Title | Revolutionary essays |
Series Title | International socialist library, 15 |
Creator (LCNAF) |
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Publisher | British Socialist Party |
Place of Creation (TGN) |
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Date | 1920 |
Subject.Topical (LCSH) |
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Subject.Geographic (TGN) |
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Genre (AAT) |
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Language | English |
Type (DCMI) |
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Original Item Extent | 46 pages; 18 cm. |
Original Item Location | HX256.K84 |
Original Item URL | http://library.uh.edu/record=b8304436~S11 |
Original Collection | Socialist and Communist Pamphlets |
Digital Collection | Socialist and Communist Pamphlets |
Digital Collection URL | http://digital.lib.uh.edu/collection/scpamp |
Repository | Special Collections, University of Houston Libraries |
Repository URL | http://libraries.uh.edu/branches/special-collections |
Use and Reproduction | This item is in the public domain and may be used freely. |
File Name | index.cpd |
Title | Image 15 |
Format (IMT) |
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File Name | uhlib_1028723_014.jpg |
Transcript | I. After the revolution alike in Marx's philosophical world- concept and in his views on the material conditions of social production, he shook himself free of the last vestiges of Liberalism. "The Poverty of Philosophy," from the economic aspect, and "The Communist Manifesto," from the political aspect herald the final liberation of Socialism from the last lower middle-class swaddling clothes. The founders of scientific Socialism had not had as yet the experience of a revolution, but by the path of theoretical analysis they had even then succeeded in establishing the fact that, in the progress of the revolutionary movement, the lower middle-class can display itself only as a reactionary and Utopian factor. This lower middle-class—as "The Communist Manifesto" proclaims—"stands half-way between the proletariat and the capitalist class. Being a necessary complement of capitalist society, this class is constantly being reborn." Composed of extremely mixed elements of the pre-capitalist epoch—the so- called "toiling intelligentsia," the lackeys of the capitalist class—this class was to be found, in France, ini Switzerland, and to a certain extent in Germany, at the advanced posts of the revolution] of 1848. According to "The Communist Manifesto," the Communists were to support the various party groupings of these elements, while the latter were in opposition, understanding clearly, however, that if the representatives of the lower middle-class were really revolutionary in sentiment, it was orily when faced with their immediate descent into the ranks of the proletariat. These hopes of the lower middle-class, little sanguine though they were, nevertheless were completely shattered : the revolution of 1848 clearly revealed the political bankruptcy of the revolutionary section of the bourgeoisie. That revolution laid bare not only their weakness, but also how dangerous they were to the work of the revolution. During the French revolution of that year, the proletariat was crushed, not by the capitalists, but by this very lower middle- class. "The small shopkeeper," wrote Marx in "The Class Struggle in France," "rose up and moved against the barricades, in order to restore the movement from the street into (13) HHHBSHB ■Ml |