auguste Romieu, L’Ère des Cèsars. See also, for bibliographical references regarding this term, Cassina 2001, pp. 18, 41, n. 4.
-
10.
Marx 1975, p. 559; Marx 1974a, p. 144.
-
11.
Marx 1975, p. 560; Marx 1974a, p. 144.
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13.
Marx 1975, pp. 191–2; Marx 1974a, p. 146.
-
14.
See Neocleous 2005.
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15.
Marx 1975, p. 117; Marx 1974a, p. 149.
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16.
de Certeau 2005, p. 112.
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17.
de Certeau 2005, p. 113.
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18.
de Certeau 2005, p. 114.
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19.
Marx 1975, p. 117; Marx 1974a, p. 149.
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20.
Marx 1975, p. 174; Marx 1974a, pp. 211–12.
-
21.
Marx 1975, p. 136; Marx 1974a, p. 171.
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22.
Marx and Engels 1978, p. 473.
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24.
Marx 1975, p. 116; Marx 1974a, p. 148.
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26.
Marx 1992, p. 247. In a letter to Arnold Ruge of March 1843, Marx was already using the image of tragedy and comedy in relation to historical facts: cf. Marx and Engels 1974, pp. 337–8.
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27.
Marx 1992, pp. 247–8.
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29.
Osborne 1998, p. 198: ‘If Dadaism was an attempt to match the effects of film within the (technically obsolete) medium of painting, so the Manifesto may be understood as an attempt to invent a literary form of political communication appropriate to a period of mass politics on an international scale’.
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31.
White 1973, p. 320. According to White, Marx utilises ‘two fundamentally linguistic protocols, Metonymical on the one hand and Synecdochic on the other’ (White 1973, p. 310). Adamson discusses the writings of White, integrating these with his own interpretation of the co-presence of four historical registers in Marx: ‘anthropological’, ‘pragmatological’, ‘historiographic’ and ‘nomological’: cf. Adamson 1981, pp. 400–1.
-
33.
Marx 1975, p. 115; Marx 1974a, p. 146.
-
34.
Marx 1975, p. 116; Marx 1974a, p. 148.
-
35.
Marx 1975, p. 115; Marx 1974a, p. 147.
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40.
Marx 1975, p. 199; Marx 1974a, p. 239.
-
41.
Marx 1975, p. 203; Marx 1974a, p. 244.
-
42.
Marx 1975, p. 116; Marx 1974a, p. 148.
-
43.
Marx 1975, p. 163; Marx 1974a, p. 199.
-
45.
Marx 1975, p. 161; Marx 1974a, p. 197.
-
46.
Marx 1975, p. 163; Marx 1974a, p. 199.
-
47.
Marx 1975, p. 169; Marx 1974a, p. 207.
-
48.
Marx 1975, p. 119; Marx 1974a, p. 151.
-
49.
Marx 1975, p. 148; Marx 1974a, p. 184.
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50.
See instead Mehlman 1977, p. 13.
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51.
Marx 1975, p. 119; Marx 1974a, p. 149.
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53.
Marx 1975, p. 136; Marx 1974a, p. 171: ‘If any section of history has been painted grey on grey, it is this. Men and events appear as Schlemihls in reverse, as shadows which have become detached from their bodies.’
-
54.
Marx 1975, p. 163; Marx 1974a, p. 171.
-
55.
Marx 1975, p. 121; Marx 1974a, p. 153.
-
56.
Marx 1975, p. 146; Marx 1974a, p. 181.
-
57.
Marx 1975, p. 128; Marx 1974a, p. 162.
-
58.
Marx 1975, p. 130; Marx 1974a, p. 163.
-
59.
Benjamin 2007, p. 257. On Marx’s ‘state of siege’ and Schmitt’s concept of ‘state of exception’, see Brunkhorst in Marx 2007a, p. 273.
-
60.
Marx 1975, p. 173; Marx 1974a, p. 211.
-
61.
Marx 1975, p. 190; Marx 1974a, p. 231.
