3 Streams leading to Marxism French Revolution –Abrupt, total revolution –Success of Bourgeoisie British Industrial Revolution –Position of labor –condition.

3 Streams leading to Marxism

• French Revolution– Abrupt, total revolution– Success of Bourgeoisie

• British Industrial Revolution– Position of labor– “condition of Working Class” Engels

• German Philosophy of Hegel

Philosophy of Hegel

• Dialectics– Thesis vs. Antithesis=synthesis

• Historic change comes through the clash of antagonistic elements.

• History is a process of development through time, logical and deterministic, everything happens in sequence by cause.

• Hegel saw primacy of ideas that cause change, Marx focused on economic reality.

Marxian view of Historical Development

• Material conditions give rise to economic classes.

• Each class develops ideology suited to its needs.– Prevailing religion, government, law, morals

reflect the outlook of these classes

Class antagonism

• Agrarian Conditions produce landholding class

• Changes in trade routes, money, productive techniques, leads to rise of Bourgeoisie

• Eventually Bourgeoisie and landholding class clash– England 1642– France 1789

Development of Proletariat

• As the Bourgeoisie develops there is a corresponding development in the proletariat.

• According to Marx the Bourg. Is defined as those who own capital

• Proletariat does not own capital• Under competitive conditions the Bourg. Devour

themselves• The Proletariat then overthrows the Bourg. In a

revolution.

Results of Proletariat revolution

• Abolish private property/private ownership of capital

• Classless society results

• State withers

• Religion disappears

Marxist ideas

• Labor theory of value– Value of any man-made object depended on the

amount of labor put into it. Capital is the stored up labor of past times.

• Surplus value theory– The worker is paid less than the value of his labor

(e.g. product sells for $10 and the total worker wage is $3, according to Marx the worker has had $7 stolen from him)

– Capital therefore is accumulated surplus value that the prevailing system (gov’t, religion, law, education, etc.) has allowed the owner to steal from the worker.

Marxist ideas, cont.

• Workers must remain angry.• Union gains of higher wages were just more

crumbs from the owners table. Even if the worker is paid $5 (referring to the previous example) he is still being robbed of $5.– No Unions, No gov’t legislation (could the worker

make real gains through a gov’t committed to protecting the ruling classes interests?)

Ideas from Communist Manifesto

• The worker is deprived of the wealth he himself has created

• The state is a committee of the bourgeoisie for the exploitation of the worker

• Religion is a drug to keep the workingman quietly dreaming of his heavenly reward. “Opiate of the Masses”

• The working family has been prostituted and brutalized by the bourgeoisie

• The proletariat have no country

Revolution in France 1848

• “the July monarchy in France was a platform of boards built over a volcano. Under it burned the repressed fires of republicanism put down in 1830, which since 1830 had become steadily more socialistic”

• Radicals wanted universal suffrage and a republic, but liberals asked only for broader voting rights within the existing constitutional Monarchy

• Louis Phillipe and his Prime Minister refused any change. Stupid move. What should they have done?

February revolution in France 1848

• Banquet in Paris planned for Feb. 22• On February 21 the gov’t forbade such

meetings-that night barricades went up throughout the city

• Gov’t called the national guard-refused to move-King now promised electoral reform-too late.

• Demonstration at Guizot’s house-20 killed• February 24 Louis Phillipe abdicates to…

England• That leaves us with the liberal reformers and

the radical republicans-now it gets interesting.

Creation of provisional government

• Const. Reformers hoped to carry on with the son of Louis Phillipe

• Republicans stormed the Chamber of Deputies and proclaimed a republic-no whiff of grapeshot this time.

• Provisional government:– 7 political republicans-Lamartine– 3 social republicans- Louis Blanc

• Blanc was interested in creating social workshops• Instead he got national workshops• By June there were 200,000 idle men in a city of 1 million

Election of Constituent Assembly

• Elected in April 1848 by Universal Male suffrage across all of France

• Immediately replaced provisional gov’t with temporary executive board of its own

• This new exec board contained NO socialists

“June Days” of 1848• One side: nationally elected

constituent assembly • Other side: National workshops• NW unsuccessfully attacked the CA• CA declared martial law giving all

power to General Cavaignac (the butcher)

• The bloody June days followed June 24-26

• Class war raged in Paris-CA won

Louis Napoleon Bonaparte

• After the June Days the CA sought to create a republican constitution and elect a new President

• Louis Napoleon Bonaparte won in a landslide.– Defeated Lamartine, Blanc, Cavignac

Revolution in Austria 1848

• Began in Hungary • Louis Kossuth-Demanded national autonomy

from Austrian Empire, full civil liberties and universal male suffrage

• Austrian gov’t hesitated• Viennese students and workers took to streets-

added own demands• Aust. Emp. Ferdinand I gave in-promised

reforms and a liberal constitution• Metternich fled to London

Weaknesses in Austrian revolutionary coalition

• Peasants, who made up most of the army, were satisfied by the Gov’ts aboliton of serfdom

• Hungarian revolutionaries wanted to unify the diverse groups in Hungary-opposed by minority groups-croats, serbs, rumanians-soon were locked in armed combat with the new Hungarian government

• Middle class wanted liberal reform• Urban poor rose in arms-wanted socialist

workshops, universal voting rights• MC and UP soon were opposing eachother

Reassertion of Conservative forces

• Ferdinand I abdicates in his place his nephew Francis Joseph

• Windishgratz-smashed Czechoslovakia• Austria defeats revolutionaries in Italy• Army (peasants) attacked student

workers in Vienna• Hungary brought back after Russia went

in with 130,000 troops• The attempts to liberalize and break up

the Austrian empire were unsuccessful.

Revolution in Prussia 1848• Prussia’s middle class wanted a liberal

constitutional monarchy that would unite Germany into a united and liberal German nation.

• Prussian middle class pushed demands after the French rev of 1848

• Demands not granted• Workers in Berlin exploded• Frederick William IV gave in to demands• FWIV promised Prussia liberal const. +

merge into German state• Workers wanted more

Prussian workers demands

• March 26 workers issued a series of radical demands: universal voting rights, minimum wage, 10 hour day

• The Prussian middle class could not go along with it

• While the tensions in Prussia escalated , an elected body met in Berlin to write a constitution for a Prussian State

Frankfurt Assembly• Self appointed from various German

States successfully called for a national constituent assembly to begin writing a Const. For a unified German State

• Denmark distraction: Schleswig/Holstein• March 1849, Frankfurt assembly finally

offered throne to FWIV• By early 1849 reaction had been

successful in Prussia• FWIV refused the Frankfurt assemblies

“crown from the gutter”