National Democratic Revolution, Part 1c
Permanent Revolution
Karl Marx’s March 1850
Address to the Central Committee of the Communist League (attached) begins by
describing the working proletariat as the “only decisively revolutionary
class”, and ends with a battle-cry for the workers: “The Permanent Revolution!”
In this Address, Marx is
advocating all possible means of achieving a revolutionary change which, if not
theoretically irreversible, would not in practice be reversed – i.e. a
“permanent revolution”.
“The workers' party must go into battle with the
maximum degree of organization, unity and independence, so that it is not
exploited and taken in tow by the bourgeoisie,” said Marx, rehearsing the events of the previous two
years when the bourgeois allies of the working class had treacherously sold the
workers out as soon as they could secure favourable terms for themselves in the
revolution against the reactionary feudal powers.
Marx then very frankly
reviews the competing self-interests of the contending classes and fractions of
the bourgeoisie.
“There is no
doubt that during the further course of the revolution in Germany, the
petty-bourgeois democrats will for the moment acquire a predominant influence.
The question is, therefore, what is to be the attitude of the proletariat, and
in particular of the League towards them,” declared Marx.
“As in the
past, so in the coming struggle also, the petty bourgeoisie, to a man, will
hesitate as long as possible and remain fearful, irresolute and inactive; but
when victory is certain it will claim it for itself and will call upon the
workers to behave in an orderly fashion, to return to work and to prevent so-called
excesses, and it will exclude the proletariat from the fruits of victory,” warned Marx.
The working class must “be independently organized and centralized
in clubs,” and “it is the task of the
genuinely revolutionary party… to carry through the strictest centralization.”
Reading this section, it is clear that Marx was convinced that the building of
the democratic republic and the building of the nation had to be one and the
same set of actions.
The working-class tactics in
alliance with the bourgeois democrats should be to “force the democrats to make inroads into as many areas of the existing
social order as possible,” and constantly to “drive the proposals of the democrats to their logical extreme”.
The workers must always look
ahead to the next act of the revolutionary drama. They will “contribute most to their final victory by
informing themselves of their own class interests, by taking up their
independent political position as soon as possible, and by not allowing
themselves to be misled by the hypocritical phrases of the democratic petty
bourgeoisie into doubting for one minute the necessity of an independently
organized party of the proletariat.”
·
The above is to
introduce the original reading-text: Address
to the Central Committee of the Communist League, Karl Marx, 1850.
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