-
62.
Marx 1975, p. 174; Marx 1974a, p. 212.
-
63.
Marx 1975, p. 126; Marx 1974a, pp. 159–60.
-
64.
Marx 1975, p. 127; Marx 1974a, p. 161.
-
65.
de Tocqueville 2011.
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66.
James 2009, p. 129.
-
67.
Marx 1975, p. 183; Marx 1974a, p. 223.
-
68.
Marx 1975, p. 188; Marx 1974a, p. 228.
-
69.
Marx 1975, pp. 135–6; Marx 1974a, pp. 169–70.
-
70.
Marx 1975, p. 136; Marx 1974a, p. 170.
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71.
Bensaïd 1995, p. 192. The event, continues Bensaïd, is the antithesis of the cinerary, it is the ‘living, that, exceptionally, extraordinarily, mysteriously, resuscitates the dead.’ (ibid.).
-
72.
Marx 1975, p. 120; Marx 1974a, p. 153.
-
74.
Marx 1975, p. 197; Marx 1974a, p. 238.
-
75.
Tomba 2009, pp. 55–6.
-
76.
Hall 1977, p. 52.
-
77.
Mason 1966, p. 484.
-
78.
Marx 1975, p. 197; Marx 1974a, p. 238.
-
79.
Marx 1975, p. 196; Marx 1974a, p. 237.
-
80.
Marx 1975, p. 197; Marx 1974a, p. 238. In a letter to Ludwig Kugelmann of 12 April 1871, Marx confirmed this same idea with regard to the events of the Commune, recalling The Eighteenth Brumaire: ‘If you look at the last chapter of my Eighteenth Brumaire you will find that I say that the next attempt of the French revolution will be no longer, as before, to transfer the bureaucratic-military machine from one hand to another, but to smash it, and this is essential for every real people’s revolution on the Continent.’ From Padover (ed.) 1979, p. 280.
-
81.
Marx 1975, p. 118; Marx 1974a, p. 150.
-
84.
Marx 1975, p. 119; Marx 1974a, p. 151.
-
85.
Marx 1975, p. 118; Marx 1974a, p. 150.
-
86.
Lefort 1986. Some, like Peter Hayes, propose reading Marx’s writings on the class struggle in France as a revision of the polarising perspective of the Manifesto that tends toward a circular paradigm of the class structure instead. The analysis of Hayes has interesting aspects, especially in relation to the declining classes and their composition in the dynamic of the class struggle with the proletariat or the bourgeoisie, but ends up in turn with a schematicism that the flexibility of the circular structure of class cannot compensate for. Hayes 1993, pp. 99–123.
-
87.
Marx 1975, p. 203; Marx 1974a, p. 244.
-
89.
Marx 1975, p. 203; Marx 1974a, p. 244.
-
90.
Marx 1975, p. 117; Marx 1974a, p. 149.
-
92.
Marx 1975, p. 115; Marx 1974a, p. 146.
-
93.
Marx 1975, p. 139; Marx 1974a, p. 174.
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Marx as the Historical Materialist: Re-reading The Eighteenth Brumaire*
In: Historical MaterialismSearch for other papers by Massimiliano Tomba in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to re-read Marx’s Eighteenth Brumaire by highlighting the political meaning of a materialist historiography. In the first part, I consider Marx’s historiographical and political intention to represent the history of the aftermath of the revolution of ’48 as a farce in order to liquidate ‘any faith in the superstitious past’. In the second part I analyse the theatrical register chosen by Marx in order to represent the Second Empire as a society without a body, a phantasmagoria in which the Constitution, the National Assembly and law – in short, everything that the middle class had put up as essential principles of modern democracy – disappear. In the third part I argue that Marx does not elaborate a theory of revolution that is good for every occasion. What interests him is a historiography capable of grasping, in the various temporalities of the revolution, the chance for a true liberation.
| All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 3053 | 271 | 40 |
| Full Text Views | 773 | 36 | 6 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 954 | 76 | 13 |
