Some notes after reading A Brief History of the International Communist Movement (1848–1917), to make it easier to remember

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Notes from June 26
Read a brief history of the international communist movement and saw the places connected to Marx and Engels’ activities from 1844 to 1848, including the struggle against Wilhelm Weitling, one of the main leaders of the League of the Just. Weitling came from a tailor’s-worker background and had also sharply exposed and criticized the brutal exploitation and oppression of workers under capitalist society, turning his spearhead against the capitalist system; however, he opposed organized mass movements and the establishment of a proletarian revolutionary party, and pinned his hopes on the uprising of some vagabonds, beggars, a handful of lumpenproletarians. It also discussed Marx and Engels’ struggle against the German 「true socialism」, which in fact represented petty-bourgeois socialist ideas. This so-called socialism preached class-transcending love and talked about eternal justice, fraternity, and humanity, but in reality it was promoting class reconciliation and trying to induce the working class to abandon the struggle. Through the 「Circular Against Kriege」, Marx and Engels exposed the reactionary nature of petty-bourgeois socialism. Later, in June 1846, Engels confronted Grün in Paris in a fierce debate, where he expounded the basic principles of scientific communism and ultimately prevailed.

Brief History of the International Communist Movement (1848-1917) (Department of Political Education, Shanghai Normal University, Compilation Group for Brief History of the International Communist Movement) (Z-Library).pdf (13.8 MB)

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Notes from June 27

I saw something about the revolutions of 1848 in Europe. What I remember is the French February Revolution. When the French bourgeoisie, under threats and warnings from the feudal government, did not dare to hold the originally planned political assembly on February 22, the workers of Paris courageously took to the streets to strike and demonstrate. The reactionary military and police carried out repression, and that same evening the workers began building barricades and launched an uprising. By the 24th, they had occupied all of Paris’s arms depots and, shouting slogans like „Down with Louis Philippe“ and „Long live the Republic,“ stormed the royal palace and even had the king’s throne transported directly to the Place de la Bastille Memorial, where it was burned.

The French bourgeoisie usurped the fruits of the workers’ revolution and formed a provisional government. The petty-bourgeois socialist Louis Blanc and the worker Albert entered the provisional government as representatives of the workers, but they had no real power. They became the so-called co-chairs of the Luxembourg Commission, supposedly mediating labor disputes, but in fact with no actual authority and no operating funds at all — completely a tool for deceiving and confusing the workers. Louis Blanc himself was also quite reactionary, advocating some kind of classless alliance and fraternal unity, telling workers to cooperate with the bourgeoisie. Once in power, the bourgeois provisional government’s first move was also to disarm the workers. It reorganized the National Guard, brought in hooligans as thugs to suppress the masses, and cunningly sowed division between workers and peasants, and between workers and other intermediate strata, by setting up so-called national workshops and forcing peasants and small producers to pay higher taxes, saying it was to support the workers in the national workshops. Then, in June 1848, it moved to dissolve the national workshops, throwing 100,000 workers straight into unemployment and threatening them with starvation and death, which triggered the workers’ uprising. Forty thousand workers built barricades and fought against 200,000 well-equipped regular troops. Although they ultimately failed, it also proved the bankruptcy of so-called petty-bourgeois socialism.

There were also the two major German states: in Vienna, Austria, and Berlin, Prussia, mass uprisings broke out on March 13, 1848 in succession, and both achieved victory, but in each case the bourgeoisie usurped the fruits of the revolution. I also remember that in June 1847, Marx and Engels reorganized the League of the Just into the Communist League, clearly proposing the overthrow of bourgeois rule and the establishment of socialist and communist society, and that the Communist Manifesto co-written by Marx and Engels in February 1848 was the program of the Communist League. Its main points were that class struggle is the driving force in the development of class society; that capitalism is bound to perish and socialism is bound to win; that the proletariat bears the great historical mission of overthrowing capitalism and realizing socialism and communism; that for the proletariat to fulfill this historical mission it must carry out proletarian revolution and proletarian dictatorship; and that the leadership of the Communist Party is the fundamental guarantee for the proletariat to fulfill its historical mission. I also remember it was said that Marx and Engels directly took part in the 1848 revolution, founding the Neue Rheinische Zeitung on June 1, and that members of the Communist League were also dispersed throughout Germany as the backbone and organizers of the revolutionary movement. Engels also directly took part in the uprising in the Palatinate in southwest Germany in 1849, although it was suppressed

