Strategy (48 page)

Marx was also trapped by a theoretical construct developed prior to the revolution that turned out, at first test, to be a poor guide to political practice. His theory offered a compelling narrative with which to address the proletariat and explain its true interests and historical role, on the ascendant and destined to outlast all others, but failed when considering the proletariat of 1848, small and politically immature, one class in a wider configuration, needing allies if it was to make any progress. There were four basic problems with his construct.

First, class had to be more than a social or economic category but an identity willingly accepted by its members. The proletariat had to be not just a class
in
itself, but also a self-aware political force, a class
for
itself. This was the problem of consciousness. The Manifesto referred to the eventual “moment of enthusiasm … in which this class fraternizes and fuses with society.” But would this class identity develop purely as a result of shared experiences and suffering, or depend on constant prompting by communists, or be forged, as at times Marx seemed to think in 1848, through the actual experience of revolution?

Second, consciousness-raising as a class required undermining the competing claims of nation and religion, yet for many workers there was no inconsistency with being a socialist, a patriot, and a Christian. Some of the most important revolutionary figures of the time, such as Mazzini and Kossuth, based their appeals first on nationalism. The cause of Polish emancipation from Russia was widely embraced, including by Marx. The Manifesto insisted on “the common interests of the proletariat independently of nationalism” but Marx was also well aware of national differences in terms of economic and political structures. Indeed he could generalize about national character in ways that would now be considered outrageous. Engels was even more prone to ethnic stereotypes.

Third, despite the Manifesto's claims of a developing polarization the class structure in 1848 was extremely complex. It contained groups who might be historically doomed but for the moment were very much alive. They made possible a wide range of political configurations and outcomes. Marx assumed that “the small manufacturers, merchants and rentiers, the handicraftsmen and the peasants, all these classes fall into the proletariat.”
¹⁷
But these groups did not necessarily identify with the urban working classes and had their own interests. The petit bourgeoisie were exasperating to Engels: “invariably full of bluster and loud protestations, at times even extreme as far as talking goes” but “faint-hearted, cautious and calculating” in the face of danger and then “aghast, alarmed and wavering” when matters became serious.
¹⁸
The peasants were particularly hard to call. Were they as nostalgic as the aristocrats for the old feudal order that was now slipping away, or were they being radicalized by new forms of rural ownership? The tension was evident in the Manifesto which presented the peasantry as reactionary and obsolete but then called for an alliance between workers and peasants in Germany. The artisans, petit bourgeoisie, shop-keepers, and landlords were also all present in significant numbers and with their own political views. Even the working classes in 1848 were a mixed grouping, far more likely to be found in small workshops than large factories, and so viewing mechanization as part of the problem
rather than a mark of progress, as a source of further misery more than a necessary stage in economic development. After the failed revolutions Marx blamed the degenerate lumpenproletariat for providing the militia to defeat the June uprising (although actually the mobile guard's social composition was representative of the wider working class).

Fourth, the greatest confusion came from the Manifesto's presumption that a bourgeois revolution must precede the proletarian. This would create the conditions for the growth of the proletariat and their consciousness of their capacity to take control of industrial society. But that was some way down the line. The immediate strategic implication was to urge the working classes to back the middle classes in their revolution. For the bourgeoisie, the course was clear. They could subvert and circumvent the established order through their entrepreneurial creativity. Eventually political affairs would catch up and find space for this dynamic class. There might be gain in this for the proletariat in the form of greater democracy. The promise, however, was not of opportunities for an evolutionary working-class advance but, if the theory was correct, further exploitation and immiseration. As Gottschalk put it when accusing Marx of finding the misery of the workers and the hunger of the poor a matter of only “scientific and doctrinaire interest,” why should the “men of the proletariat” make a revolution and spill their blood, to “escape the hell of the Middle Ages by precipitating ourselves voluntarily into the purgatory of decrepit capitalist rule in order to arrive at the cloudy heaven of your Communist Credo.”
¹⁹

After the economic distress, so eagerly anticipated in 1849, failed to materialize, Marx and Engels judged that uprisings were unlikely to succeed so long as the army remained loyal to the state. If one did succeed, possibly in France, then it could only survive if it triggered a response elsewhere and, most importantly, could put together a coalition of revolutionary countries to defeat the armies of the reactionaries. As Marx settled down to study political economy, Engels concentrated on military affairs in an effort to assess the potential balance of forces between revolutionary and counterrevolutionary countries. His approach was unsentimental and mechanical. “The more I mug up on war, the greater my contempt for heroism—a fatuous expression, heroism, and never heard on the lips of a proper soldier.”
²⁰
Engels doubted that a single country could reproduce Napoleon's early successes. The modern art of war, based on mobility and mass, was now “universally known.” Indeed
the French were no longer the “pre-eminent bearers” of this tradition. His conclusion was not encouraging. Superiority in strategy and tactics, Engels concluded, would not necessarily favor the revolution. A proletarian revolution would have its own military expression and give rise to new methods of warfare, reflecting the elimination of class distinctions. But this was likely, Engels assumed, to intensify rather than diminish the mass character and mobility of armies and was, at any rate, many years away. In the first instance, when it came to defending the revolution from internal enemies, the bulk of the army would still need to come from “the mob and the peasants.” In such a case, the revolution would adopt the means and methods of modern warfare. And so “the big battalions [would] win.” Marx respected Engels for his military knowledge but was far less inclined to stress the military factor over others. This became apparent during the American Civil War. Although both were frustrated with the North, Marx was always more confident that its superior material strength would win out in the end, while Engels worried about the Confederacy's superior mastery of military arts. In the summer of 1862, Engels was convinced that “it is all up,” but Marx disagreed, observing that “you let yourself be swayed a little too much by the military aspect of things.”
²¹

