How did Alexander Herzen and Karl Marx see the revolutions of 1848?

Alexander Herzen, by Sergei Lvovich Levitsky, 1860

In 1848, a series of revolutions swept across Europe, fuelled by a raging desire for political and social change. Alexander Herzen and Karl Marx played a prominent role in analysing and commenting on these events. Herzen, a Russian philosopher and writer, believed in the potential for a social revolution for a more just society, while Marx, a German political theorist, saw the revolutions as an opportunity for the proletariat to seize political power. Both men depict the 1848 revolutions as serious defeats for the proletariat, who were unable to enact real change due to outdated bourgeois characteristics and a lack of revolutionary spirit. This led to disillusionment within Herzen, whose outlook for the future of Europe remained bleak. In contrast, Marx remained optimistic about the future of socialism as he saw the 1848 revolutions as part of the development of the proletariat.

In Herzen’s first-hand account of the French Revolution of 1848 in From the Other Shore, he blames all revolutionaries for not taking action and becoming too focused on ideals and universal principles. Herzen claims that the revolutionaries are ‘only interested in the Universal, the Idea, Humanity’ and furiously questions whether they are ‘scared of the revolution?’.[1] Thus, Herzen’s explanation of the failure of the Revolution was neither political nor economic, but ideological. In 1851, Herzen further expresses horror and disappointment with the people of the 19th century whom he characterizes with a ‘lack of passion and feebleness of thought’.[2] He blames this on the ‘sickroom atmosphere’ in which they were born and bred which led to a lack of revolutionary spirit and conservatism, showing that the ideological failure was based on historical precedent meaning the people of the time were doomed to fail.[3]

Photograph of Karl Marx by John Mayall, 187

Similarly, Marx writes about the failures of the 1848 revolutions, notably labelling the 1848 French Revolution as a ‘farce’.[4] Marx compares the French Revolution of 1848 to that of 1779 and notes how the ‘Frenchmen could not rid themselves of the Napoleonic memory’ which led to the rise of Louis Bonaparte and the return of the old, oppressive system of power.[5] This was due to the French inability to use the ‘ghost of the old revolution’ as a way of glorifying new struggles rather than parodying the old, which led to a repetition of the past rather than change grounded in realities of the revolutionaries’ own time period.[6] Even the glorification is criticized by Marx, who believed that the new social revolution could not ‘draw its poetry from the past’ at all.[7] Thus, similarly to Herzen, Marx saw the French Revolution as an ideological failure of the revolutionaries to be guided by a zeitgeist of their time.

Marx also blames the bourgeoisie for being ultimately unwilling to support the demands of the proletariat for political power. After the June Days of 1848, any demand from the proletariat for the ‘simplest bourgeois financial reform… was simultaneously castigated as an attempt on society’.[8] Marx also described a similar situation in the German states, as the March Revolution of 1848 failed due to treachery on the part of the bourgeoisie, who ‘took possession of state authority’ and used this power to ‘drive the workers’ back into their former oppressed position’.[9] This marks a turning point as Marx criticized the petty bourgeoisie and called for an ‘independently organized party of the proletariat’ in order to accelerate their own victory under the rhetoric of ‘The Permanent Revolution’.[10]

One must further note that Marx understood the revolutions as part of the proletariat's ‘protracted revolutionary development’.[11] Whilst personally admitting the proletariat's current ‘weaknesses’ and ‘inadequacies’, Marx set out a developmental model for the proletariat to follow.[12] Marx stated that the ‘real fruit of the battle lies not in the immediate result, but in the ever-expanding union of the workers’ – this would inevitably lead to a realization of their class interest and the creation of a socialist utopia.[13] In this regard, the 1848 revolutions were successful in the case of propaganda as the ideologies started to become ever more entrenched within society. Though not immediately achieving their goals, it must be noted that within a quarter century, the victors had put into place many of the reforms that the vanquished had fought for; civil liberties, parliamentary government, and national unification.[14] Differing from Herzen, Marx further placed the failure of the 1848 Revolutions down to the working class not being strong enough to overthrow the current orders but kept the belief that it would eventually succeed in its aspirations. Perhaps the most important lesson Marx seems to draw is that workers cannot imitate the past.