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The French Revolution of 1848 and the German Revolution were both ruined by the servile bourgeoisie and the vacillating, treacherous petty bourgeoisie. After the bourgeoisie seized power, it betrayed the revolution; the petty bourgeoisie posed as the leader of the people and usurped the leadership of the revolution, but at the most critical moment it too vacillated and betrayed it. In France this was the republican bourgeoisie and Louis Blanc; in Germany, the liberal bourgeois elements in the Frankfurt Assembly and the petty-bourgeois democrats. This shows that the propertied classes are, in the final analysis, weak, conservative, and even reactionary; they are incapable of carrying the democratic revolution through to the end. Only the proletariat can shoulder this task. As for the socialist revolution, it is even more the case that it can be carried out only under the direct leadership of the proletariat itself.

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Notes from June 28

Later, I read a brief history of the international communist movement and saw that Born, inside the Communist League, was doing the whole thing about workers’ brotherhoods and the idea that everyone is a brother. He represented a right-leaning line and even advocated forming workers’ production cooperatives and some kind of credit institutions, claiming that socialism and communism could be brought about spontaneously without violent revolution or intense struggle, by simply eliminating the bourgeoisie. Engels then sharply condemned this as a mixture of the views of the Communist Manifesto with scraps of guild wishes and habits, the views of Louis Blanc and Proudhon, and a protectionist stance. Then there was Gottschalk, who was pushing a left-leaning line within the League, opposing the alliance of the proletariat and the democrats in the 1848 German revolution, even opposing an alliance with the peasants, and simply wanting to establish a workers’ republic. Marx and Engels criticized him seriously at the meeting, and he even said that the League’s statutes threatened his personal freedom, insisting on quitting the League — a purely individualist anarchist act, and openly factional.

Because after the failure of the 1848 revolution, the bourgeoisie came to power or participated in politics by seizing the fruits of the people’s revolution and joining forces with the large landowners, capitalist relations of production developed by more or less overcoming the barriers of feudal society. The economic crisis of 1847 had passed, and the capitalist economy had begun to enjoy a general boom again. In this situation, a new revolutionary upsurge would not come right away, and the Communist League needed to change its strategy of struggle, shifting from launching revolution to accumulating revolutionary forces. As a result, after Marx and Engels publicly put forward the correct line, the Central Committee members Willich and Schapper in the Communist League opposed it. They even directly drew in some members and formed an entire opposing faction. They were afraid of the hard work of accumulating revolutionary forces, and disregarded the reality of the temporary ebb of the revolution, trying to use adventurist methods and unite with petty-bourgeois democrats to stage a new uprising in Germany. At the 1850 Central Committee meeting, Marx and Engels fought firmly against their mistakes, but they still refused to repent and continued to cling to the wrong line. They even set up a separate Central Committee and openly created a split, causing a very bad influence. Marx and Engels were forced to move the committee from London to Cologne. The bourgeois governments of Germany and France colluded with each other and took the opportunity to hatch the Cologne Communist trial. German police agents even infiltrated the Communist League organization in France and seized leadership. The reactionaries intensified their repression of the communist movement, and a more mature proletarian organization was needed to lead the temporarily setback workers’ movement. So on November 17, 1852, at Marx’s proposal, the Communist League announced its dissolution.

I also read Marx and Engels’ summary of the practical experience of the 1848 revolution. What I remember roughly are three points: first, the proletariat’s battle cry is permanent revolution. After carrying out the tasks of the bourgeois democratic revolution, the proletariat should not stop, but must immediately prepare to overthrow bourgeois rule and carry out the proletarian revolution. The question is not to change private ownership, but to abolish it; second, the proletariat must thoroughly smash the bourgeois state machine and establish the dictatorship of the proletariat. This was also a lesson drawn from the French February Revolution: the state machine should not continue to be handed from one section of the bourgeoisie to another, but should be smashed, and the workers should establish their own government, armed forces, and courts; third, a worker-peasant alliance must be built, also as a lesson from the isolation of the proletariat in the French June uprising.

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