In June 1851, Engels wrote to Joseph Weydemeyer, a former military officer and close friend who later that year emigrated to the United States, explaining that he needed the “elementary knowledge … necessary to enable me to understand and correctly evaluate historical facts of a military nature.” This included maps and manuals. He asked for an opinion of Clausewitz and also of “Monsieur Jomini, of whom the French make such a fuss?”
²²
He read Clausewitz but found Jomini more reliable. In 1853, again writing to Weydemeyer, Engels described Prussian military literature as “positively the worst there is,” noting in particular that “despite many fine things, I can't really bring myself to like that natural genius, Clausewitz.”
²³
By 1857, he had warmed to Clausewitz despite his “strange way of philosophizing,” noting with approval Clausewitz's suggestion that fighting is to war what cash payment is to trade.
²⁴

The interest in military matters also reflected the split which ended the short life of the Communist League. This came in 1850 as a result of Marx's doubts about the imminence of revolution. The opposition was led by August von Willich, a former military officer described by Engels as a “brave, cold-blooded, skilful soldier” though a “boring ideologist.”
²⁵
In London, where the émigrés now congregated, Willich was more popular among exiles, sharing tavern life and optimistic talk of returning to liberate Germany. He presented himself as an impatient man of action compared to the elitist and patronizing “literary characters” like Marx and Engels. Whereas they seemed more
interested in reading than revolution, confining their work to education and propaganda, and were prepared to support a democratic push, Willich's followers had no interest in supporting bourgeois elements to power but aimed immediately for supreme power. Preparations for revolutionary war began, with drills, shooting practice, and a hierarchical, military-style organization.

Marx was always hostile to the view, most associated with Blanqui, that revolution was a matter of will and military skill as much as material conditions. There was no point urging people to fight against hopeless odds.
²⁶
“While we say to the workers, you have fifteen or twenty of fifty years of civil and national wars to go through, not just to alter conditions but to alter yourselves and qualify for political power,” Marx explained to Willich, “you on the contrary say: we must obtain power at once or we might as well lay ourselves down to sleep.”
²⁷
In September 1851, Marx wrote to Engels, reporting comments by Willich's colleague Gustav Techow on the lessons of the events of 1849.
²⁸
According to Techow, revolution could not work if confined to a single faction or even nation. It had to become general. Barricades could only signal popular resistance and test a government. Far more important was organization for proper war, which required a disciplined army: “This alone makes an offensive possible and it is only in the offensive that victory lies.” National constituent assemblies could not take responsibility because of their internal divisions, arguing about matters that could only be truly decided after victory and foolishly expecting an army to be democratic. Enthusiastic volunteers would stand little chance against disciplined and well-fed soldiers. The revolutionary army would need compulsion, “Iron rigor of discipline.” In Engels's dismissive assessment, Techow was postponing the struggle between different classes and perspectives until after the war. A military dictator would suppress internal politics. Yet Techow had no idea about how to recruit such a large army.
²⁹
A revolution in 1852 would be stuck on the defensive, confined to “empty proclamations” or doomed military expeditions.

In September 1952, Engels looked back to the Frankfurt-based German National Assembly from May 1849, which—with leftists and democrats largely in charge—had effectively challenged the three largest states of Austria, Prussia, and Bavaria. There was a strong movement for mass action, including insurrections in Dresden and Baden (in which Engels and Willich participated). The National Assembly might have called upon people to take up arms in its support. Instead it allowed the insurrections to be suppressed. These events prompted Engels to observe:

Now, insurrection is an art quite as much as war or any other, and subject to certain rules of proceeding, which, when neglected, will
produce the ruin of the party neglecting them…. Firstly, never play with insurrection unless you are fully prepared to face the consequences of your play. Insurrection is a calculus with very indefinite magnitudes, the value of which may change every day; the forces opposed to you have all the advantage of organization, discipline, and habitual authority: unless you bring strong odds against them you are defeated and ruined. Secondly, the insurrectionary career once entered upon, act with the greatest determination, and on the offensive. The defensive is the death of every armed rising; it is lost before it measures itself with its enemies. Surprise your antagonists while their forces are scattering, prepare new successes, however small, but daily; keep up the moral ascendancy which the first successful rising has given to you; rally those vacillating elements to your side which always follow the strongest impulse, and which always look out for the safer side; force your enemies to a retreat before they can collect their strength against you; in the words of Danton, the greatest master of revolutionary policy yet known, DE L'AUDACE, DE L'AUDACE, ENCORE DE L'AUDACE!
³⁰

The message was that once a revolutionary process had begun, it had to be sustained. It needed momentum and to stay on the offensive. Hesitate and all would be lost. The initial uprising would not be sufficient. The fight would have to be seen through to the complete defeat of the counterrevolution, which, of course, could require full-scale war with reactionary countries. Engels accepted the full logic of the war of annihilation, should the military course be chosen.

The question this raised, however, was what to do if this course led to certain defeat. If revolutionary strategy was a matter for cool calculation, this would argue for prudence and patience. But if revolutionary strategy was a matter of temperament, reflecting a deep commitment to transformational change as a matter of urgency, restraint could feel unbearable. Either way, as we shall see in the next chapter, radical politics could be intensely frustrating, either living with injustice while waiting for a moment when change might become possible, or else striking out against injustice even when the cause was hopeless.