CHAPTER IV
THE POLITICAL AWAKENING OF SOCIALISM—THE INTERNATIONAL[ToC]
With 1848 vanished, more or less rapidly, the revolutions of the old school. "The street fight and barricade, which up to 1848 was decisive, now grew antiquated," says Engels.[1] A new species of plotting and propaganda began. The exiled agitators and revolutionists met, naturally, in their cities of refuge for the discussion of their common grievances. They complained that "the proletarian has no fatherland," and internationalism became their patriotism.
In Paris a few of the ostracized Socialists, in 1836, founded "The League of the Just," a communistic secret society.[2] The group were compelled to leave Paris because they were implicated in a riot, and when some of them met in London they invited other refugees to join them. Among them was Marx, and his presence soon bore fruit. Their motto, "All men are brethren," was singularly paradoxical when contrasted with their methods of sinister conspiracy. Marx, with his superior intellect, at once began to reshape their ideas, a reorganization was effected called "The Communist League," and Marx and Engels were delegated to write a statement of principles for the League. That statement, written in 1847, they called "The Communist Manifesto."
The "Manifesto" is the most influential of all Socialist documents. It is at once a firebrand and a formulary. Its formulæ are the well-known Marxian principles; its energy is the youthful vigor and zeal of ardent revolutionists. Nearly all the generalizations of Capital are found in the "Manifesto." This is important, for it gave the sanction of a social theory to the Socialist movement. Hitherto there had been only utopian generalizations and keen denunciations of the existing order. It was of the greatest importance that early in the development of the movement it was given an economic theory expressed in such lucid terms, with the gusto of youth, and in the terminology of science, that it remains to-day the best synopsis of Marx's "Scientific Socialism."
As a piece of campaign literature it is unexcelled. Combined with its clearness of statement, its economic reasoning, its terrific arraignment of modern industrial society, there is a lofty zeal and power that placed it in the front rank of propagandist literature.
Engels, the surviving partner of the Marxian movement, wrote in the preface of the edition of 1888:
"The 'Manifesto' being our joint production, I consider myself bound to say that the fundamental proposition which forms its nucleus belongs to Marx." That proposition embraced the materialistic theory of social evolution, that "the whole history of mankind has been a history of class struggles ... in which nowadays a stage has been reached where the exploited and oppressed classes—the proletariat—cannot attain their emancipation from the sway of the exploiting and ruling classes—the bourgeoisie—without at the same time and once for all emancipating society at large from all exploitation, oppression, class distinctions, and class struggles."
This liberation was, of course, to be accomplished by revolution. The "Manifesto" closes with these spirited and oft-quoted words: