Why Did Marx Declare the Revolution Permanent?
The Tactical Principles of the Manifesto
In: Historical MaterialismSearch for other papers by Lars T. Lih in
Current site
Google Scholar
Abstract
Why did Marx declare the revolution permanent? A careful examination of the celebrated passages from March 1850 in their immediate rhetorical context shows that he intended to affirm the tactical principles laid down earlier in the Communist Manifesto – as opposed to standard ‘anti-stagist’ interpretations that present the Permanenz locution of 1850 as a break with these principles. Among such principles: keeping eyes firmly fixed on the prize – the permanent final goal of a complete overhaul of society – is essential to maintaining a proper perspective on history’s way-stations, that is, the necessary but subordinate revolutionary tasks and allies; and public declaration of the permanent goal is essential for preserving the independence of the workers’ movement and thus for carrying out the proletariat’s world-historical mission of creating a classless society.
Purchase
Buy instant access (PDF download and unlimited online access):
Institutional Login
Log in with Open Athens, Shibboleth, or your institutional credentials
Personal login
Log in with your brill.com account
-
Cowling, Mark and James Martin (eds.) 2002, Marx’s ‘Eighteenth Brumaire’: (Post)modern Interpretations, London: Pluto Press.
-
Davidson, Neil 2012, How Revolutionary Were the Bourgeois Revolutions?, Chicago: Haymarket Books.
-
Draper, Hal 1978, Karl Marx’s Theory of Revolution, Volume 2, The Politics of Social Classes, New York: Monthly Review Press.
-
Draper, Hal 1990, Karl Marx’s Theory of Revolution, Volume 4, Critique of Other Socialisms, New York: Monthly Review Press.
-
Engels, Friedrich 1847a, ‘The Prussian Constitution’, in Marx/Engels Collected Works, Volume 6, p. 71; Marx–Engels–Werke, Volume 4, p. 35.
-
Engels, Friedrich 1847b, ‘Draft of a Communist Confession of Faith’, in Marx/Engels Collected Works, Volume 6, pp. 96–104.
-
Engels, Friedrich 1847c, ‘Principles of Communism’, in Marx/Engels Collected Works, Volume 6, pp. 341–357; Marx–Engels–Werke, Volume 4, pp. 361–380.
-
Engels, Friedrich 1848, ‘The Struggle in Vienna’, in Marx/Engels Collected Works, Volume 7, pp. 503–506; Marx–Engels–Werke, Volume 5, pp. 451–452.
-
Engels, Friedrich 1849, ‘The Magyar Struggle’, in Marx/Engels Collected Works, Volume 8, pp. 227–228; Marx–Engels–Werke, Volume 6, p. 166.
-
Engels, Friedrich 1874, ‘Program of the Blanquist Commune Refugees’, in Marx/Engels Collected Works, Volume 24, pp. 12–18; Marx–Engels–Werke, Volume 18, p. 533.
-
Engels, Friedrich 1885, ‘Marx and the Neue Rheinische Zeitung (1848–1849)’, in Marx/ Engels Collected Works, Volume 26, pp. 120–128; Marx–Engels–Werke, Volume 21, p. 21.
-
Engels, Friedrich 1895, ‘Introduction to Class Struggles in France’, in Marx/Engels Collected Works, Volume 27, pp. 506–524; Marx–Engels–Werke, Volume 7, pp. 511–530.
-
Findlay, M.N. (ed.) 2004, The Communist Manifesto, Toronto: Broadview Editions.
-
Freiheit, Arbeit 1972 [1849], reprint n.p.: Verlag Detlev Auvermann KG.
-
Hammen, Oscar J. 1969, The Red ’48ers: Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.
-
Hobsbawm, Eric 2011, How to Change the World: Reflections on Marx and Marxism, London: Little, Brown.
-
Larsson, Reidar 1970, Theories of Revolution: From Marx to the First Russian Revolution, Stockholm: Almqvist and Wiksell.
-
Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich 1905, ‘O vremennom revoliutsionnom pravitel’stve’, in Polnoe sobranie, sochinenii, Fifth Edition, 10: 227–250.
-
Leopold, David 2007, The Young Karl Marx: German Philosophy, Modern Politics, and Human Flourishing, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
-
Lih, Lars T. 2006, Lenin Rediscovered: ‘What Is to Be Done?’ in Context, Historical Materialism Book Series, Leiden: Brill.
-
Löwy, Michael 2010 [1981], The Politics of Combined and Uneven Development: The Theory of Permanent Revolution, Abridged Edition, Chicago: Haymarket Books.
-
Marx, Karl 1843, ‘On the Jewish Question’, in Marx/Engels Collected Works, Volume 3, p. 156; Marx–Engels–Werke, Volume 1, p. 337.