In stark contrast, after the June Days in France, Herzen became disillusioned with the revolutions of 1848, believing that it was only ‘the prelude’ for worse years to come.[15] Herzen believed that the new centralized bourgeoisie republic was doomed to fall, either back into the hands of the ‘old world’ of social inequality or secondly, a popular uprising, more violent than June, would destroy the existing order and establish a dictatorship of the people, depicted as socialism degenerating into an ’autocratic Communism’.[16] As a result, Herzen was convinced that Europe was too far gone to do anything more than ‘die’.[17] Thus, he places the revolutions of 1848 as a significant failure due to past burdens and enserfment of the lower classes to the principle of authority, which led to a gloomy outlook towards the future of European civilization.

The reason for pessimism on the part of Herzen and some optimism on the part of Marx comes down to their variations on socialism. Marx’s theory places socialism on an inevitable path to an ideal socialist state, with the proletariat acting as the agent of change. Herzen, believing this theory as limiting, instead envisioned the future as the offspring of ‘passion, will, improvisation’, believing that individuals could improve conditions by accepting the reality of contingencies of life and seizing on opportunities to improve things.[18] Thus, Herzen’s bleak portrayal of the future and view on the failure of the 1848 revolutions can be understood, due to the ideological failure of individuals to capitalise on the great opportunity for change. In stark contrast, whilst disappointed with the immediate outcome, Marx optimistically depicts the 1848 revolutions as a step towards the end goal of a socialist utopia.

Bibliography

Primary Sources

Herzen, Alexander, ‘Epilogue 1849’, From the Other Shore, 1851

Herzen, Alexander, The Bell, 1865

Marx, Karl, ‘Address of the Central Committee to the Communist League’, The Revolutions of 1848, London, March 1850

Marx, Karl, ‘The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte’, Source Book, 1852

Marx, Karl, ‘Manifesto of the Communist Party’, The Revolutions of 1848, London, 1848

Secondary Sources

Hutton, Patrick H., ‘The Role of Memory in the Historiography of the French Revolution’, History and Theory, Vol.30, No. 1, (Feb. 1991), pp.56-69

Kelly, Aileen M. The Discovery of Change: The Life and Thought of Alexander Herzen, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 2016

Malia, Martin, The Revolution of 1848, Alexander Herzen and the birth of Russian socialism, 1812-1855, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1961

Stoppard, Tom, The Forgotten Revolutionary, The Observer, June 2002

Zimmerman, Judith E, Midpassage: Alexander Herzen and European Revolution, 1847-1852, Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1989

[1]Alexander Herzen, ‘Epilogue 1849’, From the Other Shore, 1851, pp.145 [2] Herzen, ‘Epilogue 1849’, pp.146 [3] Ibid [4] Karl Marx, ‘The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte’, Source Book, 1852 [5] Ibid [6] Ibid [7] Ibid [8] Ibid [9]Karl Marx, ‘Address of the Central Committee to the Communist League’, The Revolutions of 1848, London, March 1850 [10]Ibid [11] Ibid [12] Marx, ‘The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte’, SB, 1852 [13] Karl Marx, ‘Manifesto of the Communist Party’, The Revolutions of 1848, London, 1848 [14] Judith E Zimmerman, Midpassage: Alexander Herzen and European Revolution, 1847-1852, Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1989, pp.221 [15] Herzen, ‘Epilogue 1849’, pp.143 [16] Alexander Herzen, The Bell, 1865 [17]Alexander Herzen in Martin Malia, The Revolution of 1848, Alexander Herzen and the birth of Russian socialism, 1812-1855, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1961, pp.374 [18] Isaiah Berlin, Alexander Herzen, and the Pursuit of the Ideal, 1979