-
Marx, Karl 1847a, The Poverty of Philosophy, in Marx/Engels Collected Works, Volume 6, p. 212; Marx–Engels–Werke, Volume 4, pp. 181–182.
-
Marx, Karl 1847b, ‘The Communism of the Rheinischer Beobachter’, in Marx/Engels Collected Works, Volume 6, pp. 220–234; Marx–Engels–Werke, Volume 4, pp. 191–206.
-
Marx, Karl 1849, ‘Montesquieu LXX’, in Marx/Engels Collected Works, Volume 8, pp. 254–267; Marx–Engels–Werke, Volume 6, pp. 182–196.
-
Marx, Karl 1850a, Class Struggles in France (‘Consequences of June 13, 1849’), in Marx/Engels Collected Works, Volume 10, pp. 101–131; Marx–Engels–Werke, Volume 7, pp. 64–94.
-
Marx, Karl 1850b, ‘Declaration to Lüning’, in Marx/Engels Collected Works, Volume 10, pp. 387–388; Marx–Engels–Werke, Volume 7, pp. 323–324.
-
Marx, Karl 1852, The 18th Brumaire of Louis Napoleon, in Cowling and Martin (eds.) 2002.
-
Marx, Karl and Friedrich Engels 1844, The Holy Family, in Marx/Engels Collected Works, Volume 4, pp. 121–124; Marx–Engels–Werke, Volume 2, pp. 128–132.
-
Marx, Karl and Friedrich Engels 1848, Communist Manifesto, in Marx/Engels Collected Works, Volume 6; Marx–Engels–Werke, Volume 4, pp. 459–491.
-
Marx, Karl and Friedrich Engels 1850, ‘Address of the Central Authority to the League’ (March Address), in Marx/Engels Collected Works, Volume 10, pp. 277–287; Marx–Engels–Werke, Volume 7, pp. 244–254.
-
Marx, Karl and Friedrich Engels 1957–2018, Marx–Engels–Werke, 44 volumes, Berlin: Dietz Verlag.
-
Marx, Karl and Friedrich Engels 1975–2004, Marx/Engels Collected Works, 50 volumes, New York: International Publishers.
-
McLellan, David 1973, Karl Marx: His Life and Thought, New York: Harper and Row.
-
Noyes, P.H. 1966, Organization and Revolution: Working-Class Associations in the German Revolutions of 1848–1849, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
-
Ryazanoff, David 1963 [1922], The Communist Manifesto of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, New York: Russell and Russell.
-
Saccarelli, Emanuele 2015, ‘The Permanent Revolution in and around the Manifesto’, in The Cambridge Companion to the Communist Manifesto, edited by Terrell Carver and James Farr, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
-
Schapper, Karl 1847a, ‘Introduction to Communist Journal’, in Findlay (ed.) 2004, pp. 126–133.
-
Schapper, Karl 1847b, ‘The Prussian Diet and the Prussian Proletariat, together with the Proletariat throughout Germany’, in Ryazanoff 1963, pp. 298–312.
-
Schwarz, Solomon M. 1967, The Russian Revolution of 1905: The Worker’s Movement and the Formation of Bolshevism and Menshevism, translated by Gertrude Vakar, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
-
September Debates in Communist League 1850, in Marx/Engels Collected Works, Volume 10, pp. 625–630.
-
Shandro, Alan 2013, ‘Revolutionary Theory and Political Agency’, Science & Society, 77, 3: 404–411.
-
Sperber, Jonathan 2013, Karl Marx: A Nineteenth-Century Life, New York: Liveright Publishing Corporation.
-
van Ree, Erik 2013, ‘Marxism as Permanent Revolution’, History of Political Thought, 34, 3: 540–563.
| All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 1698 | 141 | 10 |
| Full Text Views | 223 | 17 | 2 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 446 | 46 | 5 |
Why Did Marx Declare the Revolution Permanent?
The Tactical Principles of the Manifesto
In: Historical MaterialismSearch for other papers by Lars T. Lih in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
Abstract
Why did Marx declare the revolution permanent? A careful examination of the celebrated passages from March 1850 in their immediate rhetorical context shows that he intended to affirm the tactical principles laid down earlier in the Communist Manifesto – as opposed to standard ‘anti-stagist’ interpretations that present the Permanenz locution of 1850 as a break with these principles. Among such principles: keeping eyes firmly fixed on the prize – the permanent final goal of a complete overhaul of society – is essential to maintaining a proper perspective on history’s way-stations, that is, the necessary but subordinate revolutionary tasks and allies; and public declaration of the permanent goal is essential for preserving the independence of the workers’ movement and thus for carrying out the proletariat’s world-historical mission of creating a classless society.
| All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 1698 | 141 | 10 |
| Full Text Views | 223 | 17 | 2 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 446 | 46 | 5